This is the awesome WM config I have fined-tuned for my daily use. I am currently running it on awesome v4.2 on Debian tesing (buster), using work and work_thinkpad profile.

Uses tiling for long-lived windows (for writing, programing or reading etc), while floating for temporary windows (dialogs, file manager, IM, settings etc). Based on that idea:

• All windows are initially floating, and
• Floating windows are always "on top", thus in front of tiling windows

Use tags (a.k.a., workspaces, virtual desktops) to group windows related to the same task. A tag's name should reflect the task, thus should be able to easily changed.

• Make a key binding for changing the tag name in-place.

The interface should be clean while informative and functional.

• Only show the traditional top titlebar with window title text on floating windows.
• The color scheme is designed to best highlight the focus window, and build a strong visual connection between it and its task bar entry.
• Use a bottom bar at an extension to the border, which enhances the highlighting for the focus, and also serves as a more natural resizing handle than the top title bar.

Most essential functionality should be easily accessible from both keyboard and mouse.

• Provide both menu entries and shortcuts for most actions, e.g., launching the terminal and browser, changing the layout etc.
• Allow moving and resizing windows with keyboard only.
• Re-assign window-switching bindings from Mod-J/K to Mod-A/S to allow single-handed operation.

Responses to user inputs should be deterministic.

• Avoid toggle-style key-bindings. For example, assign separate keys for floating and or tiling a window, instead of assign one key to toggle floating state.

Additional shortcuts and changes to default key bindings.

• Self-contained: doesn't use any third-party awesome extensions.
• Support multiple profiles that let me have small tweaks (theming, autostarts etc) on my differnt machines. Use switch_profile.sh {work|work_thinkpad} to swich between profiles.
• Randomized wallpaper (link ~/.config/awesome/runtime/wallpapers to where the wallpapers are).

It uses the following applications / packages:

• urxvt as the terminal emulator (Mod+Enter)
• xfce4-panel to display the notification icons, because GTK+2 applications may crash with awesome's systray. I also have a window list on it that only shows minimized windows, because I made the wibar (on the top) skip them.
• xfce4-power-manager for the battery icon on laptops. Also provides backlight adjustment.
• xscreensaver for screen lock (Mod+F12)
• python-gtk2 for the quick search dialog (Mod+F10)
• ibus for Chinese input (Mod+Space)
• thunar as the file manager (Mod+])
• Google Chrome as the web browser (Mod+\)
• redshift for adjusting color temperature
• feh for setting the wallpaper

Clone the repository to ~/.config/awesome:

$ cd ~/.config
$ git clone https://github.com/zhangkun83/awesome-config.git awesome

Choose between the work and the home profile:

$ cd ~/.config/awesome
$ ./switch_profile.sh home

Set up awesome.sh as the awesome startup script:

$ sudo cp ~/.config/awesome/awesome.sh /usr/local/bin
$ sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/awesome.sh

To add desktop menu entry in display manager, create /usr/share/xsessions/awesome-local.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=awesome-local
Comment=Highly configurable framework window manager
TryExec=/usr/local/bin/awesome.sh
Exec=/usr/local/bin/awesome.sh
Type=Application

To set up environment variables, put it in ~/.xsessionrc, e.g.:

export PATH=$HOME/bin:$HOME/.emacs.d/bin:$PATH
CLUTTER_IM_MODULE=ibus
QT4_IM_MODULE=ibus
GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus

Current color scheme works best with HighContrast GTK theme. Use it for the key gtk-theme-name in both ~/.gtkrc-2.0 and ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini.

(Optional) link the wallpaper directory as the source of randomized wallpapers. If you skip this step, the default wallpaper will be used.

$ ln -s ~/Pictures/wallpapers ~/.config/awesome/runtime/wallpapers