This is the fifth post about the Ratpoison window manager.

Here are a few extra things I use in Ratpoison to make it comfy.

Volume Control

Using this Ratpoison configuration:

bind braceright  exec volume_control.sh high
bind braceleft exec volume_control.sh low
bind bar exec volume_control.sh medium
bind slash exec volume_control.sh ask
bind bracketright exec volume_control.sh inc
bind bracketleft exec volume_control.sh dec
bind backslash  exec volume_control.sh mute

We can easily control the volume with these commands (after C-t):

[       Increment 5%
]       Decrement 5%
\       Toggle Mute
{       Set to a low value (10%)
}       Set to maximum value (100%)
|       Set to medium value (50%)
/       Prompt for volume value

This is achieved using the volume_control.sh script. It depends on amixer.

Vi like bindings

Using this Ratpoison configuration we can make it behave more like vi:

bind j focusdown
bind h focusleft
bind k focusup
bind l focusright
bind J exchangedown
bind H exchangeleft
bind K exchangeup
bind L exchangeright
bind s vsplit
bind v hsplit

Now we can move between splits with {h,j,k,l}, swap splits with {H,J,K,L} and create horizontal and vertical splits with {s,v} respectively.

Fast application switching

Using this Ratpoison configuration we can bind some keys dedicated to fast switch to the most common applications we use, urxvt and firefox in my case:

bind c exec app_select.sh terminal
bind e exec app_select.sh firefox

We can now fast switch to them with:

C-s e Firefox (mnemonic ‘explorer’) C-s c Terminal emulator

This is achieved using the app_select.sh script.

Interactive window selection

Using this Ratpoison configuration:

bind w exec window_select.sh

We can interactively select and change windows from a menu:

This is achieved using the window_select script.

Screenshots

Using this Ratpoison configuration:

bind at exec scrot -u -z -q 100 -e 'mv $f ~/.shots/'

We can take screenshots with C-t @ that will be saved in ~/.shots. This is achieved using scrot.

Fast calculator

Using this Ratpoison configuration:

bind C exec calculator.sh

We can get a prompt for arithmetic operations.

This is achieved using the calculator.sh script.

Backlight control

Using this Ratpoison configuration:

bind parenright exec backlight_control.sh inc
bind parenleft exec backlight_control.sh dec
bind underscore exec backlight_control.sh toggle
bind S exec xset dpms force off

We can control the backlight with (after C-t):

)     Increment backlight
(     Decrement backlight
_     Toggle between full and medium light
S     Turn off the screen

This is achieved using the backlight_control.sh script.

You can find a lot of additional handy stuff in my .ratpoisonrc file.