layout-machi

A manual layout for Awesome with a rapid interactive editor.

Why?

TL;DR --- I want the control of my layout.

1. Dynamic tiling is an overkill, since tiling is only useful for persistent windows, and people extensively use hibernate/sleep these days.
2. I don't want to have all windows moving around whenever a new window shows up.
3. I want to have a flexible layout such that I can quickly adjust to whatever I need.

Use the layout

Use layotu = layout_machi.layout.create() to instantiate the layout.

Use the editor

Call editor = layout_machi.editor.create(data) to create an editor that can either

• Interactively edit layout by calling editor.start_interactive()
• Set the layout with batched commands by calling editor.set_by_cmd(cmd), where cmd is a string

data is an object for storing the history of the editing, initially {}.

The layout editing command

The editor starts with the open area of the entire workarea, taking command to split the current area into multiple sub-areas, then editing each of them. The editor is keyboard driven, accepting a number of command keys. Before each command, you can optionally provide at most 2 digits for parameters (A, B) of the command. Undefined parameters are (mostly) treated as 1.

1. Up/Down: restore to the history command sequence
2. h/v: split the current region horizontally/vertically into 2 regions. The split will respect the ratio A:B.
3. w: Take two parameters (A, B), and split the current region equally into A columns and B rows. If no parameter is defined, behave the same as Space without parameters.
4. s: shift the current editing region with other open regions. If A is defined, shift for A times.
5. Space or -: Without parameters, close the current region and move to the next open region. With parameters, set the maximum depth of splitting (default is 2).
6. Enter/.: close all open regions. When all regions are closed, press Enter will save the layout and exit the editor.
7. Backspace: undo the last command.
8. Escape: exit the editor without saving the layout.

For examples:

h-v

11 22
11 22
11
11 33
11 33

hvv (or 22w)

11 33
11 33

22 44
22 44

3-13h2v--2h-12v

Details:

• 3-: set the maximum editing depth to 3
• 13h: horizontally split the initial region (entire desktop) to the ratio of 1:3
• For the left part:
  • 2v: vertically split the region to the ratio of 2:1
  • --: ignore further editing the splitted regions
• For the right part:
  • 2h: horizontally split the region to the ratio of 2:1
  • -: ignore the left part of the splitted regions
  • 12v: split the right part vertically to the ratio of 1:2

Tada!

11 3333 44
11 3333 44
11 3333
11 3333 55
   3333 55
22 3333 55
22 3333 55

Persistent history

If you want all command persisted, you need to specify the path of the history file in the editor data. The persisted history can be restored by layout_machi.editor.restore_data(...). For example,

machi_editor_data = layout_machi.editor.restore_data({ history_file = ".machi-layout", history_save_max = 10 })

The last history_save_max commands are persisted.

Other functions

layout_machi.editor.cycle_region(c) will fit a floating client into the closest region, then cycle through all regions.

TODO

• Tabs on regions?

License

Apache 2.0 --- See LICENSE