Getting Started with Scrotwm? (Page 1 of 13)

scrot-slob-blog. Sounds all kinds of wrong.

Really like the look of tiling WM though, totally different way of doing things.

No idea where you got the "guru" from.
Seriously, I only run ScrotWM on my netbook and another older laptop. They're both mostly CLI setups (I didn't even bother install gtk2-engines), so I won't say they're a complete desktop replacement, but I do manage to get most of my non-graphic-arts work done quite handily.

I mentioned the Arch wiki's ScrotWM page that @anon linked to somewhere in this month's thread as well. It's a decent resource. There's not much to be said about ScrotWM, tbh. One look at the config file and you'll definitely figure stuff out.

Some things to note:
ScrotWM does seem to be lacking when put next to other tilers like Xmonad, DWM or AwesomeWM. It lacks Xmonad's hooks (though it's Quirks system works to some extent). It doesn't have any start file, so you'll need to make a simple script to start your preferred WM-related daemons/services. It's bar/panel doesn't show what's opened in non-visible workspaces (though you can replace it with dzen2, which does the job). It also doesn't seem to have a "mod-override" option, which might relegate you to using Mod4 (the Super key), since using Mod1 (Alt) would conflict with many of the keybindings for our regular apps..... There are probably more things wrong with it that I can't recall right now.

Not trying to dissuade you guys ... just want to let you know what's on offer and what's not.

It's got excellent defaults, imho. I hardly changed anything in the .scrotwm.conf file. Only specified my preferred terminal emulator (urxvt), changed the colors, uncommented some fullscreen quirks for Mplayer, and added a couple of keybindings.

Like I mentioned, it's mostly CLI apps that I use, along with the usual perks provided by zsh or bash.

Why not use it for a bit and then ask me what you need?

Edit:
Found this on a friends site. It should explain stuff better than I can.
http://www.digitalfoo.net/posts/2009/11 … on_Debian/
The first part about the install process won't be important, since it's now available in most distro repos (though I wish I found that link when I had trouble with CVS), but the second part on configuration might prove useful.

@ElderV once asked me how to pipe conky output to the Scrot bar. It's also mentioned in the Arch Wiki, but thought I might as well link my reply here.
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/91918/#p91918

Hope this helps.

Last edited by gutterslob (2011-01-18 18:34:11)

Well ScrotWM's config file is simpler than many others. DWM is coded in C, awesome uses LUA, xmonad uses haskell, etc.

This page may help you decide:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … w_Managers

However there is no substitute for trial and error.

Hmm, after a bit of research i think either ScrotWM or Awesome seems pretty good. Time to have a play!

So they've literally named their software after genitalia?

That's a ballsy marketing strategy

I think i'll just have to try a few of them out by the looks of things. Since dwm is already installed i'll try that too

Strange. I guess it's not much trouble to re-install, but thats still a bit odd.

#!9.04 did have dwm by default but maybe corenominal forgot or left it out for Statler.

Use a tray program like stalonetray or trayer.

Normally you would use ~/.xinitrc however since Statler uses GDM then I don't know what file it uses.

@Gaz
You might want to post your .desktop and startup .sh script here for peeps like @illumin8 and @mfd to refer to. I don't have a .desktop or use GDM.

Stalonetray should work, though I've never used it before. I don't really need a tray as I use cli apps for IM, Wireless...etc. If stalonetray isn't capable of autohiding, you might need to set aside a portion of your screen to it with the "region" variable in your .scrotwm.conf

For example, on a 1024x600 screen this should give you a 20 pixel border on top. You'll need remember to to subtract from the resolution as you add to the region, like I did here (-20 from vertical resolution in order to +20 to top region)

region                  = screen[1]:1024x580+0+20

Desktop bg should work fine. Just install feh and add something like this to the .sh script you made earlier for your startup apps.

feh --bg-scale /gazhole/images/naked-klingon-warrior-chick.png

Compositing also works fine on my setup. I use xcompmgr and have also used transset-df without issue. They're both pretty useless on a tilingWM, tbh.

