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I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

i3wm.org

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Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#31

I'll never understand why every dev doesn't use tiling wms. Such a free productivity and happiness win.

I think it's because most tiling WMs have a really steep learning curve, often not even providing basic things like window title bars or automatic lock/suspend, expecting the users to configure all that to their liking. Perhaps some sort of a gateway drug is needed, something can help introduce people to tiling while also providing good defaults and the usual desktop environment comforts (title bars with buttons, lock/suspend, volume and networking controls, a proper settings app, etc).

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#32

Probably an unpopular opinion here, but I do not understand why people prefer tiling window managers. I prefer to have lots of windows open, and being able to position them how I want with the size I want greatly increases my productivity. Tiling window managers makes you conform to their way of working.

For some people, that _is_ their way of working, and it works very well for them. I think it is mainly the quick access with a regular, predictable arrangement completely driven by the keyboard. Low resource usage is a bonus. It is like having some of the benefits of the CLI but in graphical form.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#33
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly Sway is bound to wayland.

Wayland has a bad case of security at the cost of usability. They've been adding protocols here and there but there are still obvious things missing. Last time I checked it wasn't even possible to create something like xdotool without relying on some nasty hacks.

And on top of that the “security” is useless because any software that runs as one's user account can simply do things such as ptrace the compositor or override the compositor in the PATH with a malicious one or LD_PRELOAD the compositor. As soon as malicious software run as one's own user, then that is that and it can do anything that the user can do.

The argument raised against this is that it should be used in conjunction with some measure of a sandboxing technique, and that X11 is “impossible to sandbox”, but X11 sandboxes exist: how they work is a proxy server that sits in between the sandboxed application and the real server that determines what to let through and what not, the sandboxed application thus believes it is the only thing running inside of it's own X11 server, which maps it onto the bigger one.

Then the counter argument is that that “doesn't count” and isn't “true sandboxing”, but that is the exact same technique that sandboxes that use Wayland use for say DBus, or PulseAudio, and has always been the standard way of sandboxing such daemons and servers.

That's always the highly theoretical argument that comes in to defend these promises that are false on a practical level “it doesn't count”, even though the practical result is the same.

All the ways to circumvent Wayland's security “don't count” even though they can all the same be used to compromise it.

I am quite convinced after having spoken with many a Wayland developer that nigh none of them actually care about the “security” they so often talk about: they care about a certain theoretical elegance of a “secure system" that only exists in theory but exists in no reality as something that actually has been practically realized. All the actual, effective, real world ways to pierce it are wished away with that they “don't count” as they don't exist in their theoretical dream world.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#36

i3 along with a few floating terminals with hotkeys is a dream setup for me. I have hotkeys for Guake, Terminator and Tilda and they position differently. I use the i3 scratchpad a lot too. My current dev machine has been running ArchLinux + i3-gaps for a couple of years now. Very solid, and not a single update screwup so far.

Why do you need so many drop-down terms? iirc Terminator/Guaka supports either multiple drop-down or tabbed mode in drop-down right?

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#37

Probably an unpopular opinion here, but I do not understand why people prefer tiling window managers. I prefer to have lots of windows open, and being able to position them how I want with the size I want greatly increases my productivity. Tiling window managers makes you conform to their way of working.

Some people are more productive if they don't have to think about positioning, sizing, and switching between a bunch of overlapping windows. Tiling WMs generally let you set up and save a configuration so that all your programs always open in the same place.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#38

I love i3 (though would switch to sway in a heartbeat if they sorted hidpi and xwayland together). Its only major flaw in my mind is that you will never be able to use someone else’s computer without feeling a seething frustration that it isn’t running i3 with your config...

> you will never be able to use someone else’s computer without feeling a seething frustration that it isn’t running i3 with your config...

That's why I try my best to cope with the defaults and change when absolutely necessary. It spares a lot of frustration when you use another config since you can always go vanilla.

Edit: quoting

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#39

Probably an unpopular opinion here, but I do not understand why people prefer tiling window managers. I prefer to have lots of windows open, and being able to position them how I want with the size I want greatly increases my productivity. Tiling window managers makes you conform to their way of working.

I feel the same way. There are projects like EvilWM, which is still rather nice, that has the 1px border and looks alot like a tiling window manager.

As I get old, I started to look more toward simple Windows managers, like OpenBox. I really do like having the buttons, and a window border I can actually hit with my pointer.

Personally I think it would be fun if someone cloned Windows 3.11 and added a few ekstra keyboard shortcuts.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#40

Probably an unpopular opinion here, but I do not understand why people prefer tiling window managers. I prefer to have lots of windows open, and being able to position them how I want with the size I want greatly increases my productivity. Tiling window managers makes you conform to their way of working.

>Tiling window managers makes you conform to their way of working.

That's not true, i often just use the tab-mode.

Using tiling for a long time, i go berserk having to rearrange window's with the mouse, then one is over the other...etc, it a mess!

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