dwt1--dotfiles/.config/bspwm

My BSPWM Configuration

bspwm is a tiling window manager that represents windows as the leaves of a full binary tree.

It only responds to X events, and the messages it receives on a dedicated socket.

bspc is a program that writes messages on bspwm's socket.

bspwm doesn't handle any keyboard or pointer inputs: a third party program (e.g. sxhkd) is needed in order to translate keyboard and pointer events to bspc invocations.

The outlined architecture is the following:

        PROCESS          SOCKET
sxhkd  -------->  bspc  <------>  bspwm

Configuration

The default configuration file is $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bspwm/bspwmrc: this is simply a shell script that calls bspc.

Keyboard and pointer bindings are defined with sxhkd.

Example configuration files can be found in the examples directory.

Monitors, desktops and windows

bspwm holds a list of monitors.

A monitor is just a rectangle that contains desktops.

A desktop is just a pointer to a tree.

Monitors only show the tree of one desktop at a time (their focused desktop).

The tree is a partition of a monitor's rectangle into smaller rectangular regions.

Each node in a tree either has zero or two children.

Each internal node is responsible for splitting a rectangle in half.

A split is defined by two parameters: the type (horizontal or vertical) and the ratio (a real number r such that 0 < r < 1).

Each leaf node holds exactly one window.

My Keybindings (defined by sxhkd)

The keybindings for bspwm are controlled by another program called sxhkd. You will find my sxhkdrc here: https://gitlab.com/dwt1/dotfiles/blob/master/.config/sxhkd/sxhkdrc

The MODKEY is set to the Super key (aka the Windows key).

Keybinding	Action
ALT + CRTL + Enter	opens run launcher (dmenu is the run launcher but can be easily changed)
MODKEY + Enter	opens terminal (st is the terminal but can be easily changed)
MODKEY + SHIFT + c	closes window with focus
MODKEY + Esc	reloads the bspwm conifguration file
MODKEY + SHIFT + r	restarts bspwm
MODKEY + SHIFT + q	quits bspwm
MODKEY + j	switches focus between windows in the stack, going down
MODKEY + k	switches focus between windows in the stack, going up
MODKEY + SHIFT + j	rotates the windows in the stack, going down
MODKEY + SHIFT + k	rotates the windows in the stack, going up
MODKEY + t	set window state to tiled
MODKEY + s	set window state to pseudo-tiled
MODKEY + f	set window state to floating
MODKEY + 1-9	switch focus to workspace (1-9)
MODKEY + SHIFT + 1-9	sends focused window to workspace (1-9)