[Devilspie2-discuss] problems with compiz

[Tomáš Hnyk]

Hello,
as you probably know, compiz uses viewports, that is one giant workspace  
divided into several viewports. Devilspie2 seems to have some problems  
with that.
Viewport 1,1 is the top leftmost, 1,3 is top and the third from the left  
to the right

1)  set_window_geometry seems to be relative to viewport 1,1. If my screen  
is 1920x1080 I am on vieport 2,2 and I use
set_window_geometry(2100,1200,650,950)
to open a window on that vieport, it is set to vieport 3,3.
2) set_viewport works only for the first row of the viewport grid (one can  
use it to reach viewports 1,1, 1,2, 1,3 in a 3x3 grid, but not the rest)
3) I miss a get_viewport function (if I set an application to open on  
certain viewport, then move it manually, and it opens a new window, I  
would need to capture the current viewport so that I can direct the new  
window to the current viewport)

At moment, I need to use a lot of glue and external tools like xdotool to  
do what I want. For example, to set a na application on a particualr  
viewport, I use:


if (get_window_class()=="Chromium-browser") then
    os.execute("xdotool set_desktop_viewport 0 0")
    set_window_geometry2(100,2250,800,600)
    maximize()
    os.execute("xdotool set_desktop_viewport 0 2160")
end
It seems to be to complicated. Now, for opening a Pidgin conversation in a  
3,3 viewport in the background (i.e. without changing my curent viewport),  
I do:

-- a helper function to capture string from external command output
function os.capture(cmd, raw)
  local f = assert(io.popen(cmd, 'r'))
  local s = assert(f:read('*a'))
  f:close()
  if raw then return s end
  s = string.gsub(s, '^%s+', '')
  s = string.gsub(s, '%s+$', '')
  s = string.gsub(s, '[\n\r]+', ' ')
  return s
end


if (get_window_class()=="Pidgin" and get_window_role()=="conversation")  
then
    -- get the current viewport
    vp = os.capture("xprop -root |grep '_NET_DESKTOP_VIEWPORT(CARDINAL) =  
' |cut -d ' ' -f 3-4 |tr -d ','")
    -- unfortunately, the below does not work due to a bug in xdotool
    -- vp = os.capture("xdotool get_desktop_viewport")
    -- set_window_geomtery is relative to current position, it seems, so  
go to the left and top most vieport
    os.execute("xdotool set_desktop_viewport 0 0")
    -- set the window maximized and to viewport 3,3
    set_window_geometry(3930,2250,650,950)
    maximize()
    -- now go to the original viewport
    os.execute("xdotool set_desktop_viewport " .. vp)
end

devilspie2 still allows me to do what I want but I guess it could be less  
complicated. All this is under Unity on Ubuntu 14.04.
Regards,
Tomas