Episode: 1993
Title: HPR1993: Can your window manager do this?
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1993/hpr1993.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 12:59:01

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This is HPR Episode 1993 entitled, Can Your Window Manager Do This?
It is hosted by Acho Jordan and is about 34 minutes long, the summer is,
where I show off my rat poison configurations.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by Ananasthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
That's HPR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at Ananasthost.com.
Hi everyone, welcome one more time to Hacker Public Radio.
I am Nacho Jordi and this time I'm going to discuss a few tweaks you can do
with the rat poison window manager that you can find in the internet to be
downloaded for free. You will find the link in the show notes and first of all
for those who haven't used rat poison before, I have a few words of caution.
Rat poison is a tiling window manager. Tiling window managers
are working a different way than the usual window manager. The usual window managers
are based in treating, I think, the philosophy of those window managers could be described
as they treat the windows like objects that you can drag around and minimize, maximize, restore,
etc. Rat poison on each side is tiling window manager.
It takes the full screen for granted so to speak and it divides it according to the windows
you have available. You can make them visible or not visible but the whole screen
is treated like a window, even when there's a space where you have only have the desktop
showing that would be a way of describing tiling managers.
So, this time of window managers, I'm aware that they are not perhaps for everybody or for
everybody's taste. In my case, I prefer them because especially rat poison is a very spartan, very
bare naked window managers. In fact, it's difficult to show it how it works in a screenshot
because it's so bare, it's just you just get the programs you're using and a few pixels
divided between each windows. This kind of window manager is very according to my way of feeling
and of thinking about stuff because I'm a person that I think I give predominance to function
over form to a degree that some people can find sometimes excessive and also I myself find it
maybe I'm going too far in giving predominance to function. Sometimes I think I would wear a sack
instead of a t-shirt just to be done with the closing stuff. I mean the sack covers you just the same
or maybe using a rope instead of a belt to it holds your pants up there. So that's my natural
tendency of course. I know that that tendency can sometimes be excessive, especially in social
context and I keep an eye on it. But for every day work one intends to be as comfortable as possible
and I've found that after pretty much trying every window manager inside my choice is for rat
person I think I started using it in 2009 perhaps or 2010 and I've never looked back. I've never
found anything better for my taste. With this I don't mean I despise animations and
beeps and colors and themes and that kind of stuff. I know in a way they can also contribute
to quality of life. You've just spent a lot of hours in front of a computer. Maybe like I say maybe
I'm too extreme but well maybe some people is like me and don't need that kind of of person whistles.
So yeah my priorities have perhaps different. I'm not so interested in animations and beeps. I don't
miss them but I don't recommend this option. It's only mine and it's something I wanted to say
forward before anything else. Okay so what else can I say about rat poison? Firstly I have a
I have a bit of a complaint about the name. I've never liked the name because it's a it's a
negation and I don't think it's a fortunate name that's interesting good good service to the
window manager. First because the name is composed of two quite disgusting and negative words for
rat which is a filthy animal and poison which is something nobody wants to have in their lives.
Of course the idea behind this name is that it's a window manager that despises openly
mouse and the developers consider that mouse is an inefficient and that the way of doing stuff.
So they say with this program we're going to kill the rat they cannot despise mouse more.
In addition to being disgusting by itself rat poison to ugly words to I mean to words referring
a concept that is ugly the name is it's a it's a bad idea because it's it's a negation it's not
telling what the program does but what the program does not do. In my view you when you have any
product you the name the name must tell its virtues not what it is lacking. So I will have chosen
for this program something I'm terrible at giving name to things and to especially to programs
but I would have preferred something in the lines of pro keys because it's not against the mouse
but in favor of keys something like that or mega keys or something of that kind. I think like I say
it makes a disservice to a program that it's so good and so flexible.
So yeah because rat poison like I say I've tried other window managers a lot of them and it's
the to me is the most perfect window manager I've found. That's not to say that it's completely
perfect no program can be tailored to that extent and also window manager is something that you
use for everything and anything and it's going to be used in a lot of context with different programs.
