XMonad.Layout.IndependentScreens

Utility functions for simulating independent sets of workspaces on each screen (like dwm's workspace model), using internal tags to distinguish workspaces associated with each screen.

Usage

You can use this module with the following in your xmonad.hs:

import XMonad.Layout.IndependentScreens

You can define your workspaces by calling withScreens:

myConfig = def { workspaces = withScreens 2 ["web", "email", "irc"] }

This will create "physical" workspaces with distinct internal names for each (screen, virtual workspace) pair.

Then edit any keybindings that use the list of workspaces or refer to specific workspace names. In the default configuration, only the keybindings for changing workspace do this:

keyBindings conf = let modm = modMask conf in fromList $
    {- lots of other keybindings -}
    [((m .|. modm, k), windows $ f i)
        | (i, k) <- zip (XMonad.workspaces conf) [xK_1 .. xK_9]
        , (f, m) <- [(W.greedyView, 0), (W.shift, shiftMask)]]

This should change to

keyBindings conf = let modm = modMask conf in fromList $
    {- lots of other keybindings -}
    [((m .|. modm, k), windows $ onCurrentScreen f i)
        | (i, k) <- zip (workspaces' conf) [xK_1 .. xK_9]
        , (f, m) <- [(W.greedyView, 0), (W.shift, shiftMask)]]

In particular, the analogue of XMonad.workspaces is workspaces', and you can use onCurrentScreen to convert functions of virtual workspaces to functions of physical workspaces, which work by marshalling the virtual workspace name and the currently focused screen into a physical workspace name.

A complete example abusing many of the functions below is available in the XMonad.Config.Dmwit configuration.

type VirtualWorkspace = WorkspaceId

type PhysicalWorkspace = WorkspaceId

type VirtualWindowSpace = WindowSpace

A WindowSpace whose tags are VirtualWorkspaces.

type PhysicalWindowSpace = WindowSpace

A WindowSpace whose tags are PhysicalWorkspaces.

workspaces' :: forall (l :: Type -> Type). XConfig l -> [VirtualWorkspace]

Get a list of all the virtual workspace names.

withScreen

Arguments

:: ScreenId

The screen to make workspaces for

-> [VirtualWorkspace]

The desired virtual workspace names

-> [PhysicalWorkspace]

A list of all internal physical workspace names

Specify workspace names for each screen

withScreens

Arguments

:: ScreenId

The number of screens to make workspaces for

-> [VirtualWorkspace]

The desired virtual workspace names

-> [PhysicalWorkspace]

A list of all internal physical workspace names

Make all workspaces across the monitors bear the same names

onCurrentScreen :: (PhysicalWorkspace -> WindowSet -> a) -> VirtualWorkspace -> WindowSet -> a

Transform a function over physical workspaces into a function over virtual workspaces. This is useful as it allows you to write code without caring about the current screen, i.e. to say "switch to workspace 3" rather than saying "switch to workspace 3 on monitor 3".

marshallPP :: ScreenId -> PP -> PP

This turns a pretty-printer into one that is aware of the independent screens. The converted pretty-printer first filters out physical workspaces on other screens, then converts all the physical workspaces on this screen to their virtual names. Note that ppSort still operates on physical (marshalled) workspace names, otherwise functions from XMonad.Util.WorkspaceCompare wouldn't work. If you need to sort on virtual names, see marshallSort.

For example, if you have have two bars on the left and right screens, respectively, and pp is a pretty-printer, you could apply marshallPP when creating a StatusBarConfig from XMonad.Hooks.StatusBar.

A sample config looks like this:

mySBL = statusBarProp "xmobar" $ pure (marshallPP (S 0) pp)
mySBR = statusBarProp "xmobar" $ pure (marshallPP (S 1) pp)
main = xmonad $ withEasySB (mySBL <> mySBR) defToggleStrutsKey def

whenCurrentOn :: ScreenId -> PP -> PP

Take a pretty-printer and turn it into one that only runs when the current workspace is one associated with the given screen. The way this works is a bit hacky, so beware: the ppOutput field of the input will not be invoked if either of the following conditions is met:

1. The ppSort of the input returns an empty list (when not given one).
2. The ppOrder of the input returns the exact string "\0".

