utilx

Collection of accumulated utilities for Xorg, and secondarily for a Ratpoison window manager environment (specifically https://github.com/jcs/sdorfehs/).

Also there some more generic utilities for working in xwindows which we'll store here for now since they're used for Xorg. We group the Ratpoison-specific and the generic Xorg utilities separately below.

scott@smemsh.net

https://github.com/smemsh/utilx/

https://spdx.org/licenses/GPL-2.0

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Contents

• Xorg utilities
  • urxvtc
  • winpid
  • batt
  • bright
  • gg
  • x
  • xtty
  • rptaskmenu
  • xcount
  • xinvert
  • chkbatt
  • xflashscreen
  • ptimer
  • keyinject
  • mousepark
• Ratpoison utilities
  • rpmeta
  • rptmux
  • wmpersist
    • usage
    • dependencies
    • todo
  • rptaskline
  • rp
  • rptaskdesc
  • rptaskhelp
  • rparrange

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Xorg utilities

These scripts only require X11, or start X (as in x.sh invocations).

urxvtc

Wrapper that starts urxvtd if not already running, otherwise connects using the urxvtc client.

winpid

Outputs the supposed pid of the X window with given ID number. Determines pid by way of the window's _NET_WM_PID pid, which may or may not exist.

batt

Simple power management stuff (implemented as symlinks to batt.sh):

• batt: display how much battery is left
• battery: alias for batt
• suspend: suspends machine after optionally invoking afk
• hibernate: hibernates machine after optionally invoking afk

bright

Changes the backlight brightness. Give args:

up	+(max/10)
down	-(max/10)
max	(max)
1-10	(max/10) * N
11-100	(max/100) * N
100 < N < max/10	invalid
max/10 < N < max	(1/max) * N

Also invocable as brightup and brightdown without needing an argument.

gg

Invoke search from command line args using keyboard-friendly browsers

Takes command line args, urlescapes, creates a google search url. Brings up text browser with the url, based on invocation name.

Invocations:

• gg: elinks (curses browser that supports tables)
• ggw: vimb (webkit1 browser with keyboard bindings, normal mode)
• ww: elinks with arg as search for wikipedia

x

x.sh: x, x2, x3, x4, starts different WMs running on X11:

• x sdorfehs on :0
• x2 nested xephyr+jwm
• x3 nested xephyr+qtile
• x4 sdorfehs on :3

This is highly custom and particular to author's setup, but easy enough to change. If anyone else actually used this stuff, might parameterize it!

xtty

xtty.sh: xttytty, xttypid, xttyx

switches x11 window to that of pid or tty $1, or to x11 vt if not in x11

deps:

• wmctrl

todo:

• we don't seem to switch the rpwm group or properly select window

rptaskmenu

• rptaskmenu
• rptaskallmenu

Select amongst recent timew/taskw tasks (excluding completed tasks unless the all version is used) using a dmenu and then "timew start" it. See also https://github.com/smemsh/taskwtools/

Note: the rp prefix is used for this command, but it requires only Xorg and dmenu, and does not actually depend on Ratpoison.

xcount

Displays count of active Xorg client connections.

Note: server active connection limit seems to be 2 under ostensible limit set by Xserver -maxclients, and/or method does not account for all connections

xinvert

Inverts all colors anywhere on the xorg screen chosen by $DISPLAY. Makes sense to bind a WM key to this.

chkbatt

Increasing screenflashes as battery drains. I.e, checks battery, flashes screen accordingly (hardcoded flash parameters for now). Run at intervals, eg out cron.

deps:

• https://github.com/smemsh/utilx/ xflashscreen
• only works in xorg

todo:

• read settings from an rcfile

xflashscreen

Flashes xorg screen $1 times for $2 ms.

args:

• $1 inversions (default 4)
• $2 ms to sleep between 2 successive inversions (default 40)

deps:

• https://github.com/smemsh/utilx/ xinvert

ptimer

Simple countdown timer, flashes screen at conclusion.

• sleeps arg1 minutes
• prints to stdout each minute
• flashes screen when timer expires

keyinject

Inject keys given as args using linux uinput events.

• give keys as sequential arguments at program invocation

• keys to be injected can be X keysym names as in X11/keysymdef.h

• program requires root privileges

  • XXX does not work anyways, change it to use x11, then can use maybe to replace some rptmux functionality with something faster?

mousepark

Hide/unhide Brave Browser's vertical tab bar by moving mouse to left or right edge of screen

• restores mouse to previous saved position if statefile exists
• otherwise, saves current position in ~/var/mousepark/position.dat
• then moves mouse to left or right (if --right) edge of screen.
• keeps a statefile, override path with --statfile.

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Ratpoison utilities

These scripts will probably only work with Ratpoison or Sdorfehs WMs. They could probably be adapted to other tiling window managers easily. If anyone else used these scripts besides me, we could parameterize them...

rpmeta

Wrapper allowing several successive calls of the ratpoison meta command, essentially:

ratpoison -c arg1
sleep 0.01s
ratpoison -c arg2
sleep 0.01s
...
ratpoison -c argN

Note that the sleep only occurs in-between, not at the end.

This command is used by rptmux to emit the tmux keybindings it learns about, bound to Super key instead of the tmux prefix.

args:

• any number of ratpoison-format key names to generate

todo:

• fork+exec alone is enough so that sleep isn't actually needed (tested)
• ratpoison 'meta' should just be hacked to take multiple keys

rptmux

Adds ratpoison keymaps to generate tmux-bound keypresses off Super modkey.

