layout_max, floating window problem

[donaldcallen]

I have bound a little script to pop up an xclock for a few seconds program[clk]=run_xclock bind[clk]=Mod+c

I also request that xclock windows float: quirk[XClock] = FLOAT

This works as I would expect, except if I cycle to layout_max with, say, a terminal window as the focused window and then press Mod+c. What happens is what appears to be a rapid alternation between the terminal window and a maximized xclock. It appears that the two windows are fighting for the focus.

Related, I think, is that if I am in layout_vertical in an empty ws and start an xclock, I get the appropriately sized floating window I expect. If I now cycle to layout_max, the xclock is maximized. It seems to me that the layouts should apply to tiled, not floating, windows, but this appears not to be the case with spectrwm. An error, in my opinion and I am guessing that the behavior I report above is related to this.

[donaldcallen]

I should have mentioned in my previous post that I am running spectrwm on an up-to-date Arch Linux system.

[marcopeereboom]

@LordReg opinion?

[sholland1]

I am running into the same problem. I am unable to float windows at all on the max layout.

[marcopeereboom]

@LordReg ?

[osimplex]

Same here, cannot get a floating window on max layout. Latest version of spectrwm on Arch Linux

[psiho]

I'm having a same problem. I have all kinds of quick "popup" windows I like to quickly open and close (Wiki, Taskwarior,...) while working in maximized layout in my Nvim. WOuld really like to see a way to fix this

[qsmodo]

I remember trying to fix this last year, but it was very difficult and I could only come up with a partially working patch.

If you are willing to consider alternatives: This and the wrong focus after closing a dialog window (#384) eventually drove me away to Dwm, where neither bugs exist. Though there is the difference that vanilla Dwm does not center floats when mapped, the alwayscenter patch flawlessly adds that behavior. And, AFAICT, most features of Spectrwm are available as patches there (except minimizing windows but even that one can be handled with a little script with xdotool windowunmap). So I really recommend giving it a try if the present issues bugs you.

[donaldcallen]

It certainly appears that window managers are not easy to do well. I'm typing this on an Arch Linux system running dwm for the reasons the previous comment cites and more. I've tried all the tilers and have found problems I can't live with with many of them -- spectrwm, bspwm and i3 among them.

I don't agree with dwm's cart-before-the-horse priority of staying within 2000 lines of code, which I think led to the crazy model of adding patches to get what I think most of us consider the minimum set of capabilities. But the damned thing works flawlessly in my setup.