New versions of xmonad and xmonad-contrib have been released. Check out
our download page for
instructions on where to get them.
It’s been a little over 3 years since xmonad 0.15, and a little over 2 years
since xmonad-contrib 0.16. A lot has happened. This post is an overview of
the most important changes. To celebrate this milestone, we announce a contest
for a new xmonad logo.
Last but not least, we’re looking to raise funds to
keep the XMonad project and community alive and relevant in the next decade.
With the final X.Org Server 21.1 release being announced
today, there are some obvious challenges ahead of us.
Table of Contents
xmonad 0.17.0
This release includes 156 non-merge commits by 22 contributors! For a full
summary of all the changes, see xmonad’s CHANGES.md file.
Major Breaking Changes
util/GenerateManpage.hs is no longer distributed in the tarball.
Selected Features and Improvements
-
Migrated X.L.LayoutCombinators.(|||) into XMonad.Layout,
providing the ability to directly jump to a layout with the
JumpToLayout message.
-
Improved handling of XDG directories.
-
If all three of xmonad’s environment variables
(XMONAD_DATA_DIR, XMONAD_CONFIG_DIR, and XMONAD_CACHE_DIR)
are set, use them.
-
If there is a build script called build (see
here
for usage examples) or configuration xmonad.hs in ~/.xmonad,
set all three directories to ~/.xmonad.
-
Otherwise, use the xmonad directory in XDG_DATA_HOME,
XDG_CONFIG_HOME, and XDG_CACHE_HOME (or their respective
fallbacks). These directories are created if necessary.
In the cases of 1. and 3., the build script or executable is
expected to be in the config dir.
Additionally, the xmonad config binary and intermediate object files
were moved to the cache directory (only relevant if using XDG or
XMONAD_CACHE_DIR).
-
Recompilation now detects stack.yaml (can be a symlink) alongside
xmonad.hs and switches to using stack ghc.
Additionally, deprecation warnings during recompilation are no
longer suppressed. These can still be suppressed manually using an
OPTIONS_GHC pragma with -Wno-deprecations.
xmonad-contrib 0.17.0
This release includes 582 non-merge commits by 57 contributors! For a full
summary of all the changes, see xmonad-contrib’s CHANGES.md file.
Major Breaking Changes
-
All modules that export bitmap fonts as their default
-
If xmonad is compiled with XFT support (the default), use an XFT
font instead. The previous default expected an X11 misc font
(PCF), which is not supported in pango 1.44 anymore and thus some
distributions have stopped shipping these.
-
All modules still exporting a defaultFoo constructor
-
XMonad.Hooks.StatusBar, XMonad.Hooks.StatusBar.PP (previously
XMonad.Hooks.DynamicLog) and XMonad.Util.Run
-
spawnPipe no longer uses binary mode handles and defaults to the
current locale encoding instead, xmonadPropLog and
xmonadPropLog' now encode their input string in UTF-8, and
dynamicLogString no longer encodes its output in UTF-8. When
these functions are used together, everything should continue to
work as it always has, but in isolation behaviour might change.
To get the old spawnPipe behaviour, spawnPipeWithNoEncoding
can now be used, and spawnPipeWithUtf8Encoding was added as well
to force UTF-8 regardless of locale.
-
XMonad.Hooks.DynamicLog will be deprecated soon in favor of
XMonad.Hooks.StatusBar which offers a nicer and easier to use
interface for status bars. Laptop users who (dis)connect external
monitors dynamically should definitely try this new interface:
XMonad.Hooks.DynamicBars has been deprecated already.
-
XMonad.Hooks.EwmhDesktops
-
It is no longer recommended to use standalone hooks directly:
Instead of ewmhDesktopsStartup, ewmhDesktopsLogHook(Custom) and
ewmhDesktopsEventHook(Custom), users should now use the ewmh
combinator. The Custom variants have been replaced by a more
composable interface which now also allows
simply marking windows that request focus as urgent instead of
immediately focusing them.
Instead of fullscreenEventHook, use ewmhFullscreen, which now
advertises fullscreen support to applications, fixing fullscreen in
mpv and many others.
-
XMonad.Hooks.Script
-
XMonad.Actions.WorkspaceNames
Selected Features and Improvements
-
XMonad.Actions.EasyMotion
A new module that allows selection of visible screens using a key
chord—inspired by vim-easymotion. See the animation in the
vim-easymotion repo to get some idea of the functionality of this
module.
