Rethinking Window Management

How is 3000 pixels not enough to let me arrange windows myself but 640 was?

Different people like different things?

FYI, there's no default panel in hyprland: if you want something you've got to configure it. ewww or waybar give you something like a dock or a taskbar, while wofi gives you menus.

For wofi, I have configured the window key to open a textual list of all the apps I have install, so if I press Win it list them all, if I follow by vl it shows VLC as the only remaining entry: I can then start VLC by just hitting enter, which also makes this menu vanish as wofi runs in transparent mode over the top window.

I don't like to do that often: if I find myself using something often, I assign it a number between 0 and 9 to have it as Win+number.

> Is there any showcase that shows actual work

Not any that I have bookmarked, because I'm used to hyprland and I wouldn't have ever thought about watching how other people use it.

But here's an example from the last 30 seconds from my actual workflow where I'm using my own remapped shortcuts (some people may need F1, F2 etc to be actually doing their "function" but I don't, so I've remapped them to jump directly between desktop)

I pressed F1 to go to desk 1 where wezterm is running, to check how some long running operation is going, then F2 to go back to edge to type this: I have different shortcuts for the desktop, like Win+PageUp and Win+PageDn configured to move to the next or previous one, but I seem to prefer one-key shortcuts to go directly to the one I want, so I've remapped Win+F1 to instead "transfer" a window to desk 1, say if I want something tiled next to the terminal.

While I typed this message on HN I remember to do something, so I pressed Win-Grave to open zimwiki in "floating" mode above the edge browser full screen, started taking my note, then I realized I needed to test something in a terminal, so I quickly spawned a foot terminal next to the floating zim with Win+Enter (a shortcut I've setup to get myself a terminal immediately) and used Win+Left to change the splitting ratio to get more room for the terminal, doing Win+Tab to move the focus back and forth between the terminal and zim.

When I was done, I pressed Control-D to close my terminal, and Win-Grave to stash away as I may have to take more notes later.

This is how I use hyprland, like how I was using Windows 11 before, with some custom AutoHotKey scripts to be a keyboard-only workflow.

I mostly use full screen apps and spend 95% of my time between the terminal and the browser, which I each prefer fullscreen on their own desktop

Sometimes I do tiling: when I tile something next to the terminal, I have wezterm running on my desktop 1: so F1 takes me there, where I will start whatever I need with Win + the first letter of the name.

Win+J change the tiling, so if there're only 2 windows tiled vertically, they become tiled horizontally

The rare few times I need a mouse experience, Win+F "floats" the window which is more like what you get from a traditional window manager: I can press on the hotkey + use the mouse to resize or move the window to a specific part of the screen, but I don't think I've done that in the past weeks or even the past months!

I hate it when I can't change the shortcut to be what *I* like, so I'm not a big fan of macOS either.

hyprland looks better and that's important, but to me its #1 strength is how you can use it as a solid base to build your workflow, with whatever keyboard or mouse shortcuts or even a mix of them (like Win + mouse dragging is often configured to reposition windows in non-tiling mode)

I think so, too, but I wouldn’t bet on it being true. I think we spent a lot of time rearranging windows, losing productivity, especially on the small screens of the day.

In some cases I think that was worth it in the sense that you could set up your workspace with the tools you needed for the job at hand.

Maybe, the issue is more that modern applications dictate your work setup too much, not allowing you to make them feel your own?

> and encouraged direct manipulation of content e.g. drag and drop.

That’s true, but I think the usefulness of drag and drop is limited, anyways (for example, when did you last drag and drop a picture between windows or a text selection? And aside: do you know iOS supports dragging and dropping text selections?)

> To me, this is what made macOS so great for creative tasks. It activated my spatial memory.

I don’t follow that chain of thought. How does activating your spatial memory make an OS great for creative tasks?

Also how are the current single-window-with-inbuilt-palettes applications worse for “activating your spatial memory”? The palettes still are there, and in more predictable locations.