Howto: Lock Your Screen in dwm with WindowsKey+L

A couple months ago I gave up all those fancy buttons, panels, widgets, icons, and other miscellaneous crap that make using a computer annoying, for a more simplistic approach. The dynamic window manager from suckless provides anything the casual web surfer or hardware design engineer could ever want and nothing more; exactly what a window manager should do. If you're reading this article chances are you already know this, so let's cut the crap.

The traditional Windows XP/2003 method of locking your workstation is pretty slick, just press WindowKey+L and you're good to go. But how do we bring that functionality to DWM? Easy...

Open your config.h:

q9550:/home/sysop/.dwm/dwm-5.6.1# vi config.h

Find this section:

/* key definitions */
#define MODKEY Mod1Mask
#define TAGKEYS(KEY,TAG) \
{ MODKEY,                       KEY,      view,           {.ui = 1 << TAG} }, \
{ MODKEY|ControlMask,           KEY,      toggleview,     {.ui = 1 << TAG} }, \
{ MODKEY|ShiftMask,             KEY,      tag,            {.ui = 1 << TAG} }, \
{ MODKEY|ControlMask|ShiftMask, KEY,      toggletag,      {.ui = 1 << TAG} },

Modify to look like this:

/* key definitions */
#define MODKEY Mod1Mask
#define WINKEY Mod4Mask
#define TAGKEYS(KEY,TAG) \
{ MODKEY,                       KEY,      view,           {.ui = 1 << TAG} }, \
{ WINKEY,                       KEY,      view,           {.ui = 1 << TAG} }, \
{ MODKEY|ControlMask,           KEY,      toggleview,     {.ui = 1 << TAG} }, \
{ MODKEY|ShiftMask,             KEY,      tag,            {.ui = 1 << TAG} }, \
{ MODKEY|ControlMask|ShiftMask, KEY,      toggletag,      {.ui = 1 << TAG} },

Next, find the commands section, and append:

static const char *slock[]    = { "slock", NULL };

Then make your way to the keys section and make it look like this:

static Key keys[] = {
/* modifier                     key        function        argument */
{ MODKEY,                       XK_p,      spawn,          {.v = dmenucmd } },
{ MODKEY|ShiftMask,             XK_Return, spawn,          {.v = termcmd } },
{ WINKEY,                       XK_l,      spawn,          {.v = slock } },
{ MODKEY,                       XK_b,      togglebar,      {0} },
etc... 

Save your changes and quit, then recompile dwm.

q9550:/home/sysop/.dwm/dwm-5.6.1# make clean install

Now, if you haven't already, download, extract, and install slock:

http://tools.suckless.org/slock

Finally, ModKey + Shift + Q to shut down dwm gracefully, then startx to fire it back up. Try locking your screen by pressing WindowKey (Mod4) + L. If the screen goes black, you're good to go. If not, you did something wrong, or my directions suck. Either way, let me know and we'll figure it out..

Word Count: 401

Tags: Debian, dwm, howto, Linux, suckless

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