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Why You Should Try a Tiling Window Manager

adereth.github.io

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Re: Why You Should Try a Tiling Window Manager

#51
post #34
post #6

Anyone know if "Notion" works as well in the latest Ubuntu releases as suggested by the author of the post? (i.e. XMondad got jacked pretty badly in Ubuntu 13.04 and now requires lots of low level linux voodoo.)

Shucks. I haven't upgraded yet to 13.04. Should I skip it on by for 13.10 when it comes out? If not, what voodoo did you do?

None- I just reverted to 12.x and stayed there. Reading online though, some folks who knew what they were doing fared better though.

Re: Why You Should Try a Tiling Window Manager

#52

Reasons why you shouldn't try a tiling window manager: Well, mostly if you use tools that have a "view portal" or depend heavily on pop-out style toolboxes. The WM is constantly resizing your windows, which makes it a chore to keep everything adjusted, and pop-out style toolboxes are pretty much best at on-top usage by nature, rather than tiled. I use CAD software on a regular basis, and while I managed to make a til…

I have been using Awesome for a couple years now, and it has a great solution to this problem. You can add a rule to a window class (MPlayer creates a window with the class "MPlayer" for example) and set the "floating" property to true. The property can of course be toggled with a keyboard shortcut which is very handy with lots of terminals.

Re: Why You Should Try a Tiling Window Manager

#53

Reasons why you shouldn't try a tiling window manager: Well, mostly if you use tools that have a "view portal" or depend heavily on pop-out style toolboxes. The WM is constantly resizing your windows, which makes it a chore to keep everything adjusted, and pop-out style toolboxes are pretty much best at on-top usage by nature, rather than tiled. I use CAD software on a regular basis, and while I managed to make a til…

Notion does a pretty good job of letting you mix floating and tiled windows. I do it manually by pressing Win+D, which I have bound to ioncore.detach. It's nice because all child windows that spawn from that program are floaters by default. It also lets you specify that new windows of particular programs should float by default or open in specifically named frames.

I wouldn't be able to GIMP without this...

Re: Why You Should Try a Tiling Window Manager

#54

I currently use xmonad, along with the gnome top-bar to get applets, network configuration, etc. I have found this the easiest way to move into tiling window managers. It still annoys that tiling window managers all seem designed to be hard to use to configure, almost as a matter of principle. I see no reason that a tiling window manager can't still be easy to use (for example, I use the mouse as much with xmonad as…

I think the problem is that tiling window managers have never been mainstream, so they are all targeted at people who would go out of there way to install a tiling window manger. By contrast, even non-mainstream composting window managers have the benefit of seeing how the mainstream ones do things to be usable (and have had more effort put into them in general). Another problem is that tiling window managers are (al…

> a complete desktop environment

I agree. I wish more Tiling WMs came with a GUI application launcher, better mouse support for moving and resizing, login screens, etc.

Not everyone uses a Tiling WM because they're a masochist musophobe.

Re: Why You Should Try a Tiling Window Manager

#55

I currently use xmonad, along with the gnome top-bar to get applets, network configuration, etc. I have found this the easiest way to move into tiling window managers. It still annoys that tiling window managers all seem designed to be hard to use to configure, almost as a matter of principle. I see no reason that a tiling window manager can't still be easy to use (for example, I use the mouse as much with xmonad as…

While i agree that xmonad is a bit of a pain to configure the first time around (especially if you're not used to writing code in haskell) I find that you can use the mouse pretty extensively with xmonad.

For example with this in my xmonad.hs:

  ((0,9), (\_ -> moveTo Next NonEmptyWS))
  ((0,8), (\_ -> moveTo Prev NonEmptyWS))
I can move between work spaces with only my mouse (In this case with the extra 2 buttons on the left).

