Desktop

I use Emacs as a Desktop Environment with the EXWM¹ package. It allows Emacs to function as a complete tiling window manager for X11².

Initialization

My workflow includes launching the window manager with Xinit³, without the use of a display manager, controlling everything within Emacs.

exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session emacs -mm --debug-init

Create a symbolic link(s)

Xinit³ reads its configuration from ~/.xinitrc. Override this location with a link to the custom configuration.

(dotfiles/symlink "~/.emacs.d/config/xinitrc"
                  "~/.xinitrc")

Desktop environment

Use the desktop-environment package to automatically bind well-known programs for controlling the volume, brightness, media playback, and many other XF86 functionality bindings.

(use-package desktop-environment
  :after exwm
  :custom (desktop-environment-brightness-small-increment "5%+")
          (desktop-environment-brightness-small-decrement "5%-")
          (desktop-environment-brightness-normal-decrement "10%-")
          (desktop-environment-brightness-normal-decrement "10%-")
  :config (desktop-environment-mode))

Keyboard tweaks

Use XModmap to swap CapsLock and Ctrl to keep common bindings on the home row.

clear lock
clear control

keycode 66 = Control_L

add control = Control_L
add Lock = Control_R

(dotfiles/symlink "~/.emacs.d/config/xmodmap"
                  "~/.Xmodmap")

Browser integration

Write out the $BROWSER variable so other applications can pick up the custom browser.

Place custom keybindings for browsing behind SPC b
- URL with u
- URL at point with p
- URL at cursor with c

(setenv "BROWSER" dotfiles/browser)

(dotfiles/leader
  "u" '(:ignore t :which-key "Browse")
  "uu" '(browse-url :which-key "URL")
  "up" '(browse-url-at-point :which-key "Point")
  "uc" '(browse-url-at-cursor :which-key "Cursor"))

Displays detection

When the window manager first launches the init-hook executes, allowing us to define some custom logic.

Display time and date
Display battery info (if available)

In my personal configuration, I do not want the battery or time displayed within Emacs when it's not running as desktop environment because that information is typically already available.

(defun dotfiles/init-hook ()
  (exwm-workspace-switch-create 1)
  (setq display-time-and-date t)
  (display-battery-mode 1)
  (display-time-mode 1))

Using autorandr with pre configured profiles, switching screens (AKA hot plugging) is also handled through a hook.

(defun dotfiles/update-display ()
  "Update the displays by forcing a change through autorandr."
  (dotfiles/run-in-background "autorandr --change --force"))

Window manager

Connect our custom hooks and configure the input keys, a custom layer for key capture layers.

Enable randr support
Pass through to Emacs
- M-x to Emacs
- C-g to Emacs
- C-SPC to Emacs
Bindings with S (Super / Win)
- Reset S-r
- Launch S-&
- Workspace S-[1..9]

(use-package exwm
  :when (window-system)
  :custom (exwm-workspace-show-all-buffers t)
          (exwm-input-prefix-keys
            '(?\M-x
              ?\C-g
              ?\C-\ ))
          (exwm-input-global-keys
            `(([?\s-r] . exwm-reset)
              ,@(mapcar (lambda (i)
                          `(,(kbd (format "s-%d" i)) .
                          (lambda ()
                          (interactive)
                          (exwm-workspace-switch-create ,i))))
                          (number-sequence 1 9))))
  :config (require 'exwm-randr)
          (exwm-randr-enable)
          (add-hook 'exwm-init-hook #'dotfiles/init-hook)
          (add-hook 'exwm-randr-screen-change-hook #'dotfiles/update-display)
          (add-hook 'exwm-update-class-hook (lambda () (exwm-workspace-rename-buffer exwm-class-name)))
          (dotfiles/update-display)
          (exwm-enable))

Footnotes

https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinit

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