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I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

i3wm.org

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Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#431

Post by chaorace »

markstos wrote: post #378
devenblake wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you hack Firefox that way? Been trying to figure that out for a while, no luck.

Qutebrowser has an "all tabs are windows" mode, along with the ability to hide all the "chrome", so the window manager can handle the tabs.

Hard agree. If you're the kind of person using a tiling WM, you will definitely find the deep customization that Qutebrowser exposes to be liberating. I like the experience so much that I'll start selling it for the rest of this comment:

Do you use vim-like extensions, but hate how surface-level they become due to hard WebExtension limitations? Pining to recapture the days of Pentadactyl? Qutebrowser is built for vim-like navigation from the ground up:

* Hate getting stuck on about//:* / chrome://* pages? Every single page in qutebrowser works with your keybindings!

* Hate PDFs for the same reason? Qutebrowser will read PDFs and keeps your keybindings there, too!

* Wish you could have a dotfile configuration for your browser? Qutebrowser (optionally) does dotfiles (and they're Python!)

* Wish you had a real EX mode? Qutebrowser has one and it does not disappoint in terms of customization/functionality. It's actually the linchpin of the the entire UX, much like the Omnibar is for Chrome.

* Wish you had a keyboard-driven text selection mode? Qutebrowser has one!

* Hate file pickers forcing you to reach for the mouse? Qutebrowser implements its own keyboard-driven file picker (and it's actually really good!)

Have you considered other browsers in the past, but passed them up due to a lack of extension support? Well... Qutebrowser can't handle WebExtensions, but it does provide most features you would miss:

* Dark Mode? It exposes the same performant, engine-level dark mode that Chrome does

* Adblock? Qutebrowser supports hostlist-based adblocking (with auto-update) OR, if you want real Adblock, you can install jblock for qutebrowser, which is comparable functionality-wise to "uBlock"-type extensions (yes, including Youtube)

* Userscripts? Qutebrowser supports loading userscripts and is mostly compatible with the GreaseMonkey 3/4 APIs. This covers what most "minor" extensions (e.g. HTTPS Everywhere / Old Reddit redirectors / UI tweaks) can do

* Custom CSS? Most "userstyle"-type websites package a "Greasemonkey" version that will work just fine with the previously remarked userscript functionality

* Password management? Qutebrowser comes with scripting support that will allow you to interface with your desktop-side password manager. Out of the box, it comes pre-packaged with scripts for connecting to GNU pass, bitwarden, keepass, and lastpass.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#432

Post by scns »

chaorace wrote: post #431
markstos wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qutebrowser has an "all tabs are windows" mode, along with the ability to hide all the "chrome", so the window manager can handle the tabs.

Hard agree. If you're the kind of person using a tiling WM, you will definitely find the deep customization that Qutebrowser exposes to be liberating. I like the experience so much that I'll start selling it for the rest of this comment: Do you use vim-like extensions, but hate how surface-level they become due to hard WebExtension limitations? Pining to recapture the days of Pentadactyl? Qutebrowser is built for vim…

I use Saka Keys for vimbindings. Config can be exported and shared with other machines.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#433

Post by chaorace »

scns wrote: post #432
chaorace wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard agree. If you're the kind of person using a tiling WM, you will definitely find the deep customization that Qutebrowser exposes to be liberating. I like the experience so much that I'll start selling it for the rest of this comment: Do you use vim-like extensions, but hate how surface-level they become due to hard WebExtension limitations? Pining to recapture the days of Pentadactyl? Qutebrowser is built for vim…

I use Saka Keys for vimbindings. Config can be exported and shared with other machines.

Sure, but will Saka Keys allow you to configure the browser itself? Will it autoload the actual dotfile on startup if it's already in the expected configuration directory?

