AwesomeWM: Alternative bindings setup

The default rc.lua from the Awesome window manager uses a lot of globalkeys = awful.util.table.join(...) code.

I disliked this because …

• in Lua, the last field of a table cannot have a comma. So often when I moved an entry around, I ended up with a pointless syntax error because of a missing or trailing comma
• adding elements by joining seems somewhat complex
• adding logic, e.g. only adding a keybinding under specific circumstances is suddenly more difficult

So let’s change this …

Note: the following works with AwesomeWM v4.0. I used v4.0-105-gbfb35349.

Define binding functions

I define a function where I can add one binding at a time:

local tinsert = table.insert

globalkeys = {}    
function globalkey(mod, key, func, desc)
   local key = awful.key(mod, key, func, desc)
   for k,v in pairs(key) do
      tinsert(globalkeys, v)
   end
end

clientkeys = {}
function clientkey(mod, key, func, desc)
   local key = awful.key(mod, key, func, desc)
   for k,v in pairs(key) do
      tinsert(clientkeys, v)
   end
end

Example usage

-- TAGS
globalkey({ modkey }, "Escape",
   awful.tag.history.restore,
   {description = "Previous tag", group = "Tags"})
globalkey({ modkey }, "Right",
   awful.tag.viewnext,
   {description = "Tag forward", group = "Tags"})
globalkey({ modkey }, "Left",
   awful.tag.viewprev,
   {description = "Tag backword", group = "Tags"})

I think this looks generally more pleasing. See my bindings.lua file a longer example.