Configuration from which XMonad gets compiled. If no value is specified, a vanilla xmonad binary is put in PATH, which will attempt to recompile and exec your xmonad config from $HOME/.xmonad. This setup is then analogous to other (non-NixOS) linux distributions.
If you do set this option, you likely want to use "launch" as your entry point for xmonad (as in the example), to avoid xmonad's recompilation logic on startup. Doing so will render the default "mod+q" restart key binding dysfunctional though, because that attempts to call your binary with the "--restart" command line option, unless you implement that yourself. You way mant to bind "mod+q" to (restart "xmonad" True) instead, which will just restart xmonad from PATH. This allows e.g. switching to the new xmonad binary after rebuilding your system with nixos-rebuild. For the same reason, ghc is not added to the environment when this option is set, unless enableConfiguredRecompile is set to true.
If you actually want to run xmonad with a config specified here, but also be able to recompile and restart it from a copy of that source in $HOME/.xmonad on the fly, set enableConfiguredRecompile to true and implement something like "compileRestart" from the example. This should allow you to switch at will between the local xmonad and the one NixOS puts in your PATH.
null or path or stringnull''
import XMonad
import XMonad.Util.EZConfig (additionalKeys)
import Control.Monad (when)
import Text.Printf (printf)
import System.Posix.Process (executeFile)
import System.Info (arch,os)
import System.Environment (getArgs)
import System.FilePath (())
compiledConfig = printf "xmonad-%s-%s" arch os
myConfig = defaultConfig
{ modMask = mod4Mask -- Use Super instead of Alt
, terminal = "urxvt" }
`additionalKeys`
[ ( (mod4Mask,xK_r), compileRestart True)
, ( (mod4Mask,xK_q), restart "xmonad" True ) ]
compileRestart resume = do
dirs <- asks directories
whenX (recompile dirs True) $ do
when resume writeStateToFile
catchIO
( do
args <- getArgs
executeFile (cacheDir dirs compiledConfig) False args Nothing
)
main = getDirectories >>= launch myConfig
--------------------------------------------
{- For versions before 0.17.0 use this instead -}
--------------------------------------------
-- compileRestart resume =
-- whenX (recompile True) $
-- when resume writeStateToFile
-- *> catchIO
-- ( do
-- dir <- getXMonadDataDir
-- args <- getArgs
-- executeFile (dir compiledConfig) False args Nothing
-- )
--
-- main = launch myConfig
--------------------------------------------
''