You might want to look into wmi the precursor of wmii which worked a lot like you wish wmii would behave.
There recently was a thread to find the latest available version of wmi. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 4:50 PM, Robert C Corsaro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Jonas Bernoulli wrote: >> >> Hi >> >> I have been using wmii for quite a long time now and am very satisfied >> with it. An other application I use a lot is emacs. >> >> By default emacs displays a minibuffer at the bottom of each window >> wasting some screen real estate. >> >> In case you are not familiar with emacs let me explain some terminology: >> >> * Minibuffers are a lot like dmenu. They are used to interactively >> read some input from the user. >> * A frame is what you call a client. >> * Frames can be split into multiple windows. So emacs-frame=x11-window >> and emacs-window=something we don't have to worry about in this >> context. >> >> So in other words: in emacs each client has an input-area, called >> minibuffer, at the buttom. >> >> However it is possible to have only one minibuffer which is "linked" >> to whatever emacs client has focus. So if you invoke some command in >> an emacs client that needs to read input from the user the minibuffer >> gets focus and knows which client it acts on. >> >> The problem is that I can't put the minibuffer anywhere in wmii. If I >> just make it a floating client it will cover up parts of other clients >> that it shouldn't. >> >> Since it is much like dmenu the logical thing to do would be to have >> wmii treat it like dmenu. >> >> So what I am hoping for is that when a client containing the >> minibuffer is created, wmii detects that and places it above dmenu, >> reducing the space available for managed clients. >> >> Then of course it would be nice if wmii only did that for views that >> contain emacs clients, but that is probably not so easy and not >> required to get started. >> >> It would even improve my user experience if wmii would simply add some >> space above dmenu, where I could manually put the minibuffer client. >> >> But of course I would prefer it if wmii would just treat the >> minibuffer client as a menu just like dmenu. >> >> So I guess this boils down to: how can I display multiple menus (dmenu >> and the minibuffer) at the same time, and how do I let wmii know that >> the minibuffer is such a menu? >> >> Many thanks for your help >> >> -- Jonas >> > > > Would another possible solution be windows that span multiple columns? This > would be nice, but it seems really hard the way wmii is designed. Has anyone > ever tried implementing such a solution? I have often dreamed of wmii > screens within windows and something like Alt-i to go "into" a nested wmii > and Alt-esc to go up a level. Of course, no dmenu in nested wmii screens. > Sorry, I'm rambling. > >
