Re: Spatial groups concept discussion

[Russell Adams]

On Sun, Mar 13, 2022 at 08:58:47AM +0000, Roland Everaert wrote:
> Hello M. Adams,
>
> I just install the module which works quite well.
>
> Nonetheless, could you, please, consider updating your documentation
> to explain how to override your keybindings?

That's an oversight on my part. I'll add a config variable and wrap
those in a function shortly.

To be fair, this is my first module and it was adapted from my
personal config. ;]

> They are interfering with keybindings used in terminals and text editors.
>
> C-Left and C-Right are used to jump between words. C-Up and C-Down
> are used to jump between paragraphs. The keys coords C-S-<arrow-key>
> are also used in text editors.

I disagree completely. These are my day to day bindings carefully
chosen not to interfere with the applications I use. The only one I
run into is Shift-arrows breaks updating Org-mode timestamps. They
haven't changed in about a decade.

However, I'm aware that Windoze style GUI applications may abuse
C-Arrows instead of sane defaults like C-n and C-p. In Emacs,
Meta-arrows jumps across words. C-c is interrupt, and C-v is page
down, they have nothing to do with the clipboard.

You absolutely should be able to customize your keys though, I'll post
a fix.

> So, I have the feeling it can be, at the very least, surprising to
> new users of your module.

Yep, I'll wrap it. Would you recommend enabling the keybinds by
default with an option to disable, or require additional configuration
to set the base keybinds?

I'm leaning toward the second option, of updating the install
instructions to call the keybind function.

> With regards to using your module with multiple heads, I find the
> behaviours quite natural, so far.

You're using it multihead? I'm surprised it even works. There are
rules like "same group can never be on two screens", and there's no
relationship logic (ie: to the left, to the right of, screens = ( x ,
x - 1) ) in the code.

I always thought I'd have to add a layer to specify orientation to the
coordinate change login per screen, and then swap all screens to a
screen specific "null" group before moving to the final.

> How did you save and restore each workspace?

I don't normally. In my startup I had some code to make some splits,
but I've not found a good way to launch applications into those
specific places.

Do you know how to do "run program in group 1, frame 3"? It always
just launches in current frame for me.

> There are commands, in stumpwm, to dump and restore frames and
> windows, but I am not quite sure they are adapted to a spacial
> grouping.

I think that they should work. Spatial uses group names as a text
string of coordinates, and doesn't touch the splits/frames. I think
save and load will work normally.

> I will try to provide some feedback about my usage of the spatial
> groups in the coming weeks.

Looking forward to it!


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Russell Adams                            RLAdams@AdamsInfoServ.com

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