Hacks for the larswm window manager

The X11 window manager "larswm" is a minimalist window manager descended from 9wm, which was itself inspired by Plan 9's windowing system. The core idea is that windows should arrange themselves, allowing the user to concentrate on getting the job done, instead of pixel-dinking.

I got tired of maintaining a large larswm configuration file containing lots of custom key definitions for my Logitech iTouch keyboard, so I wrote some M4 macros to simplify my configuration file, and to automate the numbering of application key directives. Those of you who administer sendmail will be familiar with the process of using a short macro file to produce a long (and essentially write-only) configuration file.

To use the configuration macros you will need:

larswm.m4

This file defines macros that expand to larswm configuration directives. You should not need to modify this file, just place it in your home dir, or wherever you keep your "larswm.mc" source file. Comments explain how to use the macros.

larswm.mc

This file contains the macro invocations that expand to larswm directives suitable for .larswmrc

A .larswmrc generated from larswm.mc

Whenever you modify larswm.mc, regenerate your .larswmrc by running

m4 larswm.mc >$HOME/.larswmrc

Bugs and gotchas

• Some of macros don't work in BSD m4. I'll fix this someday. Until then, install GNU m4, and run gm4 instead of m4.
• If you want larswm to utilise extended keys such as XF86Standby, make sure they are defined in your X keymap. If you see "Keysym 0x0, NoSymbol" in the output of xev when you press your extended keys, you need to use xmodmap to set the keycode -> keysym mapping as in this example. If you try to trap an unknown keysym, larswm will break---clients such as xterm will just beep plaintively at you when you press any key.