Screen for StumpWM/Xmonad Users - GNU Screen as a window manager

The first part is exposition. If you're just interested in how to set up Screen as a StumpWM analogue, skip to this heading.

I've been thinking about window management again, for my own purposes and bouncing around between combination of Xmonad, StumpWM, XFCE and GNOME, as well as trying the two tiling managers standalone.

Using XFCE and GNOME standalone really wasn't going to do anything for me, I already knew that. Using the lightweights on theiir own had a few minor annoyances that I tried to fix by running them together.

Out of the box, neither Xmonad nor StumpWM

• support a nautilus/thunar style file display (and I sometimes need it)
• auto-connect to my wireless network
• watch for new external media being attached, and mount them as necessary

It's becoming clear that I don't want a regular point-and-click interface by default anymore, except for one or two specialized tasks for which nautilus --no-desktop should suffice.

I also don't really use removable media anymore. Maybe my memory is a bit clouded, but it seems that I used a lot more USB keys, DVDs and CDs back when I was a Windows/OS X user. It's possible that I was just being stupid, but it seemed like the easiest way of sharing data between two different machines¹. That flat out doesn't happen anymore. We only have Linux machines in the house now², so when I want to share data between them, I use scp, or possibly rsync depending on the specific situation. I don't do backups to DVD or CD anymore; I just use hard drives and the only computer that needs to play DVD media is in the livingroom³. I also don't install things from CDs, except for Debian itself.

Finally, connecting to my wireless network isn't automatically handled, and I do still need to do that with my netbook, but I can work around it⁴. Granted, I could have just memorized how to do it via iwconfig and friends, but this way is simpler from the interface perspective.

Bottom line; I don't need a desktop environment anymore. I'm good with the plain window manager. So it looks like GNOME is coming off my own desktop this weekend and Stump is getting re-instated as the manager of choice. The thing is, I also have a few old machines lying around that chug noticeably under any sort of graphic interface. And it turns out that if I'm willing to ditch Nautilus, and fend for myself in terms of mounting media/connecting to networks, then I can go all the way to terminal.

I've been using GNU Screen as a way of deploying Lisp applications, but looking over the keybindings and man page, it looks like it can serve as a respectable alternative to a tiling window manager.

Screen WM

The default control combination is C-a instead of C-t, and the keys are significantly different, and you can't extend it in Lisp⁵, but it looks like a fairly simple .screenrc file can turn it into Stump-Lite. Here's a quick breakdown, assuming the default bindings:

• C-a ? shows you the help screen.
• C-a c starts a new terminal in the same session (when you re-attach later, you'll have both of these)
• C-a | splits the screen vertically (note that screen doesn't automatically start a second terminal). Equivalent to C-t S
• C-a S splits screen horizontally. Equivalent to C-t s
• C-a TAB moves to the next split
• C-a X removes the current split
• C-a C-a pulls the other terminal. Equivalent to C-t C-t
• C-a n/C-a C-n cycles to the next terminal (C-a p/C-a C-p cycles backward)

In other words, out of the box, you've got the same basic window management shortcuts this way. And if you feel like remembering extra keys, feel free to commit the above to memory. As for me, my .screenrc file is going to look something like

startup_message off

bind S split -v
bind s split
bind R remove
bind ^e screen emacs -nw

On a machine where I plan to use terminal exclusively, I'll also add

escape ^t
bind ^t other

to mirror the StumpWM keys I'm already used to.

Incidentally, that last line in part one is what got me convinced that screen could credibly replace X for my purposes⁶. It seems like you can wire up arbitrary shell commands and bind them to keypresses⁷. I left it out, but you can also put regular screen calls in .screenrc like so

split
resize 60
screen -t lynx lynx
screen -t emacs emacs -nw
focus
screen -t top top
focus

in order to customize your startup routine. I'm sure I could get more complex than that, but it illustrates the point. That snippet starts me off with a horizontal split. The top frame is emacs, the bottom frame is top and lynx is running in the background.

The stuff that I'll be missing this way is

• A dmenu-like command (it seems like you can't have screen prompt for user input to then use in a keybinding; I'll have to do more research. The only thing I'd do with this is setup some lynx webjumps in any case.)
• X windows (so no GIMP, gitk or a graphic browser on my dev machine, which is actually a good thing on balance since that'll reduce Reddit use)
• Resizing mode (you can resize windows in screen, but you do it by typing in a height/width in lines/cols to set the width to, rather than the Stump resize mode where you can incrementally tweak windows)
• A run-or-raise equivalent (the C-t C-e binding as above will actually start a new emacs every time rather than switching to it if one already exists)

Given how my .stumpwmrc is shaping up, I don't think this'll be a big sacrifice. The thing I think I'll miss most is actually gitk. I'll let you know how it goes.

1. Whether they were both mine and sitting in my room, or not and lying on a table in the OCAD student lounge.↩
2. Split between Debian, Parabola and Ubuntu, in order of descending quantity.↩
3. And has a standard GNOME 2 setup out of deference to my wife, who hasn't taken the Computer Nerd prestige class, opting instead to remain a regular nerd.↩
4. I've been meaning to do a writeup on that little UI layer I'm slowly using to coat my shell experience. pack and unpack have already left me smiling several times.↩
5. :(↩
6. Assuming I'm not working at my dual-monitor setup.↩
7. Use exec instead of screen if you don't want to start a new window for them.↩