23:38 <edrex> hi all!

23:39 <edrex> just moved over from sway, and things are working nicely so I think I'm going to stay awhile and idle on irc etc

23:41 <edrex> I'm interested in learning can be done with custom layouts. I don't have a history with dwm, but I used awesomewm for a long time about 15 years ago. After that I moved to xmonad. I do like the ability to have hidden windows in layouts, like i3 tabs etc. I'm wanting to understand what's possible with river layouts.

23:45 <leon-p> edrex: Ok, basically all windows in a layout are represented by a simple linear list. Your layout generator gets certain values: amount of windows, amount of main windows (hint, can be ignored), size of main area (also just a hint), width and height of useable area and in the near-ish future the app-id and title of the windows.

23:45 <leon-p> With this information, your layout generator can output window dimensions

23:45 <edrex> any recommended reading for dwm terminology? I see "monocle", "tags", etc. A glossary style resource would be handy

23:45 <leon-p> windows can be placed however you like, following whatever rules, algorithms and religions you like

23:46 <leon-p> however logically they are still a simple list. there is no tree. you can focus back and forth and thats it

23:47 <leon-p> you may want to read river-layouts.7 while it's still there

23:47 <edrex> can a window be hidden?

23:47 <edrex> will do, ok

23:47 <leon-p> You can't have a window not be displayed, but if a window is behind another, it is technically hidden

23:48 <leon-p> also careful, the way layouts work will change a bit with a PR I am working on right now

23:49 <leon-p> as for terminology, "monocle" simply refers to a kind of layout, not used in river

23:49 <leon-p> "tags" are more complicated.

23:49 <leon-p> basically river has no workspaces

23:49 <leon-p> Instead both outputs and windows have tags

23:49 <leon-p> these are bitfields.

23:50 <edrex> it would be nice if hidden windows didn't get rendered/get reduced redraw rate. IDK details of rendering pipeline but my impression is hidden windows in sway don't use much cpu rendering

23:50 <edrex> the tags thing I think I understand from man dwm

23:50 <leon-p> river has 32 tags, btw

23:50 <leon-p> but you don't have to use them all :)

23:51 <edrex> oh, it seemed from man riverctl that there were only 8 bits

23:51 <leon-p> ?

23:51 <leon-p> that would be a mistake

23:51 <leon-p> tags have the type u32

23:52 <leon-p> anyway, if there are other terms you'd like to have explained, don't hesitate to ask

23:52 <edrex> oh actually the example in the manpage has 9 bits.

23:53 <leon-p> regarding hidden windows: currently they do get rendered even if hidden, but ifreund mentioned that he'd like to work on damage tracking in the near-ish future, which would solve that

23:56 <edrex> nods

23:57 <edrex> i wonder what size surface hidden tab views are given in sway. I imagine it's the size they're have when shown

23:59 <edrex> OT: i have an ambition to create a heirarchical compositor that is integrated tightly with a context tracking service (so different branches can have different tags associated with them - still a bit fuzzy but I have some simpler interface prototypes planned to flesh out the design). Basically I want to be able to track the change over time in a tree representing the various tasks and views i have open, and feed that into an

23:59 <edrex> archival storage that I can search. among other things..