[xmonad] Using sakura with xmonad

[Adam Sjøgren]

Hi.

I recently changed from using xterm to sakura:

* https://code.launchpad.net/sakura

(primarily because the fonts in xterm look bad when scaled x1.5, and I
have to do that on my stationary monitor...)

The sakura windows automatically get a thin transparent border with
XMonad, through which my desktop background image shows.

I would like for this to not happen - as it is distracting.

You can see the unwanted effect here:

* Loading Image...

compared to what it looks like with xterm:

* Loading Image...

I have tried searching the sakura code and changing random things
related to border, rgba, and transparent, but my wild guesses have not
been fruitful.

Does anyone have any good ideas?

I am using running compton (I like the pretty, transparent
notifications), in case that matters.

OH! I just tried killing compton, and that removed the problem! I guess
I should bark up another, uhm, mailing list?

Hm, I found this: https://github.com/chjj/compton/issues/139 which is
the same problem with another wm, compton, and sakura, and it seems the
wm was fixed - so maybe I am in the right place after all?

There are some hints here: https://github.com/chjj/compton/issues/240
about what might be the same issue in xmonad.

Best regards,

Adam

[Brandon Allbery]

Post by Adam Sjøgren
The sakura windows automatically get a thin transparent border with
XMonad, through which my desktop background image shows.

https://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=581

[Adam Sjøgren]

Post by Brandon Allbery

Post by Adam Sjøgren
The sakura windows automatically get a thin transparent border with
XMonad, through which my desktop background image shows.

https://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=581

So I tried looking into this, being a newbie at Haskell and X11
programming.

What it looks like to me, from the C-code needed in dwm in the issue
above, is to try and look up the normal border color and the focused
border color in the colormap of the window, instead of using the values
found in the default color map.

Ok, so how to do this? It looks like I can just change the two lines in
the windows function in Operations.hs that set the border:

whenJust (W.peek old) $ \otherw -> io $ setWindowBorder d otherw nbc

[...]

whenJust (W.peek ws) $ \w -> io $ setWindowBorder d w fbc

Now, nbc and fbc are Pixels that are looked up in the default color map
once, so they need to be replaced with Pixels looked up in the color map
of the window (otherw or w).

Good, so looking at the C-code, the color map of the window is found by
asking the window's attributes, and grabbing it from there, and
allocNamedColor then can be called with that color map and the name of
the color, getting back an XColor, from which a pixel can be extracted.

But, hm, when I look at getWindowAttributes:

* http://hackage.haskell.org/package/X11-1.4.0/docs/Graphics-X11-Xlib-Extras.html#v%3AgetWindowAttributes

it returns IO WindowAttributes, but they do not include a color map
entry:

* http://hackage.haskell.org/package/X11-1.4.0/docs/Graphics-X11-Xlib-Extras.html#t%3AWindowAttributes

Hm. So, this is where I got to.

Any tips?


Best regards,

Adam

[Adam Sjøgren]

Post by Adam Sjøgren
* http://hackage.haskell.org/package/X11-1.4.0/docs/Graphics-X11-Xlib-Extras.html#v%3AgetWindowAttributes
it returns IO WindowAttributes, but they do not include a color map
* http://hackage.haskell.org/package/X11-1.4.0/docs/Graphics-X11-Xlib-Extras.html#t%3AWindowAttributes

I have tried to make a pull request for adding this field now:

* https://github.com/xmonad/X11/pull/35

Not quite sure it is correct, as I am just mimicking the existing code...


Best regards,

Adam

[Adam Sjøgren]

Post by Adam Sjøgren

Post by Adam Sjøgren
it returns IO WindowAttributes, but they do not include a color map

[...]

Post by Adam Sjøgren
* https://github.com/xmonad/X11/pull/35

It turns out that to make use of the new wa_colormap field, I need to
change getWindowAttributes to throw an exception if
XGetWindowAttributes() fails. So:

* https://github.com/asjo/X11/commit/e5421307a02ea0cadcb381d282615d56a0e848c0

Then, to make xmonad-contrib compile, XMonad/Util/DebugWindow.hs needs
adjusting:

* https://github.com/asjo/xmonad-contrib/commit/e775872ac34c81e070e530a89f591e08bd2b7c8a

And finally, I can change XMonad/Operations.hs to grab the color from
the window's color map if available (it isn't when closing a window, so
it is important to check the return value of XGetWindowAttributes() to
avoid a crash - I had fun logging myself out when closing a window for a
while!):

* https://github.com/asjo/xmonad/commit/e7d0e004d0a1acfd1ff149eaabf274fe2519c4fc

... mimicking the change done to dwm¹.

From testing it a couple of minutes, it works on my machine - the
transparent borders are gone from my Sakura windows, and the solid
colour I configured in XMonad is used instead.

Note thet especially the changes to XMonad/Operations.hs are in "try and
try pounding at it again until it works"-style code, and any tips on how
to write it better will be much appreciated.


Best regards,

Adam


¹ https://github.com/chjj/compton/issues/240#issuecomment-62245919

[Peter Jones]

Post by Adam Sjøgren
* https://code.launchpad.net/sakura
(primarily because the fonts in xterm look bad when scaled x1.5, and I
have to do that on my stationary monitor...)

FWIW I tried out a bunch of terminal emulators last year and ended back
on urxvt. Using xft fonts and the following plugin, font scaling works
great:

https://github.com/majutsushi/urxvt-font-size