A better swallow

A simple program that implements devour-like swallowing except it's actually smart. Also comes with a dwm patch that enchances the swallowing experience even more.

Building

c++ -O3 -Wall -Wextra -std=c++20 -lX11 -lXRes main.cc

or

mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. && cmake --build .

Usage

alias bs=better-swallow
bs mpv video.mp4
bs glxgears

How it works

1. Attempt to find the swallower by traversing the process hierarchy upwards.
   • If that fails, get the currently focused window like devour. (fallback)
2. Run the program provided on the command-line.
3. If the child creates a window, unmap the swallower.
4. If the child unmaps all its windows or exits, map back the swallower.

This method of finding the swallower is, in my opinion, significantly better than just grabbing the currently focused window like devour does. It means that you can run sleep 2; better-swallow glxgears and have glxgears still swallow the terminal instead of whatever other window you moved your mouse over by the time the sleep completed.

DWM patch

If you use the patch alongside this program you gain these additional features:

1. The first swallowed client will have its window positioned exactly where the swallower once was.
2. Once all swallowed clients have been closed the swallower will be put exactly where the last swallowed client was.