Re: Why You Should Try a Tiling Window Manager

#56

Some questions from someone who likes the idea of a tiling window manager but doesn't quite see how it would work better than compositing. I'm coming at this from KDE. My top applications are: firefox, thunderbird, eclipse, sublime text, and terminator. When I'm browsing, I like to have firefox in the middle of my screen. If it's stuck off to the side somewhere or buried amongst other tabs, I'm going to hate it. How…

Awesome has a builtin window layout that I think you'd like: it has one program take up 80% of the screen in the center, and tiles horizontally the rest behind it. But any WM can do that either by duplicating the layout or, in the case of dynamic window managers, using floating windows.

Your notifications will stay. For widgets, stick it in the menu bars or use conky -- the same options are available.

Re: Why You Should Try a Tiling Window Manager

#57
post #50

Eventually, you probably will stop relying on these things and do everything with the keyboard I read so much about why Tiling is Great because the Mouse is Awful. I think the mouse has its place. For writing code and text I have my hands on the keyboard—which means I also want to create and move windows with the keyboard. But when I'm in a web browser, or a game, or any number of other GUI-centric applications, my h…

As someone with no mouse, I agree that the mouse is a great thing. My RSI is aggravated severely by mouse usage, so I stick to the keyboard. For me, a fully-keyboard-controllable WM is essential to my career. The many programs and sites that require a mouse make my life difficult. Much of the modern computing world assumes a mouse is present. Still, even I admit the mouse is awesome. It is especially great for selecting text. It can be done on a keyboard usually, but it is not always as easy. It is nice to have options, whether to accommodate physical restrictions or just personal preference.

Re: Why You Should Try a Tiling Window Manager

#58
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that tiling window managers have never been mainstream, so they are all targeted at people who would go out of there way to install a tiling window manger. By contrast, even non-mainstream composting window managers have the benefit of seeing how the mainstream ones do things to be usable (and have had more effort put into them in general). Another problem is that tiling window managers are (al…

> a complete desktop environment I agree. I wish more Tiling WMs came with a GUI application launcher, better mouse support for moving and resizing, login screens, etc. Not everyone uses a Tiling WM because they're a masochist musophobe.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong angle. The WM is just a component of a complete desktop environment. Instead of making a Tiling WM that comes with the kitchen sink, we should make a Tiling WM that simply replaces the WM on the pre-existing, and fully featured, desktop environment you already have. Technically speaking, this is not challenging. For example, to make Awesome the defualt window manager in gnome, one need only run:

  "gconftool-2 --type string --set /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager awesome"
Obviously, this is a large barrier for a casual user wanting to try a tiling window manager. However, if WM installer changed that setting instead of just creating its own desktop environment, then we would not be having this problem.

Re: Why You Should Try a Tiling Window Manager

#59
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a complete desktop environment I agree. I wish more Tiling WMs came with a GUI application launcher, better mouse support for moving and resizing, login screens, etc. Not everyone uses a Tiling WM because they're a masochist musophobe.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong angle. The WM is just a component of a complete desktop environment. Instead of making a Tiling WM that comes with the kitchen sink, we should make a Tiling WM that simply replaces the WM on the pre-existing, and fully featured, desktop environment you already have. Technically speaking, this is not challenging. For example, to make Awesome the defualt window manager in gn…

I'm a casual user of GNOME. I would like to do what someone mentioned on here: use a TWM with the GNOME menu bar for applets but I want them to have predifined "snaps". [0]

How hard is it to implement this?

[0] http://imgur.com/SO4LmDq

Re: Why You Should Try a Tiling Window Manager

#60

I currently use xmonad, along with the gnome top-bar to get applets, network configuration, etc. I have found this the easiest way to move into tiling window managers. It still annoys that tiling window managers all seem designed to be hard to use to configure, almost as a matter of principle. I see no reason that a tiling window manager can't still be easy to use (for example, I use the mouse as much with xmonad as…

> It still annoys that tiling window managers all seem designed to be hard to use to configure

i3 really stands out. Instead of requiring user to hack with specific language (haskell for xmonad, lua for awesome.. )it has a simple config file with clear documentation.

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