Ruby-wmii - ArchWiki

# Ruby-wmii

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This article is being considered for archiving.

Reason: Last release 2006; not packaged. (Discuss in Talk:Ruby-wmii#)

## Introduction

While wmii can be configured using most any language, this document focuses on the excellent ruby-wmii project developed by Mauricio Fernandez (mfp).

Note: ruby-wmii is no longer maintained. Try sunaku's Ruby wmiirc instead.

## Configuration

You'll need to install Ruby, which is available in [extra]. Furthermore, some plugins may require additional ruby libraries, such as the MPD plugin which requires ruby-mpd from [community].

mfp's project has many useful basic bar applets and configurations; with the 0.3.0 release, the script has adopted a useful plugin architecture making overriding or adding functionality simple.

The ruby-wmii project is installed to ~/.wmii-3, consisting of:

- ~/.wmii-3/wmiirc -- The heart of the ruby-wmii scripts; shouldn't be edited. This is what is run when wmii starts.
- ~/.wmii-3/wmiirc-config.rb -- Your config file, which should be edited (running wmiirc script will create it if it doesn't already exist)
- ~/.wmii-3/plugins -- A directory containing plugins (sets of keybindings and bar applets)
- ~/.wmii-3/plugins/standard-plugin.rb -- The default plugins, which you needn't edit.

### darcs

To get a copy of the development version of ruby-wmii from mfp's repository, checkout the code using darcs (darcs available in [extra] repos):

    user@host % cd ~/src
    user@host % darcs get --partial http://eigenclass.org/repos/ruby-wmii/head ruby-wmii
    user@host % cd ruby-wmii
    user@host % ruby install.rb

This copy can then be updated at any time via:

    user@host % cd ~/src/ruby-wmii
    user@host % darcs pull
    user@host % ruby install.rb

This last command will copy the updated ruby-wmii over what you have in ~/.wmii-3. CAUTION: This will overwrite any changes you have in ~/.wmii-3/wmiirc or ~/.wmii-3/standard-plugin.rb. For this reason, you shouldn't edit these files! Rather, make config changes in ~/.wmii-3/wmiirc-config.rb, and if you want to modify a plugin, copy it into a new file under ~/.wmii-3/plugins and make your edits in this file.

### ssid

One utility which might not be present on your system is ssid. If you lack this application you will find that the trust Mod-p menu will no longer launch applications. It is a tiny application intended as a replacement for setsid and can be found on the wmii website at [1]. It needs to be built and put somewhere that wmii-ruby can find it.

    user@host % tar -xvzf ssid-0.1.tar.gz
    user@host % make
    user@host % make install

Personally I prefer not ever to run a make install unless through a PKGBUILD so you can alternatively copy the ssid binary somewhere into your local user's path.

### Low level access

The wmiir command can be used to manipulate wmii at a low level; read the manpage for details (although this isn't really necessary for a new user!). Control scripts in different languages can use this command to control wmii. wmii is controlled through a filesystem interface using the 9P2000 protocol, which in turn is derived from the plan 9 operating system. As such, there are also libraries such as ruby-ixp which can be used to manipulate the window manager programmatically over 9P. This is technically faster, as no calling of external programs such as 'wmiir is then needed; however, at the time of writing, ruby-ixp is quite new and isn't used by the ruby-wmii project.

### Plugins

ruby-wmii's plugins consist of both bar applets and key bindings. The standard-plugin.rb file provides the following plugins: volume, mode, dict, battery-monitor, mpd, cpuinfo, status. These are mostly self-explanatory, except perhaps mode, which toggles between wmii catching key combos and passing them to programs directly. It also provides a lot of sensible key bindings and actions, such as being able to tag and rename windows with ease (check out this for more information about tagging in wmii).

Bar applets are used by editing ~/.wmii-3/wmiirc-config.rb, and modifying/adding "use_bar_applet" lines. Traditionally, numbers are used to modify the order in which plugins appear in the bar; I personally prefer to specify them thusly:

     order_index = 1
     from "nogoma" do
       %w{mpd}.each do |plugin|
         use_bar_applet plugin, "%03d" % order_index
         order_index += 1
       end
     end
     from "standard"  do
       %w{cpuinfo volume status battery-monitor mode}.each do |plugin|
         use_bar_applet plugin, "%03d" % (order_index)
         order_index+=1
       end
     # More configuration...
     end

This will cause mpd (my custom one, listed below, in namespace "nogoma"), cpuinfo, etc. to be included in the bar, in the given order.

Many plugins also provide parameters that can be modified. For example, the "volume" plugin allows you to specify the mixer used:

     plugin_config["standard:volume"]["mixer"] = "Headphone"

Here, we've set the mixer parameter of the volume plugin in the standard namespace to be "Headphone". These sort of configuration parameters make life a lot easier as users do not need to create custom plugins to modify existing behaviour.

### Bindings

Another aspect of wmii is keybindings; how different key combinations affect the wm. Some plugins define key combos by default when they're used; others define sets of bindings that can be selectively included/excluded in the wmiirc-config.rb. They can be used by including:

     use_binding("<binding-name>")

in your wmiirc-config.rb

Basic keybindings can also be made with the on_key command in wmiirc-config.rb:

    on_key("MODKEY-LEFT") {
     #actions
    }

### Summary

Don't forget you can leverage most all of the power of Ruby when using this control script; there are a lot more functions and helpers the ruby-wmii project provides. The files are fairly self documenting, and Ruby a fairly sensible and readable language. Don't be afraid to experiment and add new plugins and keybindings!

