RMS Window Layout

Neatly tile the terminal windows of a multi-camera RMS station so every capture window lands in a fixed, predictable spot — and stays there automatically after a reboot or after GRMSUpdater.sh restarts the stations.

It combines three pieces:

1. A gnome-terminal profile (StartCapture) that gives every capture window a fixed size and font, so they tile cleanly.
2. A devilspie2 layout generated from your station autostart entries and your screen size — one row per station, utilities and plots stacked to the side.
3. A small layout watcher that re-applies the layout whenever a station window (re)appears, with no changes to RMS itself.

Quick start

One line — clones (or updates) the repo into ~/source/RMS-WindowLayout and runs the installer:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Cybis320/RMS-WindowLayout/master/bootstrap.sh | bash

That's it. The installer pulls dependencies, imports the terminal profile, lays out the windows, and arms everything to run on login. Re-running it (just run the same line again) is safe and refreshes the install.

Or clone and run it manually:

git clone https://github.com/Cybis320/RMS-WindowLayout.git
cd RMS-WindowLayout
./install.sh

Optional tuning of terminal width (column count and pixel-per-char), forwarded to install.sh:

./install.sh 229 6                                    # local clone
curl -fsSL .../bootstrap.sh | bash -s -- 229 6        # via one-liner
# 229 = chars_wide, 6 = font_pixel_width (these are the defaults)

How auto-realign works

The watcher (rms-layout-watcher.sh, started from autostart) polls the X11 window list with xprop and reacts only to new windows whose title matches an entry in the generated layout (e.g. US005A…US005F, ChronyMon, Pyranometer). When one shows up it waits for the burst to settle — so all six stations coming up at once coalesce into a single realign — then runs realign_windows.sh, which regenerates the layout and re-applies devilspie2 twice (the second pass beats the window manager fighting placement).

Because an RMS station sets its window title early but then resizes/moves its own window a few seconds later — after both passes have already landed — the watcher also fires one delayed follow-up realign RMS_LAYOUT_RESETTLE seconds later (default 10) to re-apply once the windows have finished their own late initialization. (devilspie2 only reacts to window create/name events, not a window quietly moving itself, so without this the late self-move would stick.) Overlapping realigns simply re-apply the same generated layout, so they are idempotent and need no serialization.

This covers every restart path uniformly:

Trigger	What happens
Reboot / login	Autostart launches devilspie2 + the watcher; the watcher does one initial align, then catches each station window as it opens.
GRMSUpdater.sh restart	GRMSUpdater relaunches the stations in new terminals; the watcher sees the new windows and realigns once they're all up.
Manual relaunch of a station	Same — the new window is detected and the layout re-applied.
Manual, on demand	Double-click the Realign Windows desktop shortcut.

The realign trigger needs no changes to RMS — the watcher reacts purely to windows appearing.

Recommended: tell GRMSUpdater which terminal profile to use

The watcher fixes window position and size, but on the GRMSUpdater.sh restart path the terminals still inherit gnome-terminal's default profile unless told otherwise (the login autostart entries pass --profile=StartCapture, but GRMSUpdater historically did not). That means GRMSUpdater-restarted windows can come up with the wrong font/colors/column-fit.

If your RMS includes the GRMSUpdater --profile flag, add it to the capture user's cron so restarts match the login look:

0 2 * * * /home/<user>/source/RMS/Scripts/MultiCamLinux/GRMSUpdater.sh \
          --term gnome-terminal --profile StartCapture --force

It's safe to pass everywhere: gnome-terminal warns and falls back to its default if the StartCapture profile is missing, and other terminals (lxterminal, kitty, foot, tmux) ignore it.

What gets installed

Path	Purpose
~/.config/devilspie2/generate_layout.sh	Builds rms_stations.lua from autostart .desktop files + screen size.
~/.config/devilspie2/realign_windows.sh	Regenerates layout and restarts devilspie2 (used by the shortcut and watcher).
~/.config/devilspie2/rms-layout-watcher.sh	Background watcher that triggers realign on new station windows.
~/.config/devilspie2/rms_stations.lua	Generated layout (positions per window title).
~/.config/autostart/devilspie2.desktop	Starts the devilspie2 daemon on login.
~/.config/autostart/rms-layout-watcher.desktop	Starts the watcher on login.
~/Desktop/RealignWindows.desktop	Manual "Realign Windows" shortcut.
gnome-terminal profile StartCapture	Fixed window size/font for capture terminals.

The watcher logs to ~/.config/devilspie2/watcher.log.

Requirements

• A station whose capture terminals are launched with a distinct --title (e.g. gnome-terminal --profile=StartCapture --title=US005A …), which is the standard RMS multi-cam autostart pattern. The layout keys off those titles.
• X11 (the layout tooling uses xprop / xdpyinfo / devilspie2; Wayland is not supported).
• Installed automatically if missing: devilspie2, x11-utils, dconf-cli.

Customizing

• Stations / utilities: add the station's autostart .desktop (with a --title), then run ~/.config/devilspie2/generate_layout.sh and click Realign Windows (or just re-run ./install.sh).
• Watcher timing: override env vars in ~/.config/autostart/rms-layout-watcher.desktop: RMS_LAYOUT_POLL, RMS_LAYOUT_DEBOUNCE, RMS_LAYOUT_STARTUP, RMS_LAYOUT_RESETTLE.
• Layout math (gaps, top-bar height, utility column): edit generate_layout.sh.

Uninstall

./uninstall.sh                  # remove scripts, autostart, shortcut
./uninstall.sh --remove-profile # also delete the StartCapture terminal profile

The devilspie2 package itself is left installed.