XMonad Tips

Note that the <super> key is usually Win or Alt, to the left of the space bar.


  • Press <Super>-Shift-Enter to open the terminal
  • Press <Super>-p to launch dmenu (application launcher)
  • Layouts
    • ThreeCol (useful for wider screens)
    myThreeCol =
      ThreeColMid
        1 -- Master window count
        (3 / 100) -- Resize delta
        (1 / 2) -- Initial column size
    • Tabbed (useful when managing related windows one at a time)
  • <Super>-h/l - resize active window
  • <Super>-j/k - switch focus to left/right window
  • <Super>-w/e - switch focus to other monitor
  • More keybindings here (poster-friendly)
  • Ideas for keybindings
    • Screenshot mouse-selected region to clipboard
    # In NixOS, add this to your packages list:
    pkgs.writeScriptBin "screenshot"
      '' 
      #!${pkgs.runtimeShell}
      ${pkgs.maim}/bin/maim -s | ${pkgs.xclip}/bin/xclip -selection clipboard -t image/png
      '';
  • Integrations
    • If you are using Pass with GPG, passmenu can be invoked from dmenu (see above) to get autocompletion in passwords.
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