Queries the running tmux (must be run within) for its current key bindings. Takes each key binding found in the prefix keymap (i.e. the -T prefix binds), and makes a Ratpoison mapping to emit the tmux prefix followed by that binding, bound to Super modifier

Example:

$ tmux list-keys | grep last-window
bind-key -T prefix l last-window

$ ratpoison -c 'help top' | grep s-l
s-l exec rpmeta C-b l

Unfortunately Ratpoison does not allow compound commands in keymaps, so we must fork out to a script (here we use the rpmeta helper also found in these utilities).

All non-prefix maps in tmux are ignored.

notes:

• queries running tmux for its keybinds (not needed, see todo)
• generates ratpoison binds off super for the unprefixed tmux key
• emits the keys by executing 'rpmeta' wrapper
• writes the sourceable ratpoison bindings to tmpfile
• invokes ratpoison to source the file, which adds the mappings

todo:

• processes only 'prefix' keymap from tmux, ignores rest
• tmux-2.2: "list-keys and list-commands can be run without starting the tmux server" so use that, i.e. no longer need to run within tmux

Note: old way we did this was to actually execute the tmux command; we do not do that anymore because it doesn't know which session to target, so if we have multiple clients attached to different sessions, only the first one will get it, which would require that we look up the terminal -> pid -> client -> session mapping, which is more difficult, so we just emit a keypress instead (much easier) which works with whatever client we are connected with at present moment

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wmpersist

Persists browser window titles across restarts. Useful for those who:

• typically have many browser windows open
• work on them for long sessions (weeks or months)
• like to give them names
• do not like when names disappear upon restart
• use "ratpoison" window manager

It allows restarting the browser windows (or Ratpoison), without having to lose the titles given all the browser windows over time. This is very handy for reboots or when applying updates. Backups of the last save file are retained each time a new save is done.

Ratpoison does not itself have any persistence mechanism.

usage

first arg: "save" or "load"

"wmpersist save":	write out chromium window titles to ratpoison winname mappings
"wmpersist load":	take existing windows, search for titles in the save file, and rename/renumber within ratpoison to match them, once chromium has been restarted

second arg: "chrome," "brave" or "nightly" (browser to save/load for).

---

Before restarting the browser, and upon adding new windows or making name changes, run this script (save) to dump the mappings. You might create a map:

definekey top M-p verbexec wmpersist save

After browser restart, run script again (load) and the titles will be remapped (along with window numbers and relative sequence). Of course, this assumes your browser will remember which windows it had open (Chrome can be so configured, i.e. "start where I left off.")

Note: you may have to adjust $save_file and $classname if:

• you use a different browser (e.g. Chrome instead of Chromium)
• you want the save files stored elsewhere (default ~/var/sdorfehs/)
• you want to persist something other than Chrome

dependencies

The scripts use the following commands:

• ratpoison (query and set window numbers)
• xwininfo (gather all window titles)
• xprop (test for withdrawn windows)
• xlsatoms (debugging)
• lsw (debugging)

todo

• make $sep pattern same in both rp and xwininfo data gathering functions
• ratpoison needs a target arg available for its window name change command
• move usage to a constant and emit rather than using comment block to document
• this does not work if one of the tabs is a Chromium bookmark manager, unknown reason, have to trace this down UPDATE: it may be because Chrome leaves around withdrawn windows seems like for eg bookmarks and google contacts pages that have been closed, see window_is_withdrawn() test in the code
• make work with other things that just browsers (and other browsers than chromium) but this may not work since each app keeps highly specific titles
• hack this into ratpoison itself, instead
• or generalize it into a general persistence daemon to be used for a management framework
• take class name as command line arg
• support other window managers

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rptaskline

Displays a ratpoison notification line based on output from the given command, optionally passing some input obtained from a prompted line.

• first, sets up taskw/timew environment variables
• then runs a given command with stifled stdio
• optionally feed a ratpoison-prompted string to the command
• report failure if nonzero exit
• runs a given after-command, output to invoker (ratpoison) for display

args:

• if no args, runs taskline only, with no $1: prefixed
• if one arg, runs $1, $2 set to taskline
• if two args, runs $1, $2 set to second arg
• if first arg is -p or --prompt, reads user input, pass to $1

output:

if success, ratpoison echo $1: \`$2\`

if failure, ratpoison echo $1: failed: \`$2\`

command -> [if different: before-fql -> after-fql]

[if different: before-status -> after status]

taskcont -> noop

rp

Gives a command on cli to either Ratpoison or Sdorfehs, depending on whether $SDORFEHS_PID is set (so, it can be used for either).

Aggregates all args into a single string and gives them to window manager as -c argument.

Basically, a faster way to ratpoison -c "this is my command".

rptaskdesc

Displays the description of the current tracking task (see https://github.com/smemsh/taskwtools/) as a Ratpoison message.

rptaskhelp

Displays the current ratpoison keybinds that seem to relate to taskwarrior/timewarrior as a Ratpoison help notification window that seem. See https://github.com/smemsh/taskwtools/

rparrange

Rearrange Ratpoison windows (incr, decr, make sequential, insert new). These commands are implemented in rparrange.py.

Invocations:

• rpleft: decrement current window's position, rotate to bottom if first
• rpright: increment current window's position, rotate to top if last
• rpafter: run arg1 with exec, ensuring win number one after current window
• rprenumber: rearrange ratpoison window numbers sequentially starting at 0
• rptrigger: only used internally, but made available as invocation for tests