xfce4-panel

Description

When xfce4 tools are on the system anyway, it might make sense to try xfce4-panel in dwm.

This patch modifies dwm, so that it treats any window with name xfce4-panel (default) as a status bar, i.e.:

it never has borders
always has y=0 on the monitor it is shown at (see below)
it is never shown as active window in the tag indicators
it is shown on all tags (via a tag rule in the config)
it is ignored on focusstack (MOD+j / MOD+k)

The panel does also act as systray for third party tools
Looks best when background is set to same color as the dwm statusline (black in the example)
Using a compositor you can dimm or completely hide it, when not hovered

The patch has been created against dwm6.3 but will apply on 6.2 as well.

Download

dwm-xfce4-panel-20220306-d39e2f3.diff (2022-03-06)
Older version(s):

- dwm-xfce4-panel-20210701-67d76bd.diff (2021-07-01)

Notes

The workspace switcher won't work interactively, but dwm's interactive tag indicators remain on the left anyway.
Some actions in the "session menu" applet (the one with your name as title) won't work out of the box. You might supply your own sub menu or modify the actions of the existing one.
The rest of xfce4's 40 or so panel apps should work (if installed) and also custom "applets" (see below) are working
Startup: A start via xinitrc should be fine. I use the autostart patch to start in background:
```
  sleep 0.3
  xfce4-panel --disable-wm-check
```

Panel Config

dwm

In dwm config.h rules, the panel should be configured to be shown on all tags and floating - see the patch.

xfce4-panel

You can inspect and set attributes in the command line via xconf-query (you could also do it via right mouse click and go to panel settings).

Here are all settings as I have it:

~ ❯ xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -p /panels/panel-1 -lv
/panels/panel-1/autohide-behavior  0
/panels/panel-1/background-alpha   1
/panels/panel-1/background-rgba    <<UNSUPPORTED>>
/panels/panel-1/background-style   1
/panels/panel-1/disable-struts     true
/panels/panel-1/enter-opacity      100
/panels/panel-1/icon-size          0
/panels/panel-1/leave-opacity      45
/panels/panel-1/length             5
/panels/panel-1/length-adjust      true
/panels/panel-1/nrows              1
/panels/panel-1/output-name        Primary
/panels/panel-1/plugin-ids         <<UNSUPPORTED>>
/panels/panel-1/position           p=0;x=5000;y=0
/panels/panel-1/position-locked    true
/panels/panel-1/size               21
/panels/panel-1/span-monitors      false

Discussion:

position: Configure the position to be at y=0 and x=<a big number> to get a panel top right (it will use the maximum possible x). See here for more on that.
```
  xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -p /panels/panel-1/position -s 'p=0;x=5000;y=0' # -s: Set a value
```
leave-opacity: Requires a compositor like picom. Set it to 0 to completely hide the panel when not hovered.
size: 21 matches the height of dwm status bar
output-name: Set to "Primary" instead of a fixed display name, in order to have support for multi monitor layouts.

Multi Monitor Support

I recommend using

arandr to create a new layout
autorandr to store and apply a layout automatically after state changes (via autorandr -c). This also supports hooks after switching.

---

Below is a usage example for adding your own information into the panel.

Optional: Using the `genmon` Applet

Most panels offer the possibility to include generic scripts output.
In xfce4-panel this is done by the panel item: "Generic Monitor" (genmon). It features output styled with pango markup and mouseover/onclick hooks.

Here are some genmon script collections:

Manual is here.

Personally I wanted to have CPU monitor, which shows the name of current high cpu eater(s) if present (next to current load by core) and on mouseover remembers the top output from the most recent high load situation in the past:

To get that, I cat the content of a file generated by this script, started in autostart.sh in the background: cpu_mon.py.

Author

Gunther Klessinger <gklessinger[at]gmx.de>