Fixed "undead" window menus and made the windows use less resources

core/titlebar.lua

@@ -43,6 +43,37 @@ awful.screen.connect_for_each_screen(function(s)
         toggle_tags
     })
 end)
+local controls_widget = wibox.widget {
+    forced_width = 72,
+    forced_height = 24,
+    layout = wibox.layout.fixed.horizontal,
+}
+-- To conserve memory we keep one menu at a time
+local menu_widget = menu({
+    before = {
+        controls_widget
+    },
+    items = {
+        { "Move to tag" , 
+            move_screentags
+        },
+        { "Toggle on tag",
+            toggle_screentags
+        },
+        { "Stop task",
+            function() 
+                awful.spawn("kill "..tostring(c.pid))
+            end 
+        },
+        { "Kill task",
+            function() 
+                awful.spawn("kill -s KILL "..tostring(c.pid))
+            end 
+        }
+    },
+    vertical = true
+})
+
 return function(c)
     local buttons = gears.table.join(
         awful.button({ }, 1, function()
@@ -54,45 +85,26 @@ return function(c)
             awful.mouse.client.resize(c)
         end)
     )
-    c.menu = menu({
-        before = {
-            {
-                awful.titlebar.widget.floatingbutton (c),
-                awful.titlebar.widget.stickybutton   (c),
-                awful.titlebar.widget.ontopbutton    (c),
-                forced_width = 72,
-                forced_height = 24,
-                layout = wibox.layout.fixed.horizontal,
-            }
-        },
-        items = {
-            { "Move to tag" , 
-                move_screentags
-            },
-            { "Toggle on tag",
-                toggle_screentags
-            },
-            { "Stop task",
-                function() 
-                    awful.spawn("kill "..tostring(c.pid))
-                end 
-            },
-            { "Kill task",
-                function() 
-                    awful.spawn("kill -s KILL "..tostring(c.pid))
-                end 
-            }
-        },
-        vertical = true
-    })
     c.menu_button = awful.titlebar.widget.iconwidget(c)
+    -- A little trick we do to conserve memory and cpu usage on regenerating
+    -- buttons is we pop up a menu in the location of the icon
+    -- and insert buttons into the controls widget layout.
+    c.hidden_floatingbutton = awful.titlebar.widget.floatingbutton(c)
+    c.hidden_stickybutton = awful.titlebar.widget.stickybutton(c)
+    c.hidden_ontopbutton = awful.titlebar.widget.ontopbutton(c)
     c.menu_button:connect_signal("button::press", function()
-        c.menu.toggle()
+        menu_widget.toggle()
+        if controls_widget then
+            controls_widget:reset()
+            controls_widget:add(c.hidden_floatingbutton)
+            controls_widget:add(c.hidden_stickybutton)
+            controls_widget:add(c.hidden_ontopbutton)
+        end
         c:emit_signal("request::activate", "titlebar", {raise = true})
     end)
     c:connect_signal("unfocus",function()
-        if c.menu.visible then
+        if menu_widget.visible then
-            c.menu.toggle(0,0)
+            menu_widget.toggle(0,0)
         end
     end)
     return awful.titlebar(c) : setup {