Awesome Dotfiles

Contents

1. Details
2. Features
3. Dependencies
4. Installation
5. Folder Structure
6. My Preferred Applications
7. Application Theming
8. Keybinds
9. Notes

Details

• OS: Arch Linux
• Shell: ZSH
• WM: awesome
• Theme: Qogir-dark
• Icons: McMojave-Circle-Blue-Dark
• Terminal: kitty

Features

• Lightweight: Uses ~350 MB of ram on my desktop!
• Easy installation / configuration
• Very few dependencies
• Wallpaper auto-blur functionality
• Log out / shutdown / restart / lock screen
• Volume / brightness adjustment widgets with sliders
• Integrated dpi / resolution scaling
  • Note that xft.dpi must be properly assigned in the .Xresources file if you are using a high DPI screen
• Supports multi monitor setups!
  • The top bar appears on every monitor, and the side bar only appears on the main monitor
• i3-like keybinds

Dependencies

I have made my best effort to reduce the number of dependencies by using the awesome API to its fullest extent, and allowing users to edit the apps.lua file (see installation section) to define their own preferred applications. That being said, here are the dependencies.

Dependency	Description
awesome-git	Window manager - must use git version. If you are using an Arch based distro you can install it off of the AUR. Otherwise refer to the installation instructions
feh	Fast image viewer used as wallpaper setting utility
picom	Window compositor, eliminates screen tearing and allows for cool fade effects
rofi-git	Application launcher - must use git version
imagemagick	Used in config to generate blurred wallpaper

Optional Dependencies

These will improve the user experience but aren't required: Bear in mind that most of these dependencies come preinstalled on non arch systems. I would recommend reading their descriptions below to determine which ones you need to install. Alternatively, set up my config and install the packages based on what isn't appearing in the top panel.

• acpi: Battery managing cli application, used by top bar widget to determine battery status
• xfce4-power-manager: Lightweight power manager spawned when the top panel battery icon is clicked
• bluez, bluez-utils: Bluetooth cli application, used by top bar widget to determine if bluetooth is on
• blueman: Bluetooth managing application, spawns when the bluetooth top panel icon is clicked
• pamac-aur: Lightweight GUI package manager, spawned when the top panel package icon is clicked
• nm-connection-editor: GUI wifi connection editor, spawned when the top panel wifi icon is clicked
• Scrot: Screenshot tool, which is mapped to the Print Screen key in keys.lua. If you want to meet this dependency, ensure that the ~/Pictures folder exists, otherwise the program will not save your screenshots
• Alsa: Provides kernel driven sound drivers, which the control of has been mapped to volume keys in keys.lua
• xbacklight: Controls display brightness, which the control of has been mapped to brightness keys in keys.lua

Fonts You Should Install

• SF Text: System font used by macOS, iOS, and watchOS. Used in this config as the WM font. Also used as font for firefox
• Fira Code: Great monospaced font with ligature support, used in terminal and text editors

Installation

1. Ensure all dependencies are met
2. Clone this repository and place its contents into your .config folder
3. navigate to the awesome folder and place your desired wallpaper there, ensuring that it is named wallpaper. One awesome (pun intended) feature of my config is that the filetype of the wallpaper can be any image filetype and it will automatically recognize it. Remember to delete the blurredWallpaper file in order to make the blurring script recognize a new wallpaper has been added and needs to be blurred
4. edit the apps.lua file to define your desired default and startup applications. If you do not have an application installed that matches a given variable name, change the variable to '' (ie: if you do not have an image editor installed, ensure apps.imageEditor = '')
5. If the wifi top bar widget is not working, edit the widgets/wifi.lua file and ensure that the local interface variable matches your wifi interface name (if you are unsure how to find your interface name, check out this discussion).
6. optional: edit the keys.lua file to change / add keybinds

Awesome Folder File Structure

In order to avoid a poorly organized rc.lua spanning thousands of lines, it has been split into multiple files / folders. I have taken extra care to create a logical directory structure that will hopefully allow those new to awesomewm to have an easy time navigating it.

