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Show HN: Howm – A Vim-like tiling X11 window manager

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Re: Show HN: Howm – A Vim-like tiling X11 window manager

#31

Post by dllthomas »

pweissbrod wrote: post #5

One of the reasons I continue development work predominantly in windows OS is its vast support for mouse-free operability. I love vim for the same reason. I tried ratpoison in linux but found it to interfere with application keyboard shortcuts. I also tried AwesomeWM but it wasnt as graceful as the windows key in windows. If someone was to solve this issue elegantly it would compel me to reconsider moving my daily de…

"I tried ratpoison in linux but found it to interfere with application keyboard shortcuts."

Huh? Rat poison is the only window manager I've used that interferes (meaningfully) with precisely zero application keyboard shortcuts. This is because it only intercepts one key, and having pressed that you there is a key bound in the next map to send the original key. And of course you can pick that top level key.

Edited to add: Though having said that, does anyone have any thoughts as to why my compose key doesn't work in ratpoison? I'd like to cut out the switch to unity when I want to study Polish...

Re: Show HN: Howm – A Vim-like tiling X11 window manager

#33

Post by shapeshed »

joaomsa wrote: post #21

Really dislike software with configuration baked into the code, every key binding and experiment requires recompilation which prevents managing it sanely through a package manager. I get the appeal of "minimal" in this case, but it just doesn't work for me.

I'm another advocate for dwm and st. Compiling dwm takes seconds (it is a small codebase) and keeps configuration out of the core.

Re: Show HN: Howm – A Vim-like tiling X11 window manager

#34

Post by dllthomas »

deweerdt wrote: post #12
dons wrote: post #4

How does this differ from e.g. xmonad, which uses vi-like keybindings? It's specifically the bulk operators based on movement?

xmonad isn't modal. This apparently has three modes: 'normal', 'floating' and 'focus'. i3 also has modes: 'normal' and 'resize'.

XMonad can presumably be modal if you configure it as such. I've got some modal behaviour out of ratpoison by swapping out my top level key maps.

Re: Show HN: Howm – A Vim-like tiling X11 window manager

#35

Post by hunt »

joaomsa wrote: post #21

Really dislike software with configuration baked into the code, every key binding and experiment requires recompilation which prevents managing it sanely through a package manager. I get the appeal of "minimal" in this case, but it just doesn't work for me.

I understand that it isn't a nice idea having code and configuration mixed together and that splitting them would be preferable. However, howm takes less than 1 second to compile on my laptop, once you have a configuration that you like you'll rarely change it and I feel that having the configuration in code makes it easier for hackers to find subtle new ways of customising howm.

A downside that I can see to using a header file for configuration is that a compile is required for installation and configuration. I don't see this as being too much of an issue as I don't plan on making howm available as a binary, so a compiler would be required anyway.

Re: Show HN: Howm – A Vim-like tiling X11 window manager

#36

Post by hunt »

zimbatm wrote: post #10

I like that the whole WM is implemented in two files, a .h for configuration and a .c. The code looks clean and has embedded ascii-art. This looks like a project made with love.

Thank you, this is my first proper C project so I have learnt a lot and have come a long way. I have really enjoyed working on it and would certainly describe it as a labour of love.

Re: Show HN: Howm – A Vim-like tiling X11 window manager

#37

Post by hunt »

gpo wrote: post #25

This is obviously inspired by dwm, which is cool, but how is it different from dwm?

It's loosely inspired by dwm in that it uses a similar configuration file and keybinding system.

On a technical level, howm uses xcb- a more modern and efficient X protocol binding. dwm uses xlib.

From a user's perspective, howm has multiple modes for manipulating different kinds of windows as well as operators, motions and counts. This means that multiple windows can have the same operation performed upon them. For example (assuming that the correct modifier keys are being pressed) pressing "q4w" will lead to 4 windows being closed.

howm also has some features that dwm only provides as patches, such as useless gaps and a grid layout.

Re: Show HN: Howm – A Vim-like tiling X11 window manager

#38

Post by hunt »

rakoo wrote: post #6
pweissbrod wrote: post #5

One of the reasons I continue development work predominantly in windows OS is its vast support for mouse-free operability. I love vim for the same reason. I tried ratpoison in linux but found it to interfere with application keyboard shortcuts. I also tried AwesomeWM but it wasnt as graceful as the windows key in windows. If someone was to solve this issue elegantly it would compel me to reconsider moving my daily de…

Hum... Are we talking about the same Windows ? Have you tried other tiling window managers ? i3 [0] comes to mind, but XMonad [1] and Awesome WM [2] are 2 other popular choices in this domain. There are plenty of others to pick from, too [3]. [0] http://i3wm.org/ [1] http://xmonad.org/ [2] http://awesome.naquadah.org/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager

> There are plenty of others to pick from, too.

If you want to try out lots of different window managers, the LinuxBBQ distro Cream [0] has 76 different window managers installed.

[0] http://linuxbbq.org/cream.html

Re: Show HN: Howm – A Vim-like tiling X11 window manager

#39

Post by dllthomas »

rakoo wrote: post #6
pweissbrod wrote: post #5

One of the reasons I continue development work predominantly in windows OS is its vast support for mouse-free operability. I love vim for the same reason. I tried ratpoison in linux but found it to interfere with application keyboard shortcuts. I also tried AwesomeWM but it wasnt as graceful as the windows key in windows. If someone was to solve this issue elegantly it would compel me to reconsider moving my daily de…

Hum... Are we talking about the same Windows ? Have you tried other tiling window managers ? i3 [0] comes to mind, but XMonad [1] and Awesome WM [2] are 2 other popular choices in this domain. There are plenty of others to pick from, too [3]. [0] http://i3wm.org/ [1] http://xmonad.org/ [2] http://awesome.naquadah.org/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager

Having been stuck working with a couple Windows 8.1 servers, through remote desktop from a mouseless linux box, I can confirm that Windows has got surprisingly usable without a mouse. IMO, though, my ratpoison setup still beats it by miles (at least for my work flows).

Re: Show HN: Howm – A Vim-like tiling X11 window manager

#40

Post by icantthinkofone »

shapeshed wrote: post #33
joaomsa wrote: post #21

Really dislike software with configuration baked into the code, every key binding and experiment requires recompilation which prevents managing it sanely through a package manager. I get the appeal of "minimal" in this case, but it just doesn't work for me.

I'm another advocate for dwm and st. Compiling dwm takes seconds (it is a small codebase) and keeps configuration out of the core.

Compile time never trumps best practice.
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