negative:regex in windowrule not being treated as regex

[aaron-r-campbell]

I have a windowrule that should only apply if the window doesn't already have certain tags. For example:

windowrule = no_screen_share on, match:tag negative:^(tag1|tag2|...)$

The negative: operator is expected to invert the regex, but based on my testing, it seems to only invert the exact match for the string provided, not the regex itself.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a windowrule with negative: and a regex pattern to match tags, e.g.:

   match:tag negative:tag1
   

   This works as expected, preventing windows with the tag1 tag from matching.

2. However, if you try using a regex inside negative:, like any of the following:

   match:tag negative:(tag1)
   match:tag negative:^(tag1)$
   match:tag negative:(tag1|tag2)
   

   This does not work as expected, and windows with either tag1 (or tag2) are still matched.

Expected behavior:

The negative: operator should invert the entire regex, meaning the match:tag negative:... rule should exclude windows that have tags matching the specified pattern (e.g., tag1 or tag2).

Actual behavior:

The negative: operator only inverts the exact match for the string provided, without treating the string as regex.

Version/Environment:

• Version: 0.52.0
• OS: Arch Linux

[aaron-r-campbell]

On a second reading of the wiki, it seems tags are matched by name not regex. Nevertheless, I would be interested if there is a way to match negatively (or positively) against multiple tags as each prop type can be used only once.

[vaxerski]

tags dont use regex yes. You can't match multiple.

[aaron-r-campbell]

Hey, thanks for the quick response. Are there any plans to change this? I understand that matching tags through regex can have unintended consequences if both fullscreen and fullscreenDisabled are matched for example, but either allowing multiple match:tag props in a rule or introducing some list form of the prop like match:tags [tag1 negative:tag2 tag3] could work?

[vaxerski]

not atm but you're free to make a MR :)