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I want to use Ratpoison as WM but I want the DE goodies from Xfce4. That includes

  • keyboard layout switching while holding a modifier key, switching back on release *
  • tray icon support *
  • notifications
  • multimedia keys like volume
  • gtk skinning

(* means dealbreaker, others nice to have)

Easiest way I guess would be to run Xfce4 as DE replacing the WM with Ratpoison. I have tried and failed getting this to work. Most suggestions mention the use of --replace as an argument to the WM of choice. However, Ratpoison does not come with that feature, at least not what I can find.

ratpoison: unrecognized option '--replace'

Another way would be to fulfill my requirements above by fitting various hacks into the WM, but that sounds like reinventing the wheel... And frankly I don't know if I'd be able to accomplish it.

All hints to fulfill all or some items of my wishlist is +1.

Johan
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1 Answers1

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Ok, I actually figured out one way to do it. I simply uninstalled the xfwm4 (in my case apt-get remove xwm4), and in Xfce I added ratpoison as a startup application. For the traybar I reserved some space by putting the following into my ~/.ratpoisonrc

unmanage xfce4-panel
set padding 0 20 0 0

This basically gave me the DE of Xfce4 and the WM of ratpoison. Hence everything solved. I will not accept my own answer though, if someone has a better way of doing it than uninstalling the package.

Johan
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