Auto-hiding panels go below windows

Desktop Environments All WMs
1

I am trying to set up bspwm from scratch. If I use xfce4-panel and set it to auto-hide, it goes below the windows (fine if I don’t hide it).

I find the “citrus” panels a bit basic, but am open to suggestions if anyone knows a panel that works with autohide.

I can raise it with xdo:

xdo raise -m -N Xfce4-panel -n xfce4-panel

But that doesn’t stick for long.

2

Try using tint2. You’ll probably like tint2 better than xfce4-panel. Other good options are polybar, lemonbar, and in a slightly different vein dmenu and rofi.

I have written a lot on the topic. All my posts are here (they’re free):

3

I used to use tint2 with my XFCE/i3. It was the only one I could get to auto hide with the tiling manager in any acceptable way for me.

4

tint2 does exactly the same thing:
image

5

polybar works fine with bspwm - and you can toggle autohide with the mouse or set a key bind for it using hideit.sh

6

Polybar is too basic, I currently am using lxqt-panel and have given up on the idea.

7

you can have systray in polybar too - and clickable modules with different function for left and right click - so curious how it’s too basic?

8

I just didn’t like it. It looks (IMHO) awful.

9

Fair enough :+1:
(It’s up to you to make it look good tho :sunglasses:)

10

Have a workaround using leap from aur and mate-panel. Will document it later when I have time this evening.

11 
[eDP1]
bottom=/home/stevef/.config/lead/xdo.sh
bottomLeft=
bottomRight=
left=/home/stevef/.config/lead/xdo.sh
right=
top=/home/stevef/.config/lead/xdo.sh
topLeft=
topRight=
  • xdo.sh script:
#!/bin/bash
xdo raise -N Mate-panel

I placed the panels top and bottom centre:
image

Bump top or bottom ensures the panels do not go underneath.

Hope that makes sense.

12

the top I get -some info and systray right?
bottom for workspaces?

brw you use rofi?

13

Yes and yes, it is mainly for the systray.

My rofi:
image

I have lots of modules configured:

modi: "window,top,run,drun,clipboard:greenclip print,calc";
14

Greenclip is really useful, but it chokes on big images, but you can blacklist programs in it’s config.

image

15

I used to control everything from roffi - didn’t even have a bar

nowadays it’s just a oneliner (inspired by dmenu) - a keybind opens it in run mode

can also open drun with left click on poly - right click opens in window mode
r

16

I want to get more users to try Bspwm - any suggestions on how to do that?

I can guide them ot trough the process if they need help

17

Dunno :smiley: I use it and really like it, I find it easier to configure than i3.

18

I’ve been wanting to give a tiling WM a go for awhile now. I finally got EOS xfce set up to fully replace win10 so I’m ready to do some exploring (in a VM to start with :stuck_out_tongue: ). If you can point me to a good guide on getting Bspwm set up I’ll give it a good tonight on a clean install and see what I can make of it. I promise I won’t be too annoying with questions, I do my best to search first and ask questions later. Thanks in advance.

19

I wrote a guide here on EOS a year ago

and dont worry about annoying q’s - I’d be gld to help you - I love bspwm and want others to have the same pleasant experince I have. Once someone helped me too - so I’m just paying it forward

20

Excellent, thank you. I’ll give this a go tonight and see what fun I can have :smiley:

If anybody else is curious the write up is in the wiki.

Update: It’s installed!!! I will now begin the customization process (ie. copying files I find online). Thank you very much for the guide. If there are questions or snags in the process down the line, I’ll reach out.