Plasma

Plasma is a flexible, tree-based layout for Qtile.

If you're looking for a well-tested and maintained alternative to Qtile's default layouts, give it a try.

About

Plasma works on a tree structure. Each node represents a container with child containers aligned either horizontally or vertically (similar to i3). Each window is attached to a leaf, taking either a proportional or a specific custom amount of space in its parent container. Windows can be resized, rearranged and integrated into other containers, enabling lots of different setups.

Demo

Here is a quick demo showing some of the main features (adding modes, moving, integrating and resizing):

Installation

Install the package. You can get it from PyPI:

pip install --upgrade qtile-plasma

Then, add the layout to your config (~/.config/qtile/config.py):

from plasma import Plasma
...
layouts = [
    Plasma(
        border_normal='#333333',
        border_focus='#00e891',
        border_normal_fixed='#006863',
        border_focus_fixed='#00e8dc',
        border_width=1,
        border_width_single=0,
        margin=0
    ),
    ...
]

Add some key bindings, too. I am using these:

from libqtile.command import lazy
from libqtile.config import EzKey
...
keymap = {
    'M-h': lazy.layout.left(),
    'M-j': lazy.layout.down(),
    'M-k': lazy.layout.up(),
    'M-l': lazy.layout.right(),
    'M-S-h': lazy.layout.move_left(),
    'M-S-j': lazy.layout.move_down(),
    'M-S-k': lazy.layout.move_up(),
    'M-S-l': lazy.layout.move_right(),
    'M-A-h': lazy.layout.integrate_left(),
    'M-A-j': lazy.layout.integrate_down(),
    'M-A-k': lazy.layout.integrate_up(),
    'M-A-l': lazy.layout.integrate_right(),
    'M-d': lazy.layout.mode_horizontal(),
    'M-v': lazy.layout.mode_vertical(),
    'M-S-d': lazy.layout.mode_horizontal_split(),
    'M-S-v': lazy.layout.mode_vertical_split(),
    'M-a': lazy.layout.grow_width(30),
    'M-x': lazy.layout.grow_width(-30),
    'M-S-a': lazy.layout.grow_height(30),
    'M-S-x': lazy.layout.grow_height(-30),
    'M-C-5': lazy.layout.size(500),
    'M-C-8': lazy.layout.size(800),
    'M-n': lazy.layout.reset_size(),
}
keys = [EzKey(k, v) for k, v in keymap.items()]

Done!

Commands

The layout exposes the following commands:

Contributing

If you have found a bug or want to suggest a feature, please file an issue.

To work on Plasma locally, you need to clone submodules too, since the layout integration tests use some of Qtile's test fixtures:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/numirias/qtile-plasma/

Also make sure you meet the hacking requirements of Qtile. In particular, have xserver-xephyr installed. Then run:

make init

If that fails, run the init instructions from the Makefile one by one.

All new changes need to be fully test-covered and pass the linting:

make lint
make test

If you made changes to the layout API, also re-build this README's commands section:

make readme