• rc.lua: Contains the script that runs when awesome starts (essentially links all the other files together)
• apps.lua: Contains the default and startup applications
• keys.lua: Contains keybinds
• rules.lua: Contains window rules
• theme.lua: Contains theme variables
• tags.lua: Contains tag (aka workspace) information, edit this to change the tag's icon and behaviour
• icons: stores icons used in WM
• components: Folder that contains all of the components of the WM, such as panels, volume and brightness sliders, notification pop-ups, etc
• widgets: stores widgets used in the functionality of the components

My Preferred Applications

• Display Manager - SDDM (with sddm-sugar-dark theme): Beautiful display manager. Matches the window manager theme very well and looks amazing
• Text Editor - nvim: I'm an alpha chad
• File Manager - Nautilus: Lightweight file browser, few dependencies, and can be configured to work with a preferred terminal. Also has extensions for easy right click extraction / compression of archive files (ie zip / rar etc)
• Web Browser - Firefox: Super configurable and isn't made by Google
• Terminal - Kitty: Used to use alacritty, switched to kitty as it is very fast and has great ligature implementation (which helps with programming in vim). Is very configurable and has built in tmux-like functionality
• Theme / Look & Feel Manager - lxappearance: makes managing icon / cursor / application themes easy, only theme manager with no DE dependencies, and works very well

Other cool applications you should install

• redshift: Changed screen warmth based on the time of day
• neofetch: Displays system information in the terminal
• cmatrix: Terminal base matrix text effect
• cava: Terminal audio visualizer!

Application Theming

Firefox

1. Set up my custom Firefox theme
2. Use this homepage
3. Use SF Text font

Spotify

1. Install Spicetify
2. chown spotify directory: sudo chown $USER -R /opt/spotify
3. run spicetify once to generate config
4. spicetify backup apply enable-devtool to enable devtools
5. Copy my spicetify folder to ~/.config
6. run spicetify update restart

Neovim

1. Ensure the nvim folder from the repo has been copied into the ~/.config directory
2. Install VimPlug with

curl -fLo ~/.local/share/nvim/site/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs \
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim

3. Open neovim and run :PlugInstall
4. Exit and reopen neovim

Zsh

Guide if you are having trouble following the steps below

1. Install a font that supports powerline, my favourites are Fira Code and Source Code Pro, however a quick google search will show many other great fonts
2. Install oh-my-zsh

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

3. Change the zsh theme to agnoster

• Open ~/.zshrc with your fave text editor
• Set ZSH_THEME="agnoster" and save the file

4. Install Plugins (Note that the ~/.zshrc edits are already done in this repo)

• Syntax highlighting (copy and paste the below command to install)

  git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting
  

  • Edit ~/.zshrc, add zsh-syntax-highlighting to the plugins section
• Autosuggestions (copy and paste the below command to install)

  git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions
  

  • Edit ~/.zshrc, add zsh-autosuggestions to the plugins section

4. Fini! Reopen the terminal to view the fruit of your labor

Keybinds

Note that the modkey is set to be the windows / command key. If you would like to use a different modkey check out the keys.lua file. If you are new to awesomewm, note that tag refers to workspace, and client refers to window.

Keyboard

• mod + enter: Spawn terminal
• mod + d: Spawn rofi (an application menu)
• mod + f: Make client fullscreen
• mod + m: Maximize client
• mod + n: Minimize client
• mod + shift + n: Unminimize client
• mod + [1-9]: Switch to tag [1-9]
• mod + shift + [1-9]: Move client to tag [1-9]
• mod + space: Change the tag layout, alternating between tiled, floating, and maximized
• mod + [up / down / left / right / h / j / k / l]: Change client by direction

Mouse

• mod + drag with left click: Move client
• mod + drag with right click: Resize client

Notes

• If the config isn't working there is a 99% chance it's because you are using awesome and not awesome-git. Arch and Manjaro users can download the awesome-git package from the AUR, while users on other distros will need to build it from source. This sounds scary but is as simple as folling the steps outlined in the official awesomeWM repo
• Awesome API Documentation
• If you encounter any problems please open an issue in this repo and I will gladly investigate it
• If you would like to change the wallpaper, ensure that the wallpaper is named "wallpaper" and is located in the ~/.config/awesome folder. Also ensure that you delete the blurred wallpaper file in order for the blurring script to recognize it needs to generate a new blurred wallpaper