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I'm looking to set up keybindings to increase/decrease gaps and margins in Qtile similar to what the following does in i3-gaps:

bindsym $mod+equal gaps inner current plus 5
bindsym $mod+minus gaps inner current minus 5
bindsym $mod+Shift+equal gaps outer current plus 5
bindsym $mod+Shift+minus gaps outer current minus 5

I can somewhat get the equivalent of outer-gaps to work with the following code:

def increase_gap(qtile):
    qtile.screens[0].top.size = screens[0].top.size+5
    qtile.screens[0].right.size = screens[0].top.size+5
    qtile.screens[0].left.size = screens[0].top.size+5
    #margs = screens[0].bottom.margin
    screens[0].bottom.margin[0] = screens[0].bottom.margin[0]+5
    screens[0].bottom.size=20
    qtile.screens[0].cmd_resize()


def decrease_gap(qtile):
    qtile.screens[0].top.size = max(screens[0].top.size-5, 0)
    qtile.screens[0].right.size = max(screens[0].top.size-5, 0)
    qtile.screens[0].left.size = max(screens[0].top.size-5, 0)
    #margs = screens[0].bottom.margin
    screens[0].bottom.margin[0] = max(screens[0].bottom.margin[0]-5, 0)
    screens[0].bottom.size=20
    qtile.screens[0].cmd_resize()

Key([mod, "shift"], "equal", lazy.function(increase_gap), desc="Increase gap"),
Key([mod, "shift"], "minus", lazy.function(decrease_gap), desc="Decrease gap"),

I'm not sure this is the right way to do things, though. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be manipulated this way. I'm not really sure that the cmd_resize() function is what I should be using, however from trial and error it's what I've found to work. I'm not sure why the screen[0].bottom.size=20 (20 is the size of my bottom bar. I know I shouldn't hardcode, but I'm trying to produce a proof of concept before I clean the code) is needed, but the bar starts floating if I don't have that there. Finally, increasing and decreasing the gap gets close, but not quite to the original configuration. The gaps look slightly different than the original. So, I'm not sure this is the right way to accomplish this, and I could use the advice.

Secondly, though that gets close to accomplishing what I want on the outer gaps, I have not been able to make any headway to getting the inner gaps to work. I initially tried changing the margin parameter of a layout, and when that didn't work I tried simply initializing a new layout and replacing the old one as posted below, but neither approach worked.

def column_increase_margin(qtile):
    current_margin = current_margin + 5
    layouts[0] = layout.Columns(border_focus_stack='#d75f5f', margin=current_margin, border_width=0)
    screens[0].bottom.size=20
    qtile.screens[0].cmd_resize()

I've tried going through the code here, but it's a big project and I'm struggling to make heads or tails from it.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Dargscisyhp
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1 Answers1

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If I understand what you want, you can add the following to the Layout class in libqtile/layout/base.py:

    def cmd_increase_margin(self):
        self.margin += 10
        self.group.layout_all()

    def cmd_decrease_margin(self):
        new_margin = self.margin - 10
        if new_margin < 0:
            new_margin = 0

        self.margin = new_margin

        self.group.layout_all()

You can then add some keys in your config.py to increase and decrease margins. e.g.

    KeyChord([mod], "m", [
            Key([], "Up", lazy.layout.increase_margin()),
            Key([], "Down", lazy.layout.decrease_margin())
        ],
        mode="Margins"
    ),

I'm new to qtile, so maybe there is something wrong with the above approach, but it seems to work.

user3366817
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