## Arch user contributions

Here are some plugins/snippets from users on the Arch forums.

### MPD (modified for use w/ multiple hosts)

I (nogoma) like to be able to control either mpd on my laptop when out and about, or my media pc via my laptop when at home. So, I (trivially) modified the standard mpd plugin to allow me to change hosts. The ruby-wmii is relatively self-documenting about how to define your own plugins; hopefully the below makes sense (it defines a new plugin in the "nogoma" namespace, which contains a bar applet called "mpd". Notice that this new applet doesn't conflict with the mpd applet shipped w/ ruby-wmii, because it is referred to as "nogoma:mpd" instead of "standard:mpd").

    Plugin.define "nogoma" do
     # {{{ MPD Bar
     bar_applet("mpd", 100) do |wmii, bar|
       require 'mpd'
       server = wmii.plugin_config["nogoma:mpd"]["default_host"] || `hostname`
       mpd_do_action = lambda do |action, *args|
         Thread.new do
           begin
             mpd = MPD.new(server)
             r = mpd.__send__(action, *args)
             LOGGER.info "MPD #{action}"
             r
           ensure
             mpd.close
           end
         end
       end
       mpdserv = MPD.new
       bar.data = "Connecting: #{server}"
       update_bar = lambda do
         if /^Connecting/ =~ bar.data
           mpdserv = MPD.new(server = bar.data.split[-1])
         end
         begin
           mpdserv_status = mpdserv.status["state"]
         rescue
           show_info = false
         end
         case mpdserv_status
         when 'play' : text = ">>: "; show_info = true
         when 'pause': text = "||: "; show_info = true
         else show_info = false
         end
         if show_info
           title = mpdserv.strf("%t")[0..(wmii.plugin_config["standard:mpd"]["title_maxlen"] || -1)]
           author = mpdserv.strf("%a")[0..(wmii.plugin_config["standard:mpd"]["author_maxlen"] || -1)]
           bar.data = text + "#{author} - #{title} " + mpdserv.strf("(%e/%l)") + " [#{server}]"
         else   # Player is stopped or connection not yet initialized...
           bar.data = "[#{server}]: NOT PLAYING"
         end
       end
       keys = wmii.plugin_config["nogoma:mpd"]["switch_server"] || ["MODKEY-Control-m"]
       wmii.on_key(*keys) do
         wmii.wmiimenu([]) do |server|
           bar.data = "Connecting: #{server}"
         end
         end
       end
       # Initialize MPD status
       Thread.new do
         loop{ begin; update_bar.call; rescue Exception; end; sleep 1 }
       end
       bar.on_click(MOUSE_SCROLL_UP)  { mpd_do_action[:previous] }
       bar.on_click(MOUSE_SCROLL_DOWN){ mpd_do_action[:next] }
       bar.on_click(MOUSE_BUTTON_LEFT) do
         Thread.new do
           begin
             mpd = MPD.new(server)
             mpdserv_status = mpd.status
           ensure
             mpd.close rescue nil
           end
           case mpdserv_status["state"]
           when "play":           mpd_do_action[:pause]
           when "pause", "stop" : mpd_do_action[:play]
           end
         end
       end
       bar.on_click(MOUSE_BUTTON_RIGHT) do
         mpd_handle = wmii.on_createclient do |cid|
           wmii.write("/view/sel/sel/ctl", "sendto 0")
           wmii.write("/view/sel/sel/geom", "400 0 center+200 south")
           wmii.unregister mpd_handle
         end
         wmii.write("/view/ctl", "select toggle")
         term = wmii.plugin_config["standard"]["x-terminal-emulator"] || "xterm"
         system "wmiisetsid #{term} -e ncmpc -h #{server}&"
       end
     end
    end

This plugin also provides the default keybinding of MODKEY-Control-M for switching hosts. Typing in a new hostname and hitting enter will cause the mpd applet to try connecting to that host. It also exposes two configuration values which can be set:

     plugin_config["nogoma:mpd"]["default_host"] = "foohost" # host to connect to on startup
     plugin_config["nogoma:mpd"]["switch_server"] = "MODKEY-Control-m" # Key combo to change current host

### POP/IMAP Mail Checker (w/ SSL)

mailchecker at Why the lucky stiff's homepage.

### Bookmark manager

Bookmark manager in the development darcs repos for ruby-wmii, on mfp's site. To get a recent copy of ruby-wmii, follow the #darcs directions.

Feature list:

- mouse-less interaction
- search as you type (extended autocompletion) for both title and URLs: the set of bookmarks matching what I'm typing at any position in the title or the URL is updated instantaneously as I type
- del.icio.us integration: importing bookmarks from del.icio.us and getting new ones automatically
- tagging (it will import your del.icio.us tags if you let it try)
- powerful search expressions (as many criteria as you want):
  - all bookmarks in the last week: ~d <7d
  - all bookmarks whose description matches a regexp: ~t regexp
  - all bookmarks with "redhanded" on the description or the URL, defined/last used in the last month: redhanded ~d <1m
  - all bookmarks with "ruby" on the URL, defined/last used in 2006: ~d 2006 ~u ruby
  - all bookmarks tagged as "blog", defined/last used in Q1: :blog ~d q1
- progressive refining: I can enter successive expressions and each one further restricts the possible choices, which are shown in the menu

# Users Configs

Add your configuration URL to the list

_Gandalf_

Category:

- Dynamic WMs

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