-
XMonad.Prompt.OrgMode
A prompt for interacting with org-mode. It can be used to quickly
save TODOs, NOTEs, and the like with the additional capability to
schedule/deadline a task, or use the primary selection as the
contents of the note.
-
XMonad.Hooks.StatusBar
A new module, providing a nicer, composable interface for status bars that
replaces XMonad.Hooks.DynamicLog and XMonad.Hooks.DynamicBars.
Supports property-based as well as pipe-based status bars, multiple status
bars (Xinerama), and takes care of restarting the bars as needed.
-
XMonad.Hooks.Rescreen
A new module, providing custom hooks for screen (xrandr) configuration
changes. These are used internally by XMonad.Hooks.StatusBar to restart
status bars/systrays after xrandr, and can also be used to invoke xrandr
or autorandr when an output is (dis)connected.
-
XMonad.Util.Hacks
A collection of hacks and fixes that should be easily accessible to
users, like a fix for the fullscreen behaviour of chromium based
applications when using windowed fullscreen, or a fix to make
certain Java applications play more nicely with xmonad.
-
XMonad.Hooks.WindowSwallowing
A new module to implement window swallowing; optionally via
sublayouting. Hide parent windows like terminals when opening other
programs (like image viewers) from within them, restoring them once
the child application closes.
-
XMonad.Util.ClickableWorkspaces
A new module providing clickablePP, which when applied to the PP
pretty-printer used by XMonad.Hooks.StatusBar.PP, will make the
workspace tags clickable in XMobar (for switching focus).
Note that XMonad.Layout.IndependentScreens and
XMonad.Actions.WorkspaceNames now also use the same composable
ppRename interface as XMonad.Util.ClickableWorkspaces so it’s much
easier to use them with one another.
-
XMonad.Util.Loggers
-
XMonad.Actions.TopicSpace
-
Added TopicItem, as well as the helper functions topicNames,
tiActions, tiDirs, noAction, and inHome for a drastically
simpler specification of topics.
-
XMonad.Hooks.ServerMode
Logo Contest
We’d also like to announce a contest to create a new xmonad logo to
replace the current one. If you want to participate, please submit at
most three logos (in SVG format) to this GitHub discussion by the
31st of January. Please do not vote for a logo yet—voting will start
after the above deadline. Your logo will need to be licensed under a
suitable freely distributable license; for example, the CC BY-SA 4.0.
The prize for the winner is $100!
For voting, we will use an instant-runoff type system. In short:
- Users rank a minimum of three submissions according to their
preferences in decreasing order.
- If a logo wins a majority of first-preference votes (> 50%) it is
chosen.
- If not, we eliminate the logo with the least amount of first
preference votes, exposing the second preference of those who voted
for it.
- Rinse and repeat until we have a majority.
- If at the end of all that we still don’t have a majority, we will
act as a tiebreaker and internally vote for a winner from the
remaining logos.
We will retain veto power in case of inappropriate logos. Team members
whose submitted entries are amongst the remaining choices will not
partake in the potential tiebreaking vote.
Looking for Funding
TL;DR:
XMonad has been around since 2007 and has a great track record in stability.
There’s an active, vibrant community of users and developers who help each
other and contribute fixes and extensions. Keeping this community organized,
reviewing and merging contributions and responding to bug reports is almost a
full-time job, however, not to mention doing actual development. We’ve been
struggling to find volunteers to do all this work, especially the less
exciting bits like documentation.
Despite that struggle, we managed to repay a portion of our technological and
organizational debt over the last year, and to pick up the pace of
development:
We’re worried about the sustainability of that pace, however. As with the
previous generations of maintainers, our studies and sabbaticals won’t last
forever.
Your help is needed to keep the project alive and well. We’d like to raise
enough funds to enable at least one core developer to work on XMonad full-time
(or several part-time). To learn more about our plans for the future, see
our GitHub Sponsors profile.
Thanks to one unexpected appearance on the Hacker News front
page, we already gathered a couple dozen sponsors who donate in
total over $300 a month. We’re incredibly grateful for this support! Our
fiscal host is the Open Source Collective, so our budget is fully
transparent on our Collective’s page.
If you also want to aid our efforts going forward, please consider becoming
a supporter as well. We accept both monthly and one-time donations through
GitHub Sponsors and Open Collective.
Thank you!
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