I've never had any problems with dmenu (Mod+P) in ScrotWM before, so I'm not quite sure what's going on there, mate. Care to explain what you did before it stopped working?

Last edited by gutterslob (2011-01-19 00:35:37)

Right here goes, haha.

scrotwm.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=XSession
Exec=/usr/local/bin/scrotwm.sh
TryExec=scrotwm
Name=scrotwm

scrotwm.sh

nm-applet &
mpd &
parcellite &
gnome-power-manager &
sleep .2
scrotwm

scrotwm.conf

# $scrotwm: scrotwm.conf,v 1.15 2009/05/25 22:04:56 dwc Exp $
#
# colors for focussed and unfocussed window borders
color_focus        = rgb:19/55/74
color_unfocus        = rgb:0/0/0


# bar settings
bar_enabled        = 1
bar_border[1]        = rgb:19/55/74
bar_color[1]        = rgb:0/0/0
bar_font_color[1]    = rgb:19/55/74
bar_font        = lime
bar_action        = conky
bar_delay        = 1
clock_enabled        = 0


# spawn app
spawn_term        = x-terminal-emulator


# dialog box size ratio .3 >= r < 1
dialog_ratio        = 0.6


# screen shots
# screenshot_enabled    = 1
# screenshot_app    = screenshot.sh


# Split a non-Xrandr dual head setup into one region per monitor
# (non-standard driver-based multihead is not seen by scrotwm)
# region        = screen[1]:1280x1024+0+0
# region        = screen[1]:1280x1024+1280+0

# mod key, (windows key is Mod4)
modkey = Mod4


# key bindings
# unbind with: bind[] = <keys>
bind[cycle_layout]    = Mod+space
bind[swap_main]        = Mod+Return
bind[focus_next]    = Mod+Tab
bind[spawn_term]    = Mod+t
bind[spawn_menu]    = MOD+p
bind[wind_kill]        = Mod+x
bind[quit]        = Mod+Shift+q
bind[restart]        = Mod+q


# Custom Programs
program[f]          = /usr/bin/firefox
bind[f]             = Mod+w
program[t]          = /usr/bin/thunar
bind[t]             = Mod+f
program[ge]         = /usr/bin/gedit
bind[ge]            = Mod+e
program[ga]         = /usr/bin/galculator
bind[ga]            = Mod+c
program[vl]         = /usr/bin/vlc
bind[vl]            = Mod+v
program[m]          = terminator -e ncmpcpp
bind[m]             = Mod+m
program[vo]         = terminator -e alsamixer
bind[vo]            = Mod+a
program[gn]         = /usr/bin/gnumeric
bind[gn]            = Mod+g
program[wr]         = /usr/bin/abiword
bind[wr]            = Mod+o

As for the MOD+P menu, the only thing i've really done is conky and custom key bindings so i assume its something to do with my scrotwm.conf. Maybe the way i've done conky has something to do with the crashes though. Is using the config file the best way to do this?

Thanks for your help, all

EDIT: now got xcompmgr, stalonetray, and a wallpaper working. Stalonetray is a bit finnicky with positioning. Still have no idea why the Mod+P menu isn't woking...

Last edited by Gazhole (2011-01-19 10:53:28)

Excellent, that did the trick with the menu! Thanks!

And yeah, it displays lime thankfully. I love the artwiz fonts.

Slowly getting there now. The only thing bugging out is stalonetray. Its fine untill i switch workspaces, then it moves to the centre of the screen. Trying different config options, and made a quirk (FLOAT) so it doesn't get tiled. Still no joy yet, but hey - this is half the fun.

I think this is what's causing it to crash actually, because the WM doesn't know what to do with it, lol. Would it be worth trying another tray program to see if it behaves better? The only other one i know of is trayer.

Last edited by Gazhole (2011-01-19 15:47:09)

No probs, dude!

Will do a fresh install on an old lappy anyway and have a mess about. I don't like fiddling with my main PC too much, lol!

I had a look at xmonad aswell, and i love it except for the damned haskell config file. Lua i can get my head around but this seems rather annoying .