VimAw - Awesome Vim-bindings

Control your Awesome desktop with Vim shortcuts!

Have you ever thought about controlling whole window manager via Vim-like shortcuts? Now it's possible.

Installation

1. Clone the repository and replace your ~/.config/awesome/rc.lua file with rc.lua from the repo
2. Copy vimaw directory into ~/.config/awesome/
3. Restart Awesome with Mod + Control + r
4. Use VimAw! (Default mode is NORMAL mode)

NORMAL MODE

Simple commands:

h - go to win on the left
H - go to previous window
j - go to win down
k - go to win up
l - go to win on the right
L - go to next widnow (same as Tab)
r - run a program
f - change to fullscreen - DEPRECATED
m - maximize window - DEPRECATED - will be used for saving client into register (see TODOS)
n - minimize window (TODO - restoring window)
N - restore minimized window
i - switch to INSERT mode
s - switch windows
t - run terminal
e - run editor
u - jump to the window that received the urgent hint
v - switch to VISUAL mode

Multi commands:

dd - close current window
dj - close window down
dk - close window up
dh - close window left
dl - close window right
cl - change to next layout
Cl - change to previous layout
ct - change to next tag
Ct - change to previous tag
cs - change to next screen
Cs - change to previous screen
gm - toogle maximize window
gf - toogle fullscreen
gt - toogle window on top
Mod4 + Esc or Control + Mod1 + ] - switch to NORMAL mode

COMMAND MODE

If you want to run an Awesome command just press : in NORMAL mode. Now you can type your command. It's possible to use tab completion.

Supported commands are:

restart  - restart awesome
quit     - quit awesome
!<cmd>   - run a program (same as 'r' command) - completion for shell works too
terminal - run terminal
editor   - run editor

#maximize - TODO
#minimize - TODO
#fullscreen - TODO
#help     - TODO

VISUAL MODE

Still in development!!!

You can switch to VISUAL mode with v from NORMAL mode.

m - mark/unmark window

Testing

• Debugging rc.lua on ArchWiki

Xephyr :1 -ac -br -noreset -screen 1152x720 & DISPLAY=:1.0 awesome -c ~/.config/awesome/rc.lua.test

$ awmtt start --config=~/.config/awesome/rc.lua.new
$ awmtt stop
$ awmtt restart

Want to contribute?

VimAw is only something like protoype and there is a lot of work. Some of the TODOs you can find at the end of this document or directly in code.

What is the most important thing at the moment is to create list of shortcuts and their actions. Test them and optimize the list. After it will be necessary some code beautification and clarification.

Favoured method of contribution is via pull requests. E-mail patches are accepted too (seberm[at]seberm[dot]com).

Author

• Otto Sabart - Seberm
• www.seberm.com
• seberm[at]seberm[dot]com

Links

• Awesome API
• Lua reference manual
• Awesome on ArchWiki

TODOs

• Support VISUAL mode
• Which shortcut is the best for returning from insert mode? (MOD4 + ESC | CTRL + MOD1 + [)
• 'u' - open last closed window/application
• Control + w - manage current window
• Use 'm' for maximize or for remembering some client? - example: I have focus on my web browser. I want remember it under register x - I do 'mx'. When I want to run my browser next time... I just do '"x'
• (Normal mode) Fix problems when running a multi-word command using the "!", e.g. "!gnome-terminal" does not work -> error: Failed to execute child process "gnome".