Set default directory to match process about exwm HOT 5 CLOSED

For shells, I'd provide a hook but not enable it by default. It'll have trouble, with, e.g., SSH and would conflict with "better" ways to set the default directory.

Makes sense. In a shell with ssh one may even want to change the default-directory to a Tramp path.

I currently try out the following function based on your code. I've added it to the manage finish hook. So far it works well.

(defun +exwm-update-default-directory ()
  "Set `default-directory' to the current working directory of the X window process."
  (setq default-directory
        (if-let ((id (exwm--buffer->id (current-buffer)))
                 (response (xcb:+request-unchecked+reply exwm--connection
                               (make-instance 'xcb:ewmh:get-_NET_WM_PID :window id)))
                 (pid (slot-value response 'value))
                 (cwd (file-chase-links (format "/proc/%d/cwd" pid) 1))
                 ((file-accessible-directory-p cwd)))
            (file-name-as-directory cwd)
          (expand-file-name "~/"))))

from exwm.

I've configured EXWM to set the default directory of an X window to the processes default directory and I'm wondering if others would find this behavior useful/desirable.

Sounds like a good idea. Right now I set the default directory to ~/ in all my EXWM buffers, but that's far from ideal.

Of course, this won't keep the default-directory in-sync with the X window, but that usually only matters for shells.

Shells often update the title of the window, so maybe it would work if we refresh the default directory in an exwm-update-title-hook?

How do you suggest to enable this behavior? Install the hooks by default or optionally?

from exwm.

Shells often update the title of the window, so maybe it would work if we refresh the default directory in an exwm-update-title-hook?
How do you suggest to enable this behavior? Install the hooks by default or optionally?

For shells, I'd provide a hook but not enable it by default. It'll have trouble, with, e.g., SSH and would conflict with "better" ways to set the default directory.

As for the initial default directory, I'd set that in manage before calling any hooks. That way the user can easily override it but they get a sane default.

from exwm.

It looks like the following can be used to get the CWD on macOS.

(let ((output (process-lines-ignore-status "lsof" "-p" pid "-a" "-d" "cwd" "-Fn")))
  (when output
    (substring (nth 2 output) 1)))

I wonder whether running this process upon exwm-manage--manage-window is sensible.

from exwm.

@medranocalvo Yes, we could do that as a fallback. I don't see a problem, except maybe the efficiency. Starting a process is a bit more expensive than reading a symlink from /proc. Otoh we can also keep things as is. Then the default-directory in exwm-mode buffers on BSD is consistently set to ~/, which is also not that bad.

from exwm.