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I turned gnome-shell into a tiling window manager

gfxmonk.net

11–20 of 22 posts

Re: I turned gnome-shell into a tiling window manager

#11
post #3

You might want to add a little more information on your page explaining what it is. I.e. What is the difference with Bluetile? With tmux? Also, if I start gnome-terminal, run tmux, and put it full-screen.. isn't it a "gnome tiling manager" ?

I was a bit confused at first. When he said tiling windows with the gnome terminal I thought, "is this just a GNU screen tutorial with a buzz-words title?" When I saw the browser windows in there I started to wonder how you embedded a browser into a gnome-terminal tab.

It took watching the video to see that it was more integrated than I first expected.

Re: I turned gnome-shell into a tiling window manager

#12
post #3

You might want to add a little more information on your page explaining what it is. I.e. What is the difference with Bluetile? With tmux? Also, if I start gnome-terminal, run tmux, and put it full-screen.. isn't it a "gnome tiling manager" ?

I was a bit confused at first. When he said tiling windows with the gnome terminal I thought, "is this just a GNU screen tutorial with a buzz-words title?" When I saw the browser windows in there I started to wonder how you embedded a browser into a gnome-terminal tab. It took watching the video to see that it was more integrated than I first expected.

He's talking about gnome-shell, not a gnome terminal.

Re: I turned gnome-shell into a tiling window manager

#13
post #8
post #7

Is this any different from xmonad? That's what I'm currently using with Gnome. Way better than this Gnome 3 rubbish.

Sometimes i wish xmonad had 3d transitions between layouts. That's probably the only appeal of a gnome shell extension

Or you could show a single window on both monitors (if you have two), for example, xmobar. Or you could resize the windows as bitmaps instead of resizing app size into grotesque values (150x150 pixel browser?) in various tiling layouts. Not that this allows it right now, but working composite manager (and the compositing manager in gnome3 is good, compared to its alternatives) is required for that.

Re: I turned gnome-shell into a tiling window manager

#15
post #9
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes i wish xmonad had 3d transitions between layouts. That's probably the only appeal of a gnome shell extension

Why is that, by the way? I've tried various transitions over the years and for any serious work I've soon settled for the plain old immediate "transition", i.e. nothing at all. Anything else has turned out just annoying, for me.

You certainly want to eventually get rid of all the transitions when you've learned to use a WM instinctively, but for newbies they can provide valuable feedback.

Re: I turned gnome-shell into a tiling window manager

#16
I think what we need is a window manager (or a window layout behaviour) per workspace or screen rather than a single window manager to rule them all.

I tried to use the tiling window manager xmonad and found it excellent for terminal stuff. The problem was everything else.

Firefox/thunderbird/etc. don't work in a tiling window manager, particularly Firefox and particularly popups.

Re: I turned gnome-shell into a tiling window manager

#17
post #16

I think what we need is a window manager (or a window layout behaviour) per workspace or screen rather than a single window manager to rule them all. I tried to use the tiling window manager xmonad and found it excellent for terminal stuff. The problem was everything else. Firefox/thunderbird/etc. don't work in a tiling window manager, particularly Firefox and particularly popups.

A sensible tiling window manager doesn't tile popup windows (and I believe xmonad is sensible). If it doesn't float popups, then you just haven't configured it to do so. Can't blame you, though. Writing Haskell to configure a window manager isn't exactly a one-step process. I think parts of the following resource will prove useful if you ever decide to give xmonad another try: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/General_xmonad.hs_...

Re: I turned gnome-shell into a tiling window manager

#18

What tool was used to make that screencast? I'd love to know about a tool for Linux that overlays keypresses on the video like that.

https://launchpad.net/screenkey/

Had to hack it up a bit to show the shift key, and only the most recent keypress.

And gnome-shell-list has built in screen recording.

Re: I turned gnome-shell into a tiling window manager

#19
post #16

I think what we need is a window manager (or a window layout behaviour) per workspace or screen rather than a single window manager to rule them all. I tried to use the tiling window manager xmonad and found it excellent for terminal stuff. The problem was everything else. Firefox/thunderbird/etc. don't work in a tiling window manager, particularly Firefox and particularly popups.

The layout behaviour in both shellahape and bluetile is per-workspace.

Re: I turned gnome-shell into a tiling window manager

#20
post #7

Is this any different from xmonad? That's what I'm currently using with Gnome. Way better than this Gnome 3 rubbish.

A few differences, yeah. You get to keep the gnome bling (eg the overlay window). It also supports direct manipulation (mouse moving / resizing) and overlapping windows. Oh, and compositing works.

Plus, the floating mode isn't bad ;)

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