🌿 herbie 🌿
A herbstluftwm interactive environment thingy.

herbie is persistent helper for adding behavior to herbstluftwm by reacting to keybindings and interacting via rofi.

You are reading it. This file is it. You can see it rendered in the herbie's github repo or more beautifully by Emacs with the help of fniessen's ReadTheOrg on herbie's github pages.

herbie installs in the usual Python ways. Direct from GitHub:

uv tool install git+https://github.com/brettviren/herbie

Or from PyPi

uv tool install herbstluft-herbie

Note, the project named herbie on PyPI is not related to this herbie.

$ herbie hooks

Run with no arguments to get help on log and config files and if herbie needs help to find herbstclient.

Once started, herbie is long-running process that reacts to information from herbstluftwm "hooks". herbie can react to standard hooks and custom hooks. For example,

$ herbstclient emit_hook window_jump_tag

Or, when herbstlufwm restarts, it emits the restart hook and herbie will react by restarting itself. Every hook is handled by a method in the Herbie class of hte same name. See that class for a definitive list but here are some of the existing hook handlers:

window_jump_tag

opens a rofi menu for jumping to a window in the current tag.

window_jump_any

as above but include all windows across tabs.

window_menu

open a menu on current window to apply some operation (close, minimize, toggle some property like floating or fullscreen).

layout_{drop,save,load}

open a menu to operate on layouts (see below)

task_{start,clear}

open a menu to operate on tasks (see below).

Many of the hooks that herbie reacts to are most conveniently emitted via a key binding. Here is a snippet of ~/.config/herbstluftwm/autostart that shows some examples:

# emit to herbie
hc keybind $Mod-n        emit_hook window_jump_tag
hc keybind $Mod-Shift-n  emit_hook window_jump_any
hc keybind $Mod-w        emit_hook window_menu
# k for kill
hc keybind $Mod-k       emit_hook layout_drop
# capital-K for "keep"?
hc keybind $Mod-Shift-k emit_hook layout_save
# y for yank
hc keybind $Mod-y       emit_hook layout_load
hc keybind $Mod-i       emit_hook task_start
hc keybind $Mod-Shift-i emit_hook task_clear

A "layout" is a description of how herbstluftwm places windows in a tag. For example, you may see the layout of your current tag with:

$ herbstclient dump
(split horizontal:0.5:0 (clients grid:0 0x120000e) (clients grid:0 0x3c00142))

herbie has support for managing a persistent store of layouts and applying them. It does this by presenting the user with a rofi menu in response to the layout_{drop,save,load} hooks.

The menu items include the layout name as well as a little icon that herbie generates to show the geometry of the window outlines. Here is an example:

Layouts are saved in:

~/.config/herbie/layouts/<tag>/<name>.layout

The user may create or edit these files by hand but perhaps it is easiest to configure a layout via herbstluftwm and then save it.

Tasks are like layouts with added support for starting applications. The term "task" refers to setting up a space for a user, and not herbie, to perform tasks. Tasks are configured through the herbie config file

~/.config/herbie/herbie.cfg

A task is specified in a form similar to a herbstluftwm layout but the (clients) form supports an additional window:<name> field. It specifies an application that should exist in the herbstluftwm frame. This is most clear with an example:

[window firefox-rss]
title = Mozilla Firefox
command = firefox -P rss-profile

[window liferea]
class = Liferea
command = liferea

[tasks]
rss = (split horizontal:0.75:1
        (clients window:firefox-rss)
        (split vertical:0.50:0
          (clients window:liferea)
          (clients )))

Each [window <name>] gives a command to run to populate the frame while the class or title gives string that is used to match these client attributes as may be found with, for example:

herbstclient attr clients.<window-id>.{title,class}

When task_start hook is received, herbie will present a rofi menu with all known tasks. Selecting one will create a tag with that task, assure the configured applications are present and following the layout and make that tag current. If the tag already exists, herbie will simply make it become the current tag. The result is an automatically and repeatably populated tag.

• https://herbstluftwm.org/ of course.
• A random collection of tips and tricks to use herbsluftwm.

• [ ] Layouts should be definable in herbie.cfg and that set should be a union of what is manged in layouts/.
• [ ] The task layout should be considered without needing to be redefined explicitly as a layout.
• [ ] herbsluftwm 0.9.6 adds a --binary-pipe which allows to send multiple commands through a single herbstclient instance. A few of herbie's reactions invoke a sequence of herbstclient calls and they may benefit from this feature.