Not all of this is required for the configuration, it's just the list of software that I personally use and recommend.
- bspwm window manager chosen because it's easily configured and doesn't get in the way of productivity
- sxhxd hotkey daemon default for bspwm and I have no reason to change it
- rxvt-unicode-256xresources terminal emulator lightweight, extensible with perl
- urxvt-clipboard makes urxvt play nice with the x clipboard
- urxvt-resize-font enables on the fly font resizing. very useful for small screens
- urxvt-vtwheel better scrolling support
- lemonbar-xft status bar easy to use panel with a tiny footprint, with xft patch
- feh image viewer and background setter it's simple and does everything you need
- unclutter-xfixes X cursor hider the cursor is useless for a keyboard driven config, so hide it
- redshift-minimal screen temperature daemon reduces eye strain in reduced light
- weechat irc client extensible irc client with great community support
- mutt mail client fast and well supported console email client
- msmtp mtp client sends email
- offlineimap imap client syncs email
- elinks web browser formats html emails
- firefox web browser golden standard web browser
- vimperator browse with just your keyboard, adds a great status line / combobar
- greasemonkey userscript manager
- appchan x makes browsing halfchan somewhat pleasurable
- viewtubeplus tries to force html5 on video sites
- stylish user styles manager
- twily's powerline firefox css makes the tab bar usable
- noscript block javascript from running automatically
- https everywhere force https where possible
- ublock origin ad and nuisance blocker
- w3m web browser console web browser, used for image previews in ranger
- rtorrent download manager trimmed down bittorrent client
- mpd music player gold standard music player daemon
- ncmpcpp music player fast and configurable mpd client
- mpc music player minimal mpd client used by the panel script
- mpv video player do-it-all video player for streaming and playing local media
- libreoffice office suite as good as it gets without running ms office in wine
- zathura document viewer lightweight extensible document viewer with a vim-like interface
- poppler pdf rendering lib much faster than mupdf
- zathura-cb comic book plugin for reading manga with zathura
- scrot screenshotter simple
- vim text editor the one true text editor
- vim-plug plugin manager lightweight and less finicky than other managers
- vim-airline status bar replaces the standard vim status bar with some useful eye candy
- vim-numbertoggle smart relative line-number toggling
- vim-gitgutter shows git diffs
- vim-trailing-whitespace highlights spaces where they shouldn't be
- auto-pairs spawns matched brackets / quotes
- nerdtree in-editor file browser
- gruvbox colour scheme low contrast colour scheme that's easy on the eyes
- zsh shell very powerful shell that remains compatible with bash
- tmux terminal multiplexer will save your life when X11 quits working
- dmenu dynamic menu application launcher (will be replaced with rofi later)
- ranger file manager extensible file manager that can use w3m for image previews
- pacaur aur helper yaort is for losers
- htop task manager beautified and more useful top
- progress tool to show the progress of coreutils basic commands
- tlp power management fire and forget power manager
- powertop power management great for identifying sources of energy waste
- infinality text rendering improves appearence of text
- infinality-bundle standard fonts basic fonts for apps that need it
- infinality-bundle-fonts more fonts fonts to play with
- source code pro for powerline monospace font primary font used in the system, extremely legible
- source code sans sans serif font font used for web browsing that retains the legibility of source code pro
- arc-darker gtk theme flat gtk theme with dark highlights
- paper icon theme flat and simple icon theme
- aimee streams some good music off of soundcloud
- testpl simple alias to check that a powerline patched font is set up and configured correctly
- classify classification banners using lemonbar
- rfetch system info tool with a weird octopus
- extract alias to extract most archives
- newmusic lists music added recently
many settings are optomised for power saving, the sleep timers on the panel script should be shortened for use on systems where responsiveness is valued over power consumption.
the panel design is evolving fairly rapidly, so updating will probably break your customisations. i'm working through a few papers right now to try to design it as intuitive and useful as possible. for reference:
- Carroll, J.M., Mack, R.L., & Kellogg, W.A. Interface metaphors and user interface design. In M. Helander (Ed.), Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., 1988.
- Erickson, T.D. Working with interface metaphors. In B. Laurel (Ed.), The Art of Human- Computer Interface Design, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Inc. 1990.
- Gentner, D. Structure mapping: A theoretical framework for analogy. Cognitive Science, 7, 155-170.
- Grudin, J. The case against user interface consistency. Communications of the ACM, vol. 32, number 10, 1164-1173, 1989.
- Mountford, S.J. Tools and techniques for creative design. In B. Laurel (Ed.), The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Inc. 1990.
- Rideout, T., & Lundell, J. Hewlett Packard's Usability Engineering Program. In M. E. Wiklund (Ed.), Usability in Practice. AP Professional, 1994.