Trying out StumpWM

Updated 2008-08-16: Newer and complete ~/.stumpwmrc

StumpWM is a tiling window manager written in Common Lisp with access to an interactive console.

I've been meaning to try it out for some time. Download and install according to the documentation. I use SBCL-1.0.18. bzexe/gzexe helps getting down the binary size (stumpwm is an executable SBCL image dump). If you, like me, use Ubuntu, you'll want to add this to your ~/.gnomerc:

export WINDOW_MANAGER=$HOME/local/bin/stumpwm

replacing the path with wherever you've installed it. This will give you gnome-panel and default theme settings (such as fonts), but with stumpwm instead of metacity.

Full ~/.stumpwmrc:

;; vim:filetype=lisp
;;
;; .stumpwmrc for mail@mikael.jansson.be

(in-package :stumpwm)

;; change the prefix key to something else
(set-prefix-key (kbd "F20")) ; F20 = Hyper here

;; prompt the user for an interactive command. The first arg is an
;; optional initial contents.
(defcommand colon1 (&optional (initial "")) (:rest)
  (let ((cmd (read-one-line (current-screen) ": " initial)))
    (when cmd
      (eval-command cmd t))))

(defcommand pull-window-from-list (&optional (fmt *window-format*)) (:rest)
"Allow the user to Select a window from the list of windows and pull
the selected window into the current frame. For information of menu bindings
@xref{Menus}. The optional argument @var{fmt} can be specified to
override the default window formatting."
  (if (null (group-windows (current-group)))
      (message "No Managed Windows")
      (let* ((group (current-group))
             (window (second (select-from-menu
                              (current-screen)
                              (mapcar (lambda (w)
                                        (list (format-expand *window-formatters* fmt w) w))
                                      (sort-windows group))))))

        (if window
            (pull-window window)
            (throw 'error :abort)))))

(defcommand paste-x-selection () (:rest)
  "Universal rat-less X paste."
  (let ((cmd (concatenate 'string "insert " (get-x-selection))))
     (eval-command cmd)))

(define-key *top-map* (kbd "M-TAB") "fother")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-ESC") "exec xfce4-terminal")

;; meta-hjkl
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "M-k") "move-focus up")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "M-j") "move-focus down")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "M-l") "move-focus right")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "M-h") "move-focus left")
;; control-meta-hjkl
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "C-M-k") "move-window up")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "C-M-j") "move-window down")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "C-M-l") "move-window right")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "C-M-h") "move-window left")

;; (shift-)meta-space
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "S-M-SPC") "prev-in-frame")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "M-SPC") "next-in-frame")

(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-1") "gselect 1")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-2") "gselect 2")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-1") "gselect 1")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-2") "gselect 2")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-3") "gselect 3")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-4") "gselect 4")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-5") "gselect 5")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-6") "gselect 6")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-7") "gselect 7")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-8") "gselect 8")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-9") "gselect 9")

;; Jump to the previous group ("workspace")
(define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-^") "gother")

(defvar *query-map* nil
  "The keymap with net queries (e.g. IMDB)")

(setf *query-map*
  (let ((m (make-sparse-keymap)))
     (define-key m (kbd "i") "imdb")
     (define-key m (kbd "g") "google")
     (define-key m (kbd "w") "wikipedia")
     m))

(defmacro make-web-jump (name url-prefix)
  `(defcommand ,name (search) ((:rest ,(string-capitalize (string-downcase (concatenate 'string (symbol-name name) ": ")))))
     (run-shell-command (format nil "opera -remote 'openURL(~A=~A)'"
                             ,url-prefix (substitute #\+ #\Space search)))))

(make-web-jump imdb "http://www.imdb.com/find?q")
(make-web-jump google "http://www.google.com/search?q")
(make-web-jump wikipedia "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search&search")

(setf *root-map*
  (let ((m (stumpwm:make-sparse-keymap)))
    (define-key m (kbd "g") '*groups-map*)
    (define-key m (kbd "G") "vgroups")

    ; (define-key m (kbd "C-g") "abort")
    (define-key m (kbd "C-h") "help")
    ;; XXX: doesn't work yet if typed with altgr-å...
    (define-key m (kbd "?") "help")
    (define-key m (kbd ";") "eval")
    (define-key m (kbd ",") "colon")

    (define-key m (kbd "#") "mark")

    ;; delete pushes the X button of a window, kill is like /bin/kill
    (define-key m (kbd "C-w") "delete")
    (define-key m (kbd "C-q") "kill")

    ; (define-key m (kbd "h") "banish") ; hide the mouse

    (define-key m (kbd "w") "windowlist")
    (define-key m (kbd "W") "pull-window-from-list")

    ;; stuff contents of X11 selection into current window
    (define-key m (kbd "p") "paste-x-selection")

    ;; works like screen, and quoteright is the regular quote mark (')
    (define-key m (kbd "t") "title")
    (define-key m (kbd "quoteright") "select")
    (define-key m (kbd "f") "only") ; sort-of like fullscreen
    (define-key m (kbd "F11") "fullscreen") ; for apps that otherwise refuse to go fullscreen, e.g. vlc

    (define-key m (kbd "d") "remove") ; delete current frame

    (define-key m (kbd "r") "iresize")
    ;; Reverse of the default: s to make a vertical stripe, S to cut in half
    (define-key m (kbd "s") "hsplit")
    (define-key m (kbd "S") "vsplit")

    ;; Run
    (define-key m (kbd "!") "exec ")
    ;; Open
    (define-key m (kbd "o") "colon1 exec gnome-open ")
    ;; Browse
    (define-key m (kbd "b") "colon1 exec opera http://www.")
    ;; Connect
    (define-key m (kbd "c") "colon1 exec xfce4-terminal -x ssh -l ")
    ;; Edit
    (define-key m (kbd "e") "colon1 exec gvim ")

    ;; web queries
    (define-key m (kbd "q") '*query-map*)
    m))

;; Message window font ("The Bar")
(set-font "-microsoft-comic sans ms-medium-*-*-*-17-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-15")
(set-bg-color "Yellow")
(set-fg-color "Black")
(set-border-color "Red")
(set-msg-border-width 5)

(setf *message-window-padding* 20)

(setf *maxsize-border-width* 3)
(setf *normal-border-width* 3)
(setf *window-border-style* :thick)
(setf *transient-border-width* 5) ; popups
(setf *mouse-focus-policy* :sloppy)
(set-focus-color "Blue")

The gother mapping is taken directly from BeOS. For metacity, you can use my workspace_switcher script (start the Python app in the background, map the shell script to a key combo) at https://svn.jansson.be/public/workspace_switcher/.

I haven't toyed with frame/window placement rules yet. Looks promising, though. The documentation has a list of commands, which you can try out interactively by <prefix> ;. A useful command is loadrc (reloads ~/.stumpwmrc.) There's an issue with AltGr (Mode_switch according to xev) and the interactive console, so if you are on a Swedish keyboard and would like to type in @ in e.g. the ssh command you'll have to fix StumpWM or nag the helpful people in #stumpwm until they fix the issue.

Enjoy!