Kröhnkite

A dynamic tiling extension for KWin.

Kröhnkite is mainly inspired by dwm from suckless folks, and aims to be "simple" in both development and usage.

Features

• DWM-like window tiling
  • Dynamically tile windows, rather than manually placing each.
  • Floating windows
• Multiple Layout Support
  • Tiling layout
  • Monocle layout
  • Desktop-friendly layouts (Spread, Stair)
• Integrates well into KWin features, including:
  • Activities
  • Virtual desktops
  • Window switcher
  • Fullscreen (KWin can fullscreen any window)
  • Minimization

Development Requirement

• Typescript (tested w/ 3.1.x)
• GNU Make
• p7zip (7z)

Build & Install

You can install Kröhnkite in multiple ways.

The simplest method would be:

make install

This will automatically build and install kwinscript package. Note that you can manually build package file using make package. The generated package file can be imported from "KWin Script" dialog in "System Settings".

Simply Trying Out

If you don't want to install the script, but still want to try, you can:

make run
make stop

to temporarily load (and unload) the script to KWin. You may also want to restart KWin w/:

kwin_x11 --replace

New instance will replace the current one, and print debugging message(i.e. console.log) to terminal. This is useful for testing and debugging.

Enabling User-Configuration

It is reported that a manual step is required to enable configuration of KWin scripts. This is a current limitation of KWin scripting envrionment.

To enable configuration, you must perform the following in command-line:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/kservices5/
cp ~/.local/share/kwin/scripts/krohnkite/metadata.desktop ~/.local/share/kservices5/krohnkite.desktop

A configuration button will appear in KWin Scripts in System Settings.

Default Key Bindings

Key	Action
Meta + J	Focus Down/Next
Meta + K	Focus Up/Previous
Meta + H	Left
Meta + L	Right
Meta + Shift + J	Move Down/Next
Meta + Shift + K	Move Up/Previous
Meta + Shift + H	Move Left
Meta + Shift + L	Move Right
Meta + I	Increase
Meta + D	Decrease
Meta + F	Toggle Floating
Meta + \	Cycle Layout
Meta + Return	Set as Master
Meta + T	Use Tile Layout
Meta + M	Use Monocle Layout
unbound	Use Spread Layout
unbound	Use Stair Layout

Tips

Removing Title Bars

1. System Setting > Application Style > Window Decorations
2. Click Configure Breeze inside the preview.
3. Window-Specific Overrides tab > Add button
4. Enter the following:
   • Regular expression to match: .*
   • Check Hide window titel bar

(Note: not all decorations support this feature.)

Changing Border Colors

Changing the color of borders makes it easier to identify the currently focused window. This is quite an essential if title bars are removed.

1. Open ~/.config/kdeglobals with your favoir editors. (i.e. Kate, Vim, Nano)
2. Scroll down and find [WM] section
3. Below the section, append the followings:
   • frame=61,174,233: set the border color of active window to RGB(61,174,233)
   • inactiveFrame=239,240,241: set the border color of inactive window to RGB(239,240,241)
4. You must restart your session to see changes. (i.e. re-login, reboot)

(Note: the RGB values presented here is for the default Breeze theme. Feel free to change these values. You can use KColorChooser to pick colors from the screen.)

Setting Up for Multi-Screen

Krohnkite supports tiling on multi-screen environment, but users must configure KWin to unlock the full potential of tiling management.

1. Switching between Screens
   • Separate Screen Focus option is required to enable Switch to Next/Previous Screen shortcuts, which allow switching b/w screens only with keyboard.
   • The option can be found under Window Management > Window Behavior > Multiscreen Behaviour. Note that this option appears only when multiple monitors are present.
   • Active Screen follows Mouse is NOT recommended.
2. Switching screen with Shortcuts
   • In Global Shortcut, you can find Switch to Next Screen and Switch to Previous Screen. They have no default key bindings.
   • It's recommended to bind them to Meta + , and Meta + ..
   • Switching b/w screens also sets the active window to the last active window on the current screen.
3. Moving Window b/w Screens
   • KWin provides Window to Next/Previous Screen feature
   • Recommended bindings are Meta + < and Meta + >

Useful Development Resources

• KWin Scripting Tutorial
• KWin Scripting API 4.9 Reference
• KDE API Reference
  • KWin::Workspace Class
  • KWin::Toplevel Class
  • KWin::Client Class
• Adding configuration dialog
  • Development/Tutorials/Plasma/JavaScript/ConfigDialog
  • Development/Tutorials/Using KConfig XT
• *.ui files can be edited with Qt Designer. It's very straight-forward if you're used to UI programming.