Floating panel over fullscreen windows in tile WM

Question

I want to create kiosk using GNU/Linux. I need to show GUI one application full screen.

I've found that ratpoison suits my needs. But I also want to allow user to see and change keyboard layout and display digital clock on a panel. It's clear that I don't need all 1280 horizontal pixels to display this information. My full screen application has main menu and it would be great to use empty space on the right to overlay it with the panel.

I've achieved that with those lines in tint2 config:

panel_position = top right horizontal
panel_size = 150 24

strut_policy = none
panel_layer = top

It works well with a "normal" WM (like kwin), but I cannot get the same result with a tile WM (I suppose it's easier to strengthen simple tile WM than a "normal" one). I've already tried ratpoison, awesome and i3.

How can I achieve my goal? I can easily change WM or panel to a different one.

Answer 1

I've found a solution. I wrote simple awesome config (thank you, Tom Regner [https://askubuntu.com/a/193141/211231]). I've installed xcompmgr to get transparent panel background and finally I get configs:

~/.config/awesome/rc.lua:

require("awful")
require("awful.layout")
require("awful.util")
require("awful.tag")
require("screen")
require("freedesktop.utils")
require("freedesktop.desktop")

layouts = {
    awful.layout.suit.max.fullscreen
}

tags = {
     names = {"kwrite" },
     layout = {layouts[1]}
}
for s = 1, screen.count() do
   tags[s] = awful.tag(tags.names, s, tags.layout)
end

awful.util.spawn_with_shell("xcompmgr &")
awful.util.spawn_with_shell("qxkb &")  
awful.util.spawn("tint2")
awful.util.spawn("kwrite")

~/.config/tint2/tint2rc:

 # Background definitions
 # ID 1
 background_color = #000000 0

 # Panel
 panel_monitor = all
 panel_position = top right horizontal
 panel_size = 150 24
 panel_layer = top
 panel_background_id = 1

 # System Tray
 systray_padding = 0 0 0
 systray_sort = ascending
 systray_background_id = 1
 systray_icon_size = 0
 systray_icon_asb = 100 0 0

 # Clock
 time1_format = %H:%M, %d.%m.%y
 time1_font = Sans 12
 clock_font_color = #000000 100