Show HN: Howm – A Vim-like tiling X11 window manager • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by johnchristopher » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 5:01 PM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #42

icantthinkofone wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compile time never trumps best practice.

It's not "we need to keep compile time down to seconds, therefore configure in the source"; it's "compile time is seconds (if that), so there's not much difference between configuring in the source and configuring in a file except complexity". One part of the motivation for the best practice you cite is that compiling can be complicated and take a long time, and configuration changes should be quick. This is a solid…

That's not the whole story:

> Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it’s pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions. There are some distributions that provide binary packages though.

source: http://dwm.suckless.org/

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

#52

Post by johnchristopher » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 5:03 PM UTC

hunt wrote: post #36

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.

Am I right you did it for the C language first ? It looks like it would have been easier to implement with Lua in awesome.

Nice job!

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

#53

Post by dllthomas » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 5:10 PM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #51

dllthomas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "we need to keep compile time down to seconds, therefore configure in the source"; it's "compile time is seconds (if that), so there's not much difference between configuring in the source and configuring in a file except complexity". One part of the motivation for the best practice you cite is that compiling can be complicated and take a long time, and configuration changes should be quick. This is a solid…

That's not the whole story: > Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it’s pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions. There are some distributions that provide binary packages though. source: http://dwm.suckless.org/

I think I explicitly stated that I was not covering the whole story. The above would be another consideration - with both pros and cons (of which suckless, of course, stresses the pros) - which should be factored in. There are others as well.

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

#54

Post by doki_pen » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 5:53 PM UTC

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.

The benefits of this model include less attack surface area and much leaner code resulting in less bugs. It doesn't fit every project, but the "configuration" code for this WM would likely be larger than the WM itself.

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

#55

Post by rakoo » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 6:47 PM UTC

pweissbrod wrote: post #44

Rampoina wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use awesome WM and I didn't need to customize any of the keyboard shortcuts; it uses the windows key as the modifier key and as far as I know no other program uses it. Also I don't get how the Windows 8.1 window management comes even close to the 2 programs you mentioned (Ratpoison and Awesome WM). With both of those (or any other tiling manager) you can do much more than just maximize and snap a window to the side…

Maybe I need to invest a little more time into it. I agree with you that the docking keyboard shortcuts are far less powerful in windows. In practice however, this limitation doesnt really become an issue for me. Maybe it is because I have tunnel vision but 2 programs per monitor with a quick means of switching things around hasnt left me wishing I could have 3,4+ programs per monitor

I must admit I stopped my knowledge of Windows at Windows 7, which already has some tiling thingies but nothing even remotely close to the WMs I linked to earlier.

The thing that is the most visible to me is virtual workspaces. It allows you to create fixed layouts of programs (editor on the left, terminal to test on the up-right corner and tail -f of the relevant log on the down-right corner) grouped within a user-defined context ("code on project1", "code on project2", "mail", "browser").

The idea is to switch from activity to activity, rather than from application to application. It's extremely important, because when you start piling up activities, you accumulate applications, and you don't want to switch through all of them within your activity.

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

#56

Post by rakoo » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 7:04 PM UTC

hunt wrote: post #35

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…

I think we can all agree that once a good setup is found, you don't change it that much; recompiling is ok as long as it's fast.

The point of GP is that since config.h is part of the standard distribution, any local modification should be overwritten (or discarded) upon updating the software, or the user has to maintain a local "fork" with his custom config.h.

You should get inspiration from what suckless does [0]. It uses the same idea of config through header, and the "solution" is workable for all involved parties.

[0] http://dwm.suckless.org/customisation/

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

#57

Post by jethro_tell » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 8:43 PM UTC

rkowalick wrote: post #17

jethro_tell wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only thing I use my mouse for is browsing the web. I love vimium and vimperator. The only thing I use my mouse for is browsing pages with flash or embedded video. Some other browsing as well, but it's nice to be able to pop back and forth between term and browser, scroll the tutorial page down then pop back without a mouse.

It's been a while since I used vimperator/pentadactyl. I recall it not being compatible with newer versions of firefox, but from what I gather those issues seems to be resolved. I should take another look. Most of my day is spent using OSX, and I am quite alright using a mouse in that environment for most things.

Yeah, I haven't really had any issues with it over the last year. I don't always browse with vimporator but it's nice to have the option to follow a link, go back a page or scroll up and down without a mouse. It really depends on the workflow I'm in.

Until my daughter was born, I wanted to do everything without a mouse and I worked hard on that. But then I started getting annoyed that I needed both hands to work the machine. Now I have both workflows down pretty well and with my WM I can do most things with either.

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

#58

Post by djeikyb » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 2:12 AM UTC

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 use xmonad when I'm on linux. Now that I'm required to use windows, I use python-windows-tiler[0]. The one thing I sorely miss about xmonad is its multi-monitor support. You get nine workspaces. Each of these is monitor independent. It is trivial to put ws1 on m1 and ws2 on m2, then switch m2 to have ws7. The tiling window managers I've found for ms Windows simply don't have any concept of having workspaces independent of monitors. Every workspace always take up all of your monitors.

On linux I'll usually have a browser workspace, an ide workspace, an email/chat workspace, a console workspace, etc. And I'm able to rapidly put any combination of workspaces on my set of monitors.

[0]: https://github.com/Tzbob/python-windows-tiler

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

#59

Post by dllthomas » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 2:43 AM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #31

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 t…

s/\(having pressed that\) you \(there\)/\1 \2/

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

#60

Post by cessor » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 1:51 PM UTC

Harvey, your code looks very nice and expressive with appropriate comments. There is some space for improvements on this matter (well, there always is) but I found it very good to read and easy to follow!

Really well done, keep up the good work!