Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

i3wm.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 454 posts

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#21

Post by new23d »

> Implement multi-monitor correctly, that is by assigning each workspace to a virtual screen. Especially make sure that attaching and detaching new monitors like video projectors works during operation and does the right thing. Also provide support for rotated monitors.

My wishlist would be to have this go further and be aware of inter-monitor, relative positioning as well. For example, I use the ⊢ layout (one rotated monitor on the left, one straight monitor right in front) and it's usually an unsatisfactory experience tiling windows for productivity.

Things I do on the vertically oriented monitor on the left are mostly reading documents or watching logs.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#22

Post by ageofwant »

ddalex wrote: post #11
makepanic wrote: post #2

Sadly it's bound to X11. The alternative for me was to migrate to sway[1] to have a similar environment in wayland. [1] - https://github.com/swaywm/sway/

since sway and i3 are pretty much interoperable, I see no problems there.

Unless you like your steam accelerated on your Nvidia card. Granted, this was ~9 months ago, would be pleased if this changed in the mean time.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#23

Post by im3w1l »

theelous3 wrote: post #12

I'll never understand why every dev doesn't use tiling wms. Such a free productivity and happiness win.

I used to use a tiling wm but now that everything supports dragging windows into a side of the screen to make them take up half the screen, I find that my main usecase of tiling wm's: side-by-side windows, is handled well enough that I don't want to put up with the occasional annoyances.

The main pain point of stock ubuntu gnome for me right now is that when I open too many windows, my alt-tab becomes too cluttered, and it would be cool if there was a way to designate windows as background somehow (but not different workspace, I don't like workspaces), so that it would not show up in alt-tab. Ideally I would be able to have like 40 open windows of which just a handful are "active".

EDIT: The side bar could be used for bringing up windows if it didn't combine windows from the same program into one icon - a feature I absolutely loathe - seriously, I have a lot of empty screen real estate but instead you want to hide my windows behind a second click?

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#24

Post by Foxboron »

trefil wrote: post #20
Foxboron wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It greatly annoys me that wayland still doesn't have any solutions for synergy/barrier type software. I depend on it daily for using my desktop and laptop and it's tedious to make the switch as it currently is.

I made a program called rkvm which works on a level below display servers (works with uinput directly) and thus doesn't suffer from these problems. Currently, it only supports Linux and Windows, where only client support is implemented on Windows, but it works well for my use case. https://github.com/htrefil/rkvm

Need server on windows and client on linux so this won't work properly yet for me.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#25

Post by fileeditview »

theelous3 wrote: post #12

I'll never understand why every dev doesn't use tiling wms. Such a free productivity and happiness win.

I can answer you from my perspective. I used i3 and also awesome for some time but they didn't give me real benefits. Instead they made the occasional floating window look and work crappy.

I use byobu(tmux) for managing my terminal splits, which is all i need. I also have removed any window decorations from my terminal. I have shortcuts configured in gnome which let me do the occasional side-by-side windows easily. I rarely use the mouse but I have the option.

Of course if you do a lot of crazy tiling like 3,3,2 or whatever, a tiling window manager might be a good idea. In my experience you just never need that. Maybe I am missing something.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#27

Post by bitigchi »

Probably an unpopular opinion here, but I do not understand why people prefer tiling window managers. I prefer to have lots of windows open, and being able to position them how I want with the size I want greatly increases my productivity. Tiling window managers makes you conform to their way of working.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#28

Post by solarkraft »

ageofwant wrote: post #18
makepanic wrote: post #2

Sadly it's bound to X11. The alternative for me was to migrate to sway[1] to have a similar environment in wayland. [1] - https://github.com/swaywm/sway/

And sway does not do Nvidia.

While I think the decision is unfortunate this might help understanding it: https://drewdevault.com/2017/10/26/Fuck-you-nvidia.html

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#29

Post by RMPR »

bitigchi wrote: post #27

Probably an unpopular opinion here, but I do not understand why people prefer tiling window managers. I prefer to have lots of windows open, and being able to position them how I want with the size I want greatly increases my productivity. Tiling window managers makes you conform to their way of working.

Imho the main advantage is the keyboard focused navigation

Edit: it is also lightweight, with proper power management (think TLP/Powertop) you can vastly improve your battery life.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#30

Post by dbrgn »

bitigchi wrote: post #27

Probably an unpopular opinion here, but I do not understand why people prefer tiling window managers. I prefer to have lots of windows open, and being able to position them how I want with the size I want greatly increases my productivity. Tiling window managers makes you conform to their way of working.

Most if not all tiling window managers allow you to do that by switching to a floating mode.
Post reply on HN