So for example one thing that rat poison has that it's a bit weird is a it uses a concept called
groups you can create groups and and name them but it's a bit strange because you can have in
our screen a program while the active group is someone some different one so when you get out
of that screen if you want to go back to it you won't be able because it doesn't belong to
active group. It's a different way of working and it allows you a lot of things for example having
different workspace in in my computer I have five workspaces which is rate five like five
steps and it gets a lot of time to get used to it. Another thing that it's a bit an opportunity for
improvement is the the the command syntax it's to you can execute rat poison commands from the
from a terminal and the syntax is something like rat poison dot c the command that you want.
The thing is if if you want certain complex things you have to call rat poison from a terminal
and then the syntax gets very complicated very quickly and it's like a game of rush and
those within in which in in the same command you have to the terminal calls rat poison with which
calls a bash command and if you need to do something that includes variables. Bo boy, outch outch outch
but it's worth the effort of the learning curve in in the end all you need is when you get one
command working in rat poison documented to death a copy copy example and some place where you
can use it as a reference because once you have the recipes to do stuff the things that that you
can do with with rat poison are incredible and limitless us I hope to prove later.
Also another frequent complaint that people have about about rat poison and very fairly is that
certain programs and don't especially programs that open a lot of windows on by themselves don't
run there very well in rat poison. The typical example and the most notable example is a game
a game the first time you execute it in rat poison without an aware of what's going to happen
you're going to do fire face something like a disco flickering of windows that start to
alternating one and the other then you have to start dividing the screen and sending each window
to a place but then if you are going to work for a long time steadily in game it's okay but if you
have to move to a different window to do something different and then go back to game you get the disco
flickering again so game is usually not recommended to be used with rat poison you can do it I mean if
you are only doing a game thing you can distribute the windows and don't touch them anymore
but the rat poison developers claim that this this kind of problems like the disco flickering are due
to poor design in the in the programs but that's a very small consolation the the world is full
of poorly designed programs if that's the truth and if I design a program of this kind I should
take some kind of measures to face this situation which is it's known that it's going to happen
and well in the in fact they they they provide a solution that it's that you can get you can
you can get out of of rat poison and start a there's a command I seldom use it so the name I
don't remember was I don't remember the the name of the command but the thing is you can start a
different window manager and then when you close it come back to rat poison I've done that with
the game successfully a few times of course it's not as comfortable as doing everything in rat
poison but by the it's a great option that no other other window managers don't provide
so another limitation that might find in rat poison by this limitation of a feature that it's
absolutely great so it's kind of opportunity for improvement for the future is that a in rat poison
you have a function key which starts a line a common line where you can type commands
both related to rat poison working for example a divide the current screen in in two thirds
and but also you can execute a terminal commands directly with a with a opening a terminal that's
very useful for example to execute certain programs or or when you need a quick output or something
but this limitation limitation of a great thing like I say is that that command line uses SH instead
of bash I mean it would be absolutely awesome and fabulous if I could access all my alias and
shortcuts that I have created in my bash rc if I could use that in the in a command line of
rat poison that would give me a functionality that would be out of them up incredible so maybe
maybe something that can be done with some kind of workaround I've tried and failed a couple of
times in rat poison but maybe something that can be done the the configurations you're making in
rat poison window manager by the way you do it you do them by editing a configuration file which is
dot rat poison rc you make the changes there and then you refresh the rat poison and
it's a very quick process so well let's study them out a general overview of rat poison what it
does what it doesn't do etc I think it's had a some kind of spin-off that's called awesome window
manager I haven't tried it because I'm very settled in my ways and I've dedicated like
maybe already a few hundreds of hours to customize in my system and it's
absolutely great I think if somebody had to enter me at my computer they would find
difficult to navigate the basic navigation due to the way things are configured they're
absolutely quick so what are the things you can do to your initial vanilla rat poison I'm going to
tell a few besides the basic configuration I think I think that I find essential and try to
