Hello everyone!

I would like certain windows to remain in full screen even if another tiled/floating window is opened on the same workspace. I would also like the tiled/floating windows to remain above the full screen window so that they don’t disappear if I click on the full screen window.

The primary use case for this is games such as Eve Online, where I use a number of external tools which may or may not spawn new windows over the game window (e.g. the Rift Intel tool, which spawns a new small floating window whenever someone writes in one of the intel channels you set Rift to monitor). I dont want it to exit full screen mode. If a tiled or floating window is opened on the same window then Eve also goes into tiled mode.

Reading up a little about this I came across the concept of layers in bspwm, but I’m not entirely sure if they fit for this use case. Here’s an example of what I don’t want to happen:

(The Hostile Reported popup window is from Rift and spawns wherever focus is)

Normally I have it be entirely fullscreen. I’d like to be able to interact with these and other popup windows in tiled/floating mode without pulling Eve out of fullscreen.

How can I begin to work on this? Of course if you would like more info please ask and I’ll provide it.

Thanks in advance!

  • www-gem@lemmy.ml
    0·
    19 days ago

    While I left bspwm a few months ago, it served me very well for years. Unfortunately, as far as I remember, I don’t think it can do what you’re describing. That said, setting layout=above in the window’s properties will ensure it stays above others.

    You might not be looking to switch to another WM (and maybe not to Wayland), but Niri can actually do what you want, in case you ever feel like experimenting.

  • Holytimes@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    18 days ago

    This is trivially easy to do on kde with just normal window rules. Just setting eve to always be below means everything needed popping up will over lay it correctly.

    I do this for Poe and eve third party overlays and tool.

    You just use borderless full screen and it just works zero issues or fuss. It’s like having the game as your wallpaper makes it very convenient.

    I kinda would have figured any window manager could do this. It seems so basic. Always wild to learn the weird limitations of other desktop environments.

    • www-gem@lemmy.ml
      0·
      17 days ago

      Each WM offer a list of features. To avoid creating any negative reactions, I wouldn’t call the differences as “plus” or" limitations" but rather as developers’ choices. KDE can’t do it all either ;)