wmjsdeprecated

[WIP] Tiling X window manager in Node

Usage no npm install needed!

<script type="module">
  import wmjs from 'https://cdn.skypack.dev/wmjs';
</script>

README

wmjs

logo

[WIP] only use this if you are very brave and don't need to get anything done.

Tiling X window manager in Node.

screenshot

Known Issues

Lots.

What Works

  • Tiling, mostly, but the code is janky
  • Opening and closing windows
  • Launching programs, if you have dmenu or some other launcher (see config)

Installation

Get Node, then npm i -g wmjs

Usage

I wouldn't recommend using this as your main WM just yet. To check it out, clone this repo and make run (you'll need to have Xephyr installed). To stop that, make stop.

To use with startx, put something like this in your ~/.xinitrc:

#!/bin/sh

exec wmjs

If you use a graphical session manager, you'll need a file under /usr/share/xsessions:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=wmjs
Comment=Tiling X window manager in Node
Exec=/path/to/wmjs
Icon=wmjs
Type=XSession
X-LightDM-DesktopName=wmjs
DesktopNames=wmjs

Where /path/to/wmjs is something like /usr/local/bin/wmjs (see npm bin -g).

Requirements

To run in Xephyr, you need Xephyr.

You'll also need a terminal and dmenu or some other launcher (see config below).

Configuration

Keybinds

Current keybinds:

SUPER+SPACE: dmenu_run (or launcher, see config)
SUPER+RETURN: terminal (see config)
SUPER+ARROWS: select tiles
SUPER+SHIFT+ARROWS: move tiles

wmjs can use an optional config file. This should be resolvable under ~/.config/wmjs. Since it should be a module, that means you could have any of the following:

  • ~/.config/wmjs.js
  • ~/.config/wmjs/index.js
  • Any file under ~/.config/wmjs/*.js if you have a package.json in that directory with a main field.

Your config file should be a function that returns an object. It will be passed a single object as an argument, with these properties:

  • keys: a map of keys in the format keys.SUPER: keycode, keys.SPACE: keycode, etc.
  • run: a wrapper for child_process.spawn
  • defaults: all other default config properties

Example:

const alert = require('alert-node')

module.exports = ({ keys, run, ...defaults }) => ({
  ...defaults,
  startupPrograms: [ // an array of things to spawn on start
    'xflux -z 84047',
    'dropbox-cli start',
    'compton -b'
  ],
  launcher: 'dmenu_run',
  borderWidth: 1, // width of focused window borders
  borderColor: 'FFFFFF', // color for borders (hex)
  log: true, // logs go to ~/.local/share/wmjs/wmjs.log
  terminal: 'xterm', // terminal to spawn, see npm.im/get-term,
  focusFollowsMouse: false, // true by default

  // TODO: these don't do anything yet
  modKey: keys.SUPER, // main mod key // doesn't do anything yet
  keybinds: { // doesn't do anything yet
    [`${keys.SUPER}+${keys.SPACE}`]: run('dmenu_run'),
    [`${keys.SUPER}+${keys.SHIFT}+${keys.RETURN}`]: alert(process.env) // whatever
  },
})

If no config file is provided, we just use the defaults. The config file should use CommonJS modules, at least until Node natively supports ESM.

Recommended Applications

You can use any programs you like, but these fit well with minimalistic window managers.

  • Browser: Qutebrowser, w3m, Lynx, elinks
  • File manager: Ranger, noice, rover, nnn, fff, lf
  • Editor: Neovim, Vim, vi, Emacs
  • Audio player: Angrplayer, moc, cmus, mplayer
  • Video: mpv, mplayer
  • Terminal emulator: xterm, urxvt
  • Launcher: rofi, pmenu

Prior Art and Thanks

wmjs is heavily based on code from the following projects:

LICENSE