For example, you can use this to create a pipe which tracks the title of the window currently focused on a given screen (even if the screen is not current) by doing something like this:

ppFocus s = whenCurrentOn s def
    { ppOrder  = \(_:_:title:_) -> [title]
    , ppOutput = appendFile ("focus" ++ show s) . (++ "\n")
    }

Sequence a few of these pretty-printers to get a log hook that keeps each screen's title up-to-date.

countScreens :: (MonadIO m, Integral i) => m i

In case you don't know statically how many screens there will be, you can call this in main before starting xmonad. For example, part of my config reads

main = do
  nScreens <- countScreens
  xmonad $ def {
    ...
    workspaces = withScreens nScreens (workspaces def),
    ...
    }

workspacesOn :: ScreenId -> [PhysicalWindowSpace] -> [PhysicalWindowSpace]

Filter workspaces that are on a given screen.

workspaceOnScreen :: ScreenId -> WindowSet -> Maybe PhysicalWorkspace

Get the workspace currently active on a given screen

focusWindow' :: Window -> WindowSet -> WindowSet

Focus a window, switching workspace on the correct Xinerama screen if neccessary.

focusScreen :: ScreenId -> WindowSet -> WindowSet

Focus a given screen.

nthWorkspace :: Int -> X (Maybe VirtualWorkspace)

Get the nth virtual workspace

withWspOnScreen

Arguments

:: ScreenId

The screen to run on

-> (PhysicalWorkspace -> WindowSet -> WindowSet)

The transformation that will be passed the workspace currently active on there

-> WindowSet

-> WindowSet

Generate WindowSet transformation by providing a given function with the workspace active on a given screen. This may for example be used to shift a window to another screen as follows:

windows $ withWspOnScreen 1 W.shift

Converting between virtual and physical workspaces

You shouldn't need to use the functions below very much. They are used internally. However, in some cases, they may be useful, and so are exported just in case. In general, the "marshall" functions convert the convenient form (like "web") you would like to use in your configuration file to the inconvenient form (like "2_web") that xmonad uses internally. Similarly, the "unmarshall" functions convert in the other direction.

marshall :: ScreenId -> VirtualWorkspace -> PhysicalWorkspace

unmarshall :: PhysicalWorkspace -> (ScreenId, VirtualWorkspace)

unmarshallS :: PhysicalWorkspace -> ScreenId

unmarshallW :: PhysicalWorkspace -> VirtualWorkspace

marshallWindowSpace :: ScreenId -> WindowSpace -> WindowSpace

Convert the tag of the WindowSpace from a VirtualWorkspace to a PhysicalWorkspace.

unmarshallWindowSpace :: WindowSpace -> WindowSpace

Convert the tag of the WindowSpace from a PhysicalWorkspace to a VirtualWorkspace.

marshallSort :: ScreenId -> ([VirtualWindowSpace] -> [VirtualWindowSpace]) -> [PhysicalWindowSpace] -> [PhysicalWindowSpace]

vSort is a function that sorts VirtualWindowSpaces with virtual names. marshallSort s vSort is a function which sorts PhysicalWindowSpaces with virtual names, but keeps only the WindowSpace's on screen s.

NOTE: vSort operating on virtual names comes with some caveats, see this issue for more information. You can use marshallSort like in the following example:

Example

pp' :: ScreenId -> PP -> PP
pp' s pp = (marshallPP s pp) { ppSort = fmap (marshallSort s) (ppSort pp) }

mySBL = statusBarProp "xmobar" $ pure (pp' (S 0) pp)
mySBR = statusBarProp "xmobar" $ pure (pp' (S 1) pp)
main = xmonad $ withEasySB (mySBL <> mySBR) defToggleStrutsKey def

In this way, you have a custom virtual names sort on top of marshallPP.