How far to bloat configs

[Alad]

How much bloat do your WM configs have to perfectly suit your needs? Or put differently, how daring or conservative do you feel are various WM defaults.

In my case, ~/.i3/config grew from 177 to 315 lines (almost double in size). Mr. Michael seems to rely more on users following documentation and their own ingenuity, rather than to build a complex config for them.

[machinebacon]

Good question. I'm mostly using spectrwm and just copy the default (/etc/spectrwm.conf) with a few lines modified, nothing added.

It's usually a good idea to take a look into /usr/share/doc/.../examples (or so) for some ideas, for example tmux has a handful of nice config files there, from which the user can copy some snippets.

But generally, I try to keep it as vanilla as possible (as long as the dev has sane defaults for most or all of my everyday apps -- Emacs usually requires some manual modification of keybindings in the WM).

[dkeg]

for some reason, i3 configs tend to get quite large. They kind of even start off that way. I don't tend to bloat them up that much anymore. cwm I bloated a bit, but more of a learning experience, reading though the docs and figuring stuff out. Others I tend to add the basics and use dmenu for the rest. I don't do keybindings anymore to start programs; only dmenu, urxvt, stats. Other than wm's, my configs stay pretty basic, adding to or tweaking as needed. I think its actually pretty organic. Some configs will grow with experience, while others will shrink. Take pidsley's cwmrc for instance.

[bones]

I keep an .Xresources file that I use for Linux or BSD, and I use stock spectrwm on both Slackware and OpenBSD. I might add some things to the bar, like battery and such on the T61, but I haven't yet (easy enough to check in a console that's already open).

[machinebacon]

bones, I use this for the spectrwm bar (align=left, comment the date line), and put

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sleep 3s && conky -c ~/.conkyrc | while read -r; do osd_cat -c #64ce9d -A center -l 1 -f -*-fixed-*-*-*-*-9-*-*-*-*-*-*-*; done &

into .xinitrc.

the conkyrc for it (thanks to pidsley)

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# super simple conky for wms that have their own status bar (spectrwm, dwm)

# this file is provided with NO GUARANTEE and NO SUPPORT
# if it does not do what you want, FIX IT YOURSELF

out_to_x no
background no
out_to_console yes
update_interval 5
total_run_times 0
use_spacer none
top_name_width 5
short_units

TEXT
M:$mem / C:$cpu% ${hwmon 0 tempf 1}F / D:${fs_used /} / ${time %l:%M %P %a %d %b} 

or a keybind for /usr/local/share/osd

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#! /bin/bash

temp=$(cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp | awk '{print $1/1000}') 
mem=$(free -m | grep buffers/cache | sed -e 's/[buffers/cache -+ :]//g' | sed 's/.\{4\}$//')
time=$(date | sed -e 's/EST 2013//g') 
batt=$(cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/capacity)
vol=$(exec amixer get Master | egrep -o "[0-9]+%" | egrep -o "[0-9]*")

#OUTPUT=
$(echo -e $time '|' BATT: $batt '|' RAM: $mem '|' TEMP: $temp '|' VOL: $vol| osd_cat -f -*-terminus-*-*-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-* -p top -A center -d 10 -c grey -l 1)

[GekkoP]

Ratpoison configs are pretty simple and clear (thank you, Pidsley). Not too much bloat in there, and I love those configs. Only thing I bloated a little is dwm's config.h and dwm.c, but just because I patched the WM to do what I need.

[ivanovnegro]

Evilwm, there is really nothing to configure, like I said once, only the border colors and the meta key and, thanks Pidsley for the patch on the mouse button.

[bones]

The last three posts all thanked pidsley, awesome. :D So, thank you, pidsley, from me too. I know I use your stuff daily.

Also, thanks bacon for the configs!

[pidsley]

You are all welcome -- it's nice to know my work is appreciated.

I wrote a longer answer to Alad's question, but I think the real answer is "it depends on how you like to work, and what you think is complex." Also, as dkeg says, configuring is an organic process. My config files these days look nothing like the ones I used when I started playing with different window managers.

[rhowaldt]

i think this depends on a couple of factors. first, the more customization-options, the longer your hypothetical config can be. second, is the config programmed in such a way that leaving a certain line out disables it or do you explicitly need to set it to 'false'. third, when you dont need to explicitly set certain options, are you the type of person who does it anyway because you like that better?