bring shit back in

1 files changed, 93 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/blog/2023-10-03-sticky-tiling-windows-in-bspwm/index.md b/blog/2023-10-03-sticky-tiling-windows-in-bspwm/index.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ab2fbad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/blog/2023-10-03-sticky-tiling-windows-in-bspwm/index.md
@@ -0,0 +1,93 @@
+# sticky tiling windows in bspwm
+
+`bspwm` has a useful `sticky` flag, which keeps the window on whatever the focused desktop
+is, basically like using `node -d` whenever you change desktops.
+for floating windows this works very well, but the situation is more complicated if
+you set the `sticky` flag for a tiled window.
+
+It works, of course, but since the sticky window is moved away from a desktop when it
+stops being focused, it loses its location in the desktop's layout,
+and switching back to that desktop places the sticky tiled window in the location any
+window would be. This is not ideal if you don't want to constantly reconfigure your
+layout after switching to a browser or something similar.
+
+There's actually a draft pull request from 2019 on `bspwm`'s Github that addresses this,
+[#1032](https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm/pull/1032), but patching bspwm to solve this
+problem is quite bothersome if you use a binary package. Plus, `bspwm`'s great advantage
+is how extensible and scriptable it is; there must be a way to solve this problem that way!
+
+There absolutely is, but it took a while for me to figure it out. I spent a few hours on this,
+getting it to *almost* work, but be flawed in a way that made it not worth using.
+But I finally got it working after [emanuele6](https://github.com/emanuele6) helped me
+on IRC (thanks!), and now I use it. So, here it is, `bsp_movedesk`:
+
+    #!/bin/sh
+    # deal with sticky windows when moving workspaces.
+    test -z "$1" && exit
+
+    # path format: desktop/stickywindow: parent
+    bspc query -N -n '.local.leaf.!hidden.sticky' | while read -r wid; do
+    	[ "$(bsp_countwindows)" = 1 ] && break
+    	dir="$HOME/run/bspsticky/$(bspc query -D -d focused)"
+    	mkdir -p "$dir"
+    	bspc node "$wid" -i
+    	bspc query -N "$wid" -n '@brother.leaf.!window' > "${dir}/${wid}"
+    done
+
+    bspc desktop -f "$1"
+
+    bspc query -N -n '.local.leaf.!hidden.sticky' | while read -r wid; do
+    	dir="$HOME/run/bspsticky/$(bspc query -D -d focused)"
+    	[ "$(bsp_countwindows)" = 1 ] && break
+    	stdir="${dir}/${wid}"
+    	if [ -s "$stdir" ]; then
+    		rece="$(cat "$stdir")"
+    		bspc node "$wid" -n "$rece"
+    		rm "$stdir"
+    	fi
+    done
+
+    # remove hidden window's receptacles. sucks but better than the alternative
+    while bspc node 'any.local.leaf.!window' -k; do :; done
+
+The script is a wrapper around `desktop -f`, and can be used by replacing instances
+of `bspc desktop -f` with `bsp_movedesk` in your `sxhkd` config.
+
+It works by reading and writing to a special directory
+(on my machine `$HOME/run/bspsticky`, kept inside a ramdisk),
+which contains directories named with a desktop's ID.
+These directories contain files named for a sticky node's ID,
+and contain the ID of a receptacle which the window should be
+moved to if that desktop is focused.
+These receptacles are placed before the focused desktop changes if there
+are multiple windows open (because doing this when the sticky window
+is the only open window is unnecessary.)
+
+This is the `bsp_countwindows` script:
+
+    #!/bin/sh
+    bspc query -N -n '.window.!hidden' -d | wc -l
+
+There are definitely improvements that could be made here,
+but It Works. the end.
+
+---
+
+here's a completely unrelated script, which swaps a window's parent to its sibling,
+in case you want that:
+
+    #!/bin/sh
+    # move focused window to sibling
+    set -e
+
+    # possibly causes a race condition if focused changes during script?
+    focused=$(bspc query -N -n)
+
+    if [ "$1" = "2" ]; then
+        bspc node -f @parent/parent/brother
+    else
+        bspc node -f @parent/brother
+    fi
+    bspc node -i
+    bspc node $focused -n $(bspc query -N -n .local.leaf.!window)
+    bspc node $focused -f