install in all my systems which is not easy it's a patch that allows you to to give a different
color border to the window that's active I don't understand why this option is not
active by default it's because it's very useful very important and very straightforward and rat
poison what you get out of the box is that when you enter a certain window there's a small text
that's a current window but the text lasts like like a couple of seconds if you go you have to
stop looking at the computer for a second and then you go back there's no marker to know which
the which is the window that it's active so with this patch which is also customizable
which color you want it's to me it's an essential functionality that should be included by
by default and also it's a patch that takes some time to implement I'm always trembling when I
have to when I have to to put it in a new rat poison installation because I'm not
exactly sure of how how to do it I do it by chance so yeah
another another thing that adds a lot of functionality to to rat poison to hold your workflow
is a couple of comments that I also took from the internet that allow you to save frames
for example if you've been working on something let's say a process where you have to
copy a text file from a website and put it into a text file and then you have find the perfect
dimensions for the website on the left side let's say and the text editor on the right to save
you the effort of finding that next time you can save the frames the dimensions of the frames where
the programs will be open the limitation of this which is a shame is that that that saving
does not save the programs that you're using only the structure the dimensions of the frames
and you'll have to execute the programs again mainly when when you
you next time you you want to do that task it will be great if you could save sessions
completations with that includes both things but that's another project I'd like to take but
it's a bit difficult to face with rat poison and not very steady because mostly because of the
it's program takes a different time to initialize or not you're never sure that
you have to automate the way the the programs and the active windows are
are selected and I still don't know how how to do it but anyway even with this limitation
this comment which they they are called are put on are get for rat poison put and rat poison get
you give them a name like file transfer no rat get file transfer you're doing a file transfer and
and you give it a name file transfer and next time you can get the the framework structure or file
transfer and it's get is great you get like a library of things that you've already done and save
a lot of time so this is until here these are a couple of I've covered a couple of things of
modifications that I've taken from the internet mainly the the patch to give a colored border to
active window and these comments are put on our gets to to save frames now I like to discuss a couple
of tweaks I've done by myself rat poison makes so easy to customize and configure and test changes
that you are always like hey in five minutes I can check if this would work I'm not even sure
sometimes I you have ideas but that you have to test before you know if they are practical if
they would really save you time and the the fact that the rat poison takes so so long so sorry so
short time to implement new things it's great for it encourages that kind of experimentation
if this technique doesn't save you time you haven't lost much because it only took five minutes to
change the rat poison or save file and see that it wasn't a good idea so yeah I've done a lot
hundreds and hundreds of customizations my rat poison or save file is very very long and by the way
if you're going to use rat poison and and start customizing things a very
a very good way of doing it that I found is making comments dividing the the things you do by
by by keyboard roads I mean making a commented line that says row one and put there all the
all the key bindings you do with with row one and then row two that's I found after
training different options that's a good way of dividing stuff because that way when you want to
edit something you can go directly there with only a text search you you know you know you want
a key F to do whatever in which row is key F for row then you do a search text row four and you
know you'll find the key binding there are ways of doing that there are other possibilities but
but they make you think more and this one is very I found it to be very straightforward
so yeah you can tell that a window manager is very powerful when it can steal the functionalities
of a lot of other window managers and that's what would I what I've done with many of my
customizations of rat poison all I've done has been taking the stuff that I liked from other
window managers for example a JWM which stands for Joe window manager is the the original window
manager that ships in most of of Papilinox distributions I use Papilinox and there is a command
there that I like sorry I short cut keyboard shortcut that is alt plus f1 opens the start menu
so I am I'm stolen that that shortcut and used in other than enjoy in in rat poison
the start menu is also I I use a it's a it's a program I had to install
and that person doesn't have that kind of of start menu but to me that's an advantage because
that one you can choose the one you like I choose one call SPM simple papi menu
that I found in the forum and it was very easy to to install
