Do you want to completely up-end one of the core features of suckless software? Well this is the patch for you.
dwm-libconfig is a patch for dwm that adds runtime configuration for dwm using libconfig. It
(mostly) replaces the need to edit config.h for configuration changes with dwm.conf, a runtime parsed configuration file. This means that
to adjust configuration values in dwm, you no longer need to recompile. Assuming you don't need to change the behavior of the parser or dwm,
you don't need to recompile and re-install. Want to change your theme? A keybind? Bar position? Just edit the dwm.conf file and restart dwm,
simple as that. I highly recommend pairing dwm-libconfig with the restartsig patch for easy
hot-reloading of dwm.
Some notes however, this is a backported featured from a different project. The code style and design choices are definitely a little out of place for a suckless application. It is also quite overbuild for the level of configuration dwm offers by default, and is a bit "bloated" for that reason. It could definitely be slimmed down to a much lower line count at the sacrifice of modularity or verbosity. That being said, I did design it to be quite robust, extensible, and modular. With a little editing you can add just about anything you would like to the configuration relative ease, or slim down what already exists. If you would like to reach out, please do, I am more than happy to help. See Reaching Out for contact info.
The patch is based on dwm 6.8, so it is recommended to start there. You will need all the base dwm dependencies plus libconfig. You can find it in most distributions repositories without issue.
Here are a few common distros:
# Arch
sudo pacman -S libconfig
yay -S libconfig
# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install libconfig-dev
# Fedora
sudo dnf install libconfig-devel
# openSUSE
sudo zypper install libconfig-develdwm-libconfig will search for a configuration in a few places (in this order):
- Configuration file passed in through the CLI (
-c PATH) $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/.config/dwm.confor$HOME/.config/dwm.confif$XDG_CONFIG_HOMEisn't defined$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/.config/dwm/dwm.confor$HOME/.config/dwm/dwm.confif$XDG_CONFIG_HOMEisn't defined
If those three paths fail or lead to invalid configurations, dwm will try and use fallback configurations. These are not intended to be managed or edited directly by the user, and will not be backed up at the end of parsing.
$XDG_DATA_HOME/.local/share/dwm/dwm_last.confor$HOME/.local/share/dwm/dwm_last.confif$XDG_CONFIG_HOMEisn't defined/etc/dwm.conf
The first of these two is a backup of the last successfully parsed user configuration. The second is a system-wide default configuration
installed alongside dwm during make install. In the event all configuration files fail to be found or contain major syntax errors
making parsing impossible, dwm will fall back to the default values defined in config.h.
Now about the configuration file itself. The example configuration provided with this repository (dwm.conf) contains most of the
documentation you should need. I recommend starting with this file and tweaking to fit your needs. All elements in the file must
follow the libconfig file syntax, read up on it here:
If there are major syntax errors, libconfig will not be able to parse the file correctly, and parsing will fail, with dwm
falling back on the default configuration values specified in config.h. Minor syntax errors however, like an incorrect field in
a bind or a single setting, will not cause parsing to fail. In the case of a bind, that bind will simply be skipped, or in the case
of a setting, the default value from config.h will be used instead.
For those with performance concerns, the performance impact is very minimal. In my testing, even in extremely resource limited VM or emulated
systems, the time to initialize the parser and parse a configuration is negligible. The longest time I found in my testing was around 400ms,
with the rest of the setup of dwm's initialization phase (mainly setup() and scan()) taking roughly 1s. Real world performance however is
much, much faster, and more favorable to the parser. On both my laptop and my desktop, parsing process takes on average around 0.5ms. That
accounts for <5% of setup()'s total runtime, with setup() averaging around 10-14ms. If we also include scan(), parsing takes <2.5% of
dwm's initialization phase. During runtime, there are also some small performance losses, mainly surrounding access time on elements in the
keys and buttons bind arrays. However, even with the loss of their static, compile time nature, the performance impact is minor. Compared
to base dwm, we are looking at sub millisecond differences in access times. The additional memory overhead of the parser is also minimal.
Using smem, the PSS on average (on my system) is 1,450 KB, about 200 KB higher than default dwm, which averages around 1,250 KB.
There are still a few things I want to adjust before releasing this as a proper patch:
- Complete the documentation.
- Add an extra diff(s) to support patches like restartsig out of the box
I am more than happy to help you out if you are having issues or just want to ask some questions about the patch. The best way is to reach out on Discord @jeffofbread, or email me at jeffofbreadcoding@gmail.com.