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Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

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Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#31

Post by BeetleB »

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…

> This is opposed to a traditional tiling WM where you'd either need to open the app in another workspace, use some stacking feature or worst of all shove the new window into the current view by resizing some other window(s) which is often not ideal.

I use Awesome Window Manager and one feature I like about it is this:

Say I've got my terminal in workspace 1, Firefox in workspace 2, and Emacs in workspace 3. There are often times I need to use either the terminal or Emacs (or both) while viewing a website. So with a keystroke, I can tell it to combine any two or three workspaces and all the windows are shown tiled together. In a sense, it creates a new temporary workspace with all 3 windows. As soon as I leave this workspace, it restores it to the original configuration. No need to move windows from one workspace to another and remember to move them back.

This is the one feature that I'm really missing from Mac OS.

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#32

Post by silon42 »

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.

Alt+Tab is great... I wouldn't use a desktop without proper Alt+Tab (exactly like in KDE).

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#33

Post by Philpax »

neilv wrote: post #20
Philpax wrote: post #12

Configuring your WM in Haskell seems fun, but I suspect "fun" is the primary motivator, not any kind of practical reason. Type-checking keybindings is cute, but you're going to discover that the keybinding doesn't work when you go to use it, so how much time are you really saving? That's not helped by the fact that many WMs/compositors have validators for their configs, so you're getting much of the same benefit with…

> Configuring your WM in Haskell seems fun, but I suspect "fun" is the primary motivator, not any kind of practical reason. Not for me. I don't know Haskell, and I had to cargo-cult forms to do what I want (which bothers me, as someone towards the end of the developer spectrum that likes to understand well how systems work). But XMonad with a few cargo-culted tweaks works noticeably better for me than I've been able…

I haven't used it in some years, but I found AwesomeWM to work well for me for the usecase of configurable predefined window layouts. Is there anything in particular about Xmonad that keeps you coming back?

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#34

Post by rootnod3 »

Philpax wrote: post #12

Configuring your WM in Haskell seems fun, but I suspect "fun" is the primary motivator, not any kind of practical reason. Type-checking keybindings is cute, but you're going to discover that the keybinding doesn't work when you go to use it, so how much time are you really saving? That's not helped by the fact that many WMs/compositors have validators for their configs, so you're getting much of the same benefit with…

Apart from the Haskell fun, xmonad is really really good. Especially how it handles workspaces on multiple monitors. By default, each monitor has one workspace. Not one workspace for ALL monitors.

So if your side screen has say documentation open, and you switch on your main screen from terminal to editor, only the main screen changes. The side screen stays untouched. Some people prefer it, some hate it. But it's good that xmonad offers it. It also has hot reloading of the config, which is also nice.

Sure, Niri's config is approachable, but is it hackable? It only offers what Niri offers, right? You can't extend its functionality by config alone.

That is where XMonad and others shine. Sure, they might not be for the "I don't wanna spend time configuring my WM to death" crowd (and I mean absolutely no derision in that. We all have different rabbit holes we want to customize to oblivion), but Xmonad or Stumpwm etc allow for those shenanigans, and I myself am very very happy to have those.

Long story short, it's not all 100% about the type safety, it's also a lot about the extensibility of it.

Niri is nice, not mocking it. But infinite scrolling is not everyone's jam. Some others might even question the choice of KDL instead of JSON without any clear benifit.

Whatever you prefer and if it works for you, great. That's why we have choices ^^

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#35

Post by rootnod3 »

WD-42 wrote: post #4

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

I honestly do not understand the scrolling WMs. The last thing I want to do is move my hand to my mouse to scroll. I tried them, didn't work for me. So yes, there's still a crowd of people hanging on to old tiling WMs and therefore sticking to Xorg instead of Wayland. Because you can pry EXWM and StumpWM out of my cold dead hands.

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#36

Post by thot_experiment »

I've been using XMonad since 2012, not really for any reason other than someone at HMC told me to and I just stuck with it ever since. Sometimes I wonder if there's a reason to try something else, but I already know all the keybinds and it just does everything I want.

My absolute favorite feature (i'm sure this is present elsewhere too) is the idea that I have my stuff laid out on virtual screens and I can just assign a virtual screen to a physical screen super trivially without ever moving my hands off the keyboard. It's such a wonderful workflow.

Tiling WMs are one of those power user things where once you get used to it the other way just seem so obviously bad. VIM and Blender are similar, unfamiliar annoying interface if you're used to the normie way of doing things, but once you understand the patterns and the way you can compose them it becomes so much more expressive.

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#38

Post by forgotpwd16 »

lelandbatey wrote: post #9
WD-42 wrote: post #4

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

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…

Checking the video and impressed how people remember all the programs they've running on the canvas and their location. In i3 have been using i3-renameworkspaces to know what is opened in other workspaces because kept forgetting.

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#39

Post by WD-42 »

rootnod3 wrote: post #35
WD-42 wrote: post #4

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

I honestly do not understand the scrolling WMs. The last thing I want to do is move my hand to my mouse to scroll. I tried them, didn't work for me. So yes, there's still a crowd of people hanging on to old tiling WMs and therefore sticking to Xorg instead of Wayland. Because you can pry EXWM and StumpWM out of my cold dead hands.

What makes you think you need a mouse?

Re: Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad

#40

Post by tome »

Philpax wrote: post #12

Configuring your WM in Haskell seems fun, but I suspect "fun" is the primary motivator, not any kind of practical reason. Type-checking keybindings is cute, but you're going to discover that the keybinding doesn't work when you go to use it, so how much time are you really saving? That's not helped by the fact that many WMs/compositors have validators for their configs, so you're getting much of the same benefit with…

> you're going to discover that the keybinding doesn't work when you go to use it, so how much time are you really saving?

It's not about discovering it doesn't work so much as discovering the specific reason it doesn't work.

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