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Rethinking Window Management

blogs.gnome.org

191–200 of 272 posts

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#191
post #62
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do Xresources and friends make sense now Wayland is finally usable for many folks? Maybe having some sort of environment agnostic config would be good - even with Wayland - but I don’t know that a suitable one exists today.

Wayland is not usable for me, I am on a BSD. So my answer is yes, Xresources makes sense for me :) Does Wayland even have a method to specifying canned Window Position ?

One can run wayland compositors on freebsd, and I even saw an inprogress effort for openbsd.

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#193
post #26

Maximizing windows in their own workspace is annoying and one of the worst parts of macOS window management. I really hope they don't bother with that. Just because I want a maximized window doesn't mean I want it in it's own workspace. It just makes dealing with windows harder because you now have to move to some other workspace to grab a window you want to reference first.

I like vlc, mpv, and alacritty because they can fullscreen without making a new 'workspace'. Haven't figured it out for emacs yet.

> Haven't figured it out for emacs yet.

Up until today I'd been using

  (global-set-key (kbd "C-c RET")
                  (lambda () (interactive) 
                     (set-frame-parameter
                      nil 'fullscreen
                      (when (not (frame-parameter nil 'fullscreen)) 'maximized))))
, which just makes the current frame maximized. A quick search turned up [0] which seems to give the desired effect of pre-lion "fullscreen" (hiding the menu bar and taking up 100% of the screen).

I've tentatively switched to it for now, although I noticed some weirdness when I got a message saying that I could run M-x toggle-frame-fullscreen by pressing f11: when I hit globe-f11 the resulting frame/window configuration sometimes ends up being mostly black. When I use M-x toggle-frame-fullscreen, it doesn't have this behavior. [0] https://stackoverflow.com/a/20429390

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#194
post #158

People generally have pretty good spatial sensibilities, and I feel like modern OS designers seem to forget this. You feel this especially on iPadOS. Physically arranging windows allows for a much more solid multi-tasking experience, and encouraged direct manipulation of content e.g. drag and drop. Transient "palette" or "panel" windows allow for a short term buffer (think a find/replace panel). To me, this is what m…

I would take issue with your first claim. People, in general, have very mixed spatial sensibilities. Is why it takes herculean efforts to keep dishes organized in a family. Some people have organizations they want. Some have different and incompatible organizations they want. Some people just don't care. Seriously, look at the insane amount of effort that a grocery store has to go through to keep things organized. Ke…

I wouldn't cite grocery stores as a model for "organization" given that their "information architecture" of where things are in relation to another is driven by dark design patterns like "put the most often sought after items at the BACK of the store (like milk / eggs) so people have to walk through and see all the other products". There's nothing "organized" about this insofar as being an optimal organization for anything but manipulating people.

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#195

Buy ultrawide. Then tiling works without screwing over aspect ratio. It's a real estate issue. (5120 x 1440))

32:9 is amazing, the Snap Windows feature on Windows gives me exactly what I want for tiling options. But, whew, physical real estate is killer. I've got a huge desk (Biomorph Pro) and the 49" double-wide display makes it feel cramped.

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#196
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would take issue with your first claim. People, in general, have very mixed spatial sensibilities. Is why it takes herculean efforts to keep dishes organized in a family. Some people have organizations they want. Some have different and incompatible organizations they want. Some people just don't care. Seriously, look at the insane amount of effort that a grocery store has to go through to keep things organized. Ke…

I wouldn't cite grocery stores as a model for "organization" given that their "information architecture" of where things are in relation to another is driven by dark design patterns like "put the most often sought after items at the BACK of the store (like milk / eggs) so people have to walk through and see all the other products". There's nothing "organized" about this insofar as being an optimal organization for an…

It is organized for a reason. We may not like the reason, but this feeds into my point of how many people are oblivious to this.

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#197

The native Windows 11 windows management feature (called "snap layouts") was great for me. I get it instantly and use it easily with the pointer or the keyboard. One of the best features of the 11 version to me. I think that for regular users is a great entry point to have a more power user experience, of course it will not be enough for everyone and a lot of power users will demand more specific behaviors. Demo: htt…

It has been around since Windows 7! The hover on the maximize button they added in Windows 11 definitely improves the discoverability and usability vs the original display edge snap behavior.

I do wish it provided more layouts for vertical tiling on wider displays.

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#198
post #92

I wish Gnome would stop rethinking things and just reimplement the basic desktop features every major competitor has, and that Gnome 2 had.

Starting with something as basic as bringing back the path input textbox in file dialogs. I mean... it's a file dialog! What else but inputting file _paths_ is it good for?

Lack of this is insane. Gnome3 has a few such bad points iirc, that makes me to avoid it.

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#199

With a bit more work to not surprise the user and not break the window organization (e.g. the user really wanted these two windows next to each other), this mosaic paradigm could actually be really cool. Looking forward to see how it develops. If the kinks are worked out I may very well switch over from i3. > As you open more windows, the existing windows move aside to make room for the new ones. If a new window does…

I could see it working if there was also just a pin button on window that made WM remember where it should be after being started again

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#200
For macOS users I recommend moom to manage window tiling.

Although the defaults work fine, I always setup the following:

1) Bind cmd-m for activating moom. You’ll get a warning but seriously, who uses native macOS minimize? Not me, ever.

2) Setup single key “sizes” for keys Q, P, M, Z for the four quadrants: upper left, upper right, lower right, lower left, respectively.

3) Setup L and R for 50% left and right. F for full screen.

These 7 keys will allow you 3-finger shortcuts to any windowing. You’re free to setup the grid as fine or as coarse as you need.

Thank you to whoever developed moom. It’s made macOS feel mature.

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