komorebi/docs/example-configurations.md

komorebi, and tiling window managers in general, are very complex pieces of software.

In an attempt to reduce some of the initial configuration burden for users who are looking to try out the software for the first time, example configurations are provided and updated whenever appropriate.

Downloading example configurations

Run the following command to download example configuration files for komorebi and whkd. Pay attention to the output of the command to see where the example files have been downloaded. For most new users this will be in the $Env:USERPROFILE directory.

komorebic quickstart

With the example configurations downloaded, you can now start komorebi and `whkd.

komorebic start --whkd

komorebi.json

The example window manager configuration sets some sane defaults and provides five preconfigured workspaces on the primary monitor each with a different layout.

{% include "./komorebi.example.json" %}

Application-specific configuration

There is a community-maintained repository of "apps behaving badly" that do not conform to Windows application development guidelines and behave erratically when used with komorebi without additional configuration.

You can always download the latest version of these configurations by running komorebic fetch-asc. The output of this command will also provide a line that you can paste into komorebi.json to ensure that the window manager looks for the file in the correction location.

When installing and running komorebi for the first time, the komorebic quickstart command will usually download this file to the $Env:USERPROFILE directory.

Padding

While you can set the workspace padding (the space between the outer edges of the windows and the bezel of your monitor) and the container padding (the space between each of the tiled windows) for each workspace independently, you can also set a default for both of these values that will apply to all workspaces using default_workspace_padding and default_container_padding.

Active window border

You may have seen videos and screenshots of people using komorebi with a thick, colourful active window border. You can also enable this by setting active_window_border to true. However, please be warned that this feature is a crude hack trying to compensate for the insistence of Microsoft Windows design teams to make custom borders with widths that are actually visible to the user a thing of the past and removing this capability from the Win32 API.

I know it's buggy, and I know that most of the it sucks, but this is something you should be bring up with the billion dollar company and not with me, the solo developer.

Border colours

If you choose to use the active window border, you can set different colours to give you visual queues when you are focused on a single window, a stack of windows, or a window that is in monocole mode.

The example colours given are blue single, green for stack and pink for monocle.

Layouts

BSP

+-------+-----+
|       |     |
|       +--+--+
|       |  |--|
+-------+--+--+

Vertical Stack

+-------+-----+
|       |     |
|       +-----+
|       |     |
+-------+-----+

RightMainVerticalStack

+-----+-------+
|     |       |
+-----+       |
|     |       |
+-----+-------+

Horizontal Stack

+------+------+
|             |
|------+------+
|      |      |
+------+------+

Columns

+--+--+--+--+
|  |  |  |  |
|  |  |  |  |
|  |  |  |  |
+--+--+--+--+

Rows

If you have a vertical monitor, I recommend using this layout.

+-----------+
|-----------|
|-----------|
|-----------|
+-----------+

Ultrawide Vertical Stack

If you have an ultrawide monitor, I recommend using this layout.

+-----+-----------+-----+
|     |           |     |
|     |           +-----+
|     |           |     |
|     |           +-----+
|     |           |     |
+-----+-----------+-----+

Grid

If you like the grid layout in LeftWM this is almost exactly the same!

+-----+-----+   +---+---+---+   +---+---+---+   +---+---+---+
|     |     |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|     |     |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   +---+
+-----+-----+   |   +---+---+   +---+---+---+   +---+---|   |
|     |     |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   +---+
|     |     |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+-----+-----+   +---+---+---+   +---+---+---+   +---+---+---+
  4 windows       5 windows       6 windows       7 windows

whkdrc

whkd is a fairly basic piece of software with a simple configuration format: key bindings go to the left of the colon, and shell commands go to the right of the colon. By default, the whkdrc file should be located in the $Env:USERPROFILE/.config/ directory.

Please remember that whkd does not support overriding Microsoft's limitations on hotkey bindings that include the Windows key. If this is important to you, I recommend using AutoHotKey to set up your key bindings for komorebic commands instead.

{% include "./whkdrc.sample" %}

Setting .shell

There is one special directive at the top of the file, .shell which can be set to either powershell, pwsh or cmd. Which one you use will depend on which shell you use in your terminal.

• powershell - set this if you are using the version of PowerShell that comes installed with Windows 10+ (the executable file for this is powershell.exe)

• pwsh - set this if you are using PowerShell 7+, which you have installed yourself either through the Windows Store or WinGet (the executable file for this is pwsh.exe)

• cmd - set this if you don't want to use PowerShell at all and instead you want to call commands through the shell used by the old-school Command Prompt (the executable file for this is cmd.exe)

Key codes

Key codes for alphanumeric and arrow keys are just what you would expect. For punctuation and other keys, please refer to the Virtual Key Codes reference.

If you want to use one of those key codes, put them into lower case and remove the VK_ prefix. For example, the keycode VK_OEM_PLUS becomes oem_plus in the sample configuration above.