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Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

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Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#21

Post by smallerfish »

0x1ch wrote: post #17
smallerfish wrote: post #16

I think Claude Code makes TilingWMs doable. I've always given up in the past because there have been reams of configs necessary to get to a fairly usable state, and I don't love reading manuals for desktop environments - but now it's all pretty easy to crank out. I've been on HyprLand for a week now and haven't hit any blockers yet that'd force me to go back to KDE.

I think Claude Code is the crutch for being unable to go through docs.

Who wants to spend their weekends reading desktop environment docs? If that's your hobby, fine. I just want a working DE.

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#22

Post by Symmetry »

The reason I switched to XMonad over a decade ago was actually so that I could have a tiling window manager but still have all the normal desktop environment conveniences.

Obligatory dotfiles: https://github.com/aclough/dotfiles

But right now I feel like I should be thinking of moving over to some new Wayland system. Maybe Niri and XFCE?

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#23

Post by bryanlarsen »

WD-42 wrote: post #19
SubiculumCode wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when you say tiling support, do you mean automatic tiling, or sending it to a corner via key combo?

It's not even the tiling so much, but the ability to move directionally between windows using super+hjkl or whatever, that's the killer for me. The big DEs like KDE and GNOME can technically tile but you're still stuck with alt-tab to switch windows which is horrible.

meta-alt-up/left/down-right by default on KDE.

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#24

Post by bryanlarsen »

backscratches wrote: post #7
bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

Recent versions of KDE have pretty good tiling support, so it's possible to have a rich DE and good tiling.

Even xfce will tile windows to 4 quadrants, left/right-halves, top/bottom-halves. I have not studied other tiling window managers enough to know what I'm missing.

Even Windows will do that, and so did older KDE. KDE 6.1+ will do a lot more than that, everything that I previously used a tiling manager to do.

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#25

Post by thesuitonym »

WD-42 wrote: post #15
lelandbatey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at a video demo of Niri for an example: https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri Conceptually, it's like an infinite 2D canvas windows, divided into strips (strip is a workspace), and you then scroll through an infinite ribbon of windows in each strip. Seems interesting, but also slower and less flexible than traditional tiling WMs (least of all because of the slow scrolling animations, but also because it seems to pre…

It's the same thing as a tiling WM, with all the benefits. You can still tile windows vertically or horizontally. The big improvement is that if I have a view with my browser, editor, a terminal or two all tiled nicely but then all of a sudden I need to open the Gimp or a PDF for some one-off work related to what I'm working on, it just opens to the right. I can move over to it and do what I need to do without messin…

Wow. My work flow with a stacking WM is that I get my tiled windows how I like them, but then if I need a new window for some reason, I just open it and it plops on top of my tiled windows without interacting with them at all. Seems more productive to me.

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#27

Post by quantummagic »

WD-42 wrote: post #4

Tiling WMs are dead. Long live tiling WMs. Scrolling WMs like Niri/Paperwm are where it’s at now.

Totally agree. I had been using Sway for a few years and tried Niri on a whim. Expected to quickly dismiss it, but ended up being a convert. It's just easier to configure your windows in a useful way, and often the "right thing" just happens by default.

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#28

Post by thewebguyd »

WD-42 wrote: post #15
lelandbatey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at a video demo of Niri for an example: https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri Conceptually, it's like an infinite 2D canvas windows, divided into strips (strip is a workspace), and you then scroll through an infinite ribbon of windows in each strip. Seems interesting, but also slower and less flexible than traditional tiling WMs (least of all because of the slow scrolling animations, but also because it seems to pre…

It's the same thing as a tiling WM, with all the benefits. You can still tile windows vertically or horizontally. The big improvement is that if I have a view with my browser, editor, a terminal or two all tiled nicely but then all of a sudden I need to open the Gimp or a PDF for some one-off work related to what I'm working on, it just opens to the right. I can move over to it and do what I need to do without messin…

Sounds interesting, but I still think I prefer using workspaces, simply because I can set window rules for predictability.

I never want to / have to wonder where any particular window is. Every app will always open on the same workspace, in the same position that I define + a scratchpad workspace for random one-offs that I keep floating. I'm only ever 1 key press away from exactly what I want. I know that ctrl+b gets me my browser, ctrl+t gets me to my terminal(s), etc. I don't even think about the workspace numbers or layout beyond initial configuration. Zero animations, instant switching.

In your example, if I'm on one workspace working and I need to open Gimp, I press my keybind for Gimp and it opens on the scratchpad and switches to it immediately.

It takes a lot of initial config and tweaking as you go along but once settled it's the most efficient way I've found to manage windows, in that, the windows manage themselves i no longer have to think about them at all.

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#29

Post by Froztnova »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #18

I have been a happy user of AwesomeWM for years. I don't actually use the tiling layout all that much (I definitely do use it occasionally and find it useful, but usually I'm in floating or "monocle" mode). But in additional to tiling support, it is minimalist, keyboard-driven and infinitely configurable through Lua scripts which I really like. I think a lot of other tiling WMs are probably popular for similar reason…

I've been an awesomewm user for quite some time as well and have no plans to change.

It's the lua scripting that really pushes it to the next level for me. I think I fell in love when I set up randomized times wallpaper rotations, and then realized that I could also create multiple profiles/sets of wallpapers as well, and the only limit was my own ability to add it.

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#30

Post by jmclnx »

I still do not understand why people like Tiling WM, maybe I should give it another try.

In the old 4:3 days I used ratpoison for a while, but after months I went back to fvwm. On 4:3 it seemed to work great, but I tend to think on these 16:9/16:10 monitors it could be a PITA. I believe I would need to move my head to the right a lot. On 4:3 no such issue.

FWIW, via fvwm I force all my main applications to place themselves on the left 2/3 portion of the monitor. The right 2/3 are for things like xmag, clocks, monitors and FvwmButtons/FvwmIconMan.

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