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Niri 26.04: Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor

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Re: Niri 26.04: Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor

#71
post #13

I’ve gotten so used to the tiling WM workflow of quick-switching between a bunch of different dedicated fullscreen workspaces and managing windows with pure keyboard. Each workspace typically has a single app, or terminal with tmux, but occasionally I’ll split two apps side by side. Would love to hear the perspective of anyone who switched from a similar workflow to Niri. How does the mental model shift?

That's not actually tiling, is it? To me that reads like fullscreen with workspaces. If one uses a manual tiling window manager like i3 or sway and a large monitor one can divide the screen into separate work areas that each host multiple applications based on their role in one's workflow and use less workspaces. Scrolling makes a similar but different workflow practical on small screens where flexibility matters.

Ah, an important detail is that I use 3 monitors.

Most workspaces are a fullscreen browser or some other app to the left, fullscreen editor in the center, tmux on the right.

I still use tiling within a monitor to view email side-by-side with browser, or a document or two side-by-side with code. Rarely feel the need to put 3+ apps in a complicated layout on one screen since I’m usually not gonna be cross-referencing at them all at once.

If I had one monitor I wouldn’t want to be taking up half of it showing the browser all the time when I could instead use that real estate for more vim splits.

Re: Niri 26.04: Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor

#72
post #55
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always (KDE, GNOME, niri) used a workspace per activity/project. I have a workspace with Steam open and a game wiki I was consulting earlier, another workspace with Emacs and browser with documentation, a third workspace with Godot and some gamedev apps open. The beauty of niri is that I never feel I need to close some apps because I've got "too many windows"; it's quite easy to compartmentalize I never understo…

This is the way. I see so many people using tiling WMs that have dedicated workspaces per app, even worse, are all full screen. What is the point? Being able to have one window of Firefox per project workspace, with only tabs relevant to that project - this alone is a better than the myriad of ways Firefox themselves have tried to solve it within the app.

The point is to dedicate maximum screen real estate to the primary thing you’re working on.

I tile within one monitor when I legitimately want to see things side by side, but I certainly don’t want firefox permanently taking up screen space when I really only need to occasionally look at it. Usually it’s on a separate monitor in the same workspace, or in a dedicated workspace.

Maybe there’s some way I could manipulate stacks and zooms to achieve that within one workspace, but I’ve always found it easier to just have firefox on a separate workspace I can easily quickly swap to and from when needed.

Re: Niri 26.04: Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor

#73
post #72
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the way. I see so many people using tiling WMs that have dedicated workspaces per app, even worse, are all full screen. What is the point? Being able to have one window of Firefox per project workspace, with only tabs relevant to that project - this alone is a better than the myriad of ways Firefox themselves have tried to solve it within the app.

The point is to dedicate maximum screen real estate to the primary thing you’re working on. I tile within one monitor when I legitimately want to see things side by side, but I certainly don’t want firefox permanently taking up screen space when I really only need to occasionally look at it. Usually it’s on a separate monitor in the same workspace, or in a dedicated workspace. Maybe there’s some way I could manipulat…

If you are trying to maximize screen real estate to the thing you are working on, why not just use a regular floating window manager will all the apps full screen? I don't see how that isn't equivalent. You can even use multiple workspaces with them too.

Re: Niri 26.04: Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor

#74
post #73
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to dedicate maximum screen real estate to the primary thing you’re working on. I tile within one monitor when I legitimately want to see things side by side, but I certainly don’t want firefox permanently taking up screen space when I really only need to occasionally look at it. Usually it’s on a separate monitor in the same workspace, or in a dedicated workspace. Maybe there’s some way I could manipulat…

If you are trying to maximize screen real estate to the thing you are working on, why not just use a regular floating window manager will all the apps full screen? I don't see how that isn't equivalent. You can even use multiple workspaces with them too.

Because sometimes I do want multiple things on a screen, and in that case I want the windows to tile, not float?

Re: Niri 26.04: Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor

#75

Niri introduced scroll-based window management to me and it instantly clicked. I'm very happy to see a full-on Niri per-workspace emulation mode in OmniWM[1] for the Mac, recently and thankfully made compatible with Sequoia. It immediately became my main window manager. [1] https://github.com/BarutSRB/OmniWM

Paneru is a new thing for macOS made specifically to emulate niri.

Re: Niri 26.04: Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor

#76
post #30

If anyone wants to try the NNN (Niri-Nix-Noctalia) dots. Feel free to use my flake, https://github.com/MostlyKIGuess/nix-flake-public .

I used window managers for years, but the hurdle of actually configuring stuff not-related to the WM itself (like setting up dark mode) made me switch to a full-fledged desktop environment. Thanks for mentioning Noctalia - it looks like exactly what I needed!

There are a lot of them (like Celestia, DMS etc) and they look very good too. They are all based on QuickShell which provides the actual building blocks.

Re: Niri 26.04: Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor

#77
post #30

If anyone wants to try the NNN (Niri-Nix-Noctalia) dots. Feel free to use my flake, https://github.com/MostlyKIGuess/nix-flake-public .

I used window managers for years, but the hurdle of actually configuring stuff not-related to the WM itself (like setting up dark mode) made me switch to a full-fledged desktop environment. Thanks for mentioning Noctalia - it looks like exactly what I needed!

It does have it's own quirks, but it is quite nice and works out of the box. Really enjoy the sleek design.

Re: Niri 26.04: Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but they have the worst demo video I have seen in my life. Nobody will want to try their software after watching that video. If you watch it, you will probably want to uninstall it, even if you're already a user.

If that’s all it took to deter you that thoroughly, I think you can confidently say that you are outside of the target market. Which is 100% OK!

This is 100% visual software used for one of the most important functions of a computer: window management. I can't think of any software where it is more important that the demonstration video is good.

What else than a video would be suitable for demonstrating this software?

Re: Niri 26.04: Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor

#80
post #2

Niri is so good. I've switched to using it about 5 months ago and it was legit the best computing decision I can remember making in recent history to move away from Windows. I have a huge amount of gratitude towards the author of niri. My dotfiles have always included an install script for setting everything up around command line tools, theme switching and more but it fully supports niri now too on Arch based distro…

Please take a look at Nirimod (unaffiliated, but it's awesome.)
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