I put a reference in the show notes because I don't remember in which programs it is based
another keyboard shortcut that's very popular it's alt plus t for to open the terminal I also added
to it added to my rat poison configuration file because I like to make keyboards this kind of
of shortcuts I prefer to be as similar in every computer as possible no I could open the terminal
with any keyboard but if I one day I have to work in a different system it's great that I already
have the muscular the muscular memory so yeah doing key bindings it's very very similar like I said
rat poison has two modes one is in which you you can type stuff and you can also
another mode you can simply press keyboard bindings to those things okay so another thing I
stole was from you into I had a brief experience with you into go very well but I liked an option
it offered that was the pressing the windows key we should we should have a picture of a penguin in
my case but well you know how things are so pressing the windows the windows key and one of the
arrows divided the screen in left in two halves if you press the left right it was divided horizontally
and if instead you press the upper or down arrow it made a vertical division that's very useful
and because many a lot of tasks require you to have two and only two programs so that also
I implemented in my rat poison file and call it the Ubuntu mode in the comments and also
and another another window manager I pledge plagiarized was the DWGM which stands for dynamic window
manager I think it's another tiling window manager I tried before before finding rat poison and
dynamic window manager has the advantage that it also allows you if you want to do drag and drop
stuff for those who might be interested in in having the same both both options at the same time
what what I really liked about this dynamic window manager is that one of its modes
consists in like a big a big screen division on left side of the screen I occupied like two
thirds of the of the width maybe like two thirds and then the rest of the programs all of them you
can see them smaller in the in the remaining third on the right side of the screen
so I added this functionality to my rat poison it's and I called it the DWM mode as an option and I
can turn on or off and it's like a tool in my arsenal that sometimes comes handy other times it's
better to use other options yeah another option I think I commented in another podcast another
this is another one I took from the internet but then I modified a lot to my test it's like taking
the possibility of making a mosaic in which you can see all the problems you have opened
and divided in chunks so they they all fit in one screen that's taken from Apple and thing is
called expose or expose and again I took it from the internet it was I think it was a parallel script
that can be I have modified it to have two versions one that shows the mosaic and then
it offers you the possibility of choosing one of those screens and other that that just
puts all the programs in the mosaic and then less you do what you want to do the next like
navigating among them or my CMX in the one you want I think I've discussed this in a previous
podcast I don't remember okay and then another modification I've done which I'm very proud of
probably my best efforts in rat poison modification is a quake-like terminal
before I reinventing the wheel so to say I was I tried all the quake-like terminals I
I could find what I wanted was a terminal that was that were independent of the workspace you're
in I mean like a mothership so to say that you can get to from any point of your workspace
and the usually I think happened a lot of them had good good sailing points so to say but
but they all lacked some functionality that to me was essential for example
uh every one that I used that I don't remember the name I thought hey this terminal is great I'm
settling with this only to find when I started to use it for example I didn't have auto
completion of terms with the tab key which is which is absolutely essential or the problem that
mentioned before regarding the the rat poison command line that's used SH instead of
patch so I couldn't customize it and add alias and small functions to do repetitive stuff
so I finally using the groups mode that I've discussed before I created a quake-like terminal
that appears when you press f12 and it's like quote unquote a erased whenever you put another screen
in on on top of it it doesn't appear in the list of of of windows and yeah it works very very well
so so that's like my master piece in rat poison customization
uh yeah well and so this is in a nutshell or all I've done with my rat poison configuration the
the pieces I have most most relevant I've taken out of this podcast the things like basic
configuration like you can because I uh you can find them in the internet and I don't think they
are so interesting like when you have to install rat poison you get a default function key
you can modify it I use a capsule key because I've never used it that kind of modification you have
to do it yourself but again the the documentation is the internet I I prefer to tell a bit about
creative things you can do to make your computer more personal so that's all for this podcast I
hope you again you found something interesting for your customizations either if you use rat poison
or not and well see you next time thank you for listening and have a great day bye
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