I'm not saying vim-like extensions aren't worth using, but they are inherently less capable due to hamstringing by WebExtension APIs. If anything, it's proof of how much work and care goes into them, since they have to fight the limitations of a framework not designed for this type of UI overhaul

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#434

Post by scns »

alecmg wrote: post #105
julius wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitting borders with a pointer is horrible. No matter the border size. A few years ago I learned that most Linux WMs allow you to use ALT+RightMouse to resize your window from anywhere (sometimes WIN+RightMouse, usually configurable).

while on topic of window adjusting shortcuts I got way too used to Win+arrow keys for moving and resizing windows, inluding in multiple monitor setups. Any Linux WM that replicates these shortcuts? Using Win+arrow I can minimize, maximize, make window stick to left or right half of screen or any of corners and move between desktops.

Cinnamon has it, many more are configurable. Best enjoyed on Linux Mint IMO.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#435

Post by scns »

nvarsj wrote: post #422

I'm a huge fan of i3 and sway. I recently stopped using sway because these WMs don't work well on large screens or ultrawides. They are optimized for smaller screens, especially laptop screens. I swapped to a 48" OLED and the ideal model really is to center your active window if you can. I haven't yet found a WM that handles this as well as I'd like, although PaperWM is pretty close if a little clunky due to Gnome 3.…

In Cinnamon youn can bind 'center window' to a combbination, i chose super+c.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#436

Post by greggyb »

abetlen wrote: post #279

My brand new laptop was stolen while I was in school and I had to finish the year with a used 10-inch netbook I borrowed from a friend. Because of the tiny display and underpowered processor I had to get creative, I installed Arch plus i3 and it worked like a charm. In fact, I noticed my productivity actually went up. Eventually I got a new laptop, I switched off Arch to Ubuntu but I've been using i3 ever since. If y…

> rofi [2]: This is a dmenu replacement with a nicer interface that lets you combine lists of commands in a single search window. I have it configured so I can search through my open windows by title or run any program from the same interface.

Note, this is totally doable in dmenu. I have a script that combines output from wmctrl and dmenu_path. This is bound to M-space for me.

If you have a script or binary that outputs a list of newline-separated strings, you can easily combine these, and dmenu will happily return the selected thing.

Here's what that looks like:

    present-options () {
        windows      # Function to list open windows
        dmenu_path   # dmenu script listing binaries
    }

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#437

Post by greggyb »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #197

I used i3 for a while when unity had a really annoying multi-touch bug I could not work around. The thing is? I never used much more than a simple L/R split that was available in any OS / WM forever. If I wanted to split more, it was usually in the terminal, and done via tmux or the term app. Add to this, a full desktop environment will handle all sorts of things for you like brightness, volume controls, proper locki…

All those niceties you're talking about are handled by a settings daemon for the major DEs.

You can easily run the Gnome or XFCE settings daemon without launching a session of their window manager.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#438

Post by kjs3 »

lbhdc wrote: post #310
necrotic_comp wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My only/major beefs with Arch are the frequency with which they introduce breaking changes, the fact that your system may not work if you miss a news item, and the lack of humility in the community. It works, for sure, but I always felt a bit iffy when doing a massive update after a while, and I felt like I was being dragged along with their choices instead of making my own. I bought a beefy computer last year and in…

> My only/major beefs with Arch are the frequency with which they introduce breaking changes, the fact that your system may not work if you miss a news item, and the lack of humility in the community. It works, for sure, but I always felt a bit iffy when doing a massive update after a while, and I felt like I was being dragged along with their choices instead of making my own. This was my experience with Arch as well…

I've been running Suse for a couple of years on a lot of my kit, and it's been pretty worry free once I learned the deltas from my previous distro (e.g. zypper instead of apt). The only issue I've had is that once you get beyond the general desktop productivity environment it's a bit of a second class citizen. Usually not an issue, but make sure your favorite workflows/apps come over painlessly.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#439

Post by akho »

addicted wrote: post #380
stfwn wrote: post #66

I used to be all in on Apple. On macOS I had a little program called Magnet to snap windows to sides and corners, and on my iPad (with external keyboard) I SSH’d into a VPS to write and run code there. I used Alfred and had all kinds of workflows in there. I thought it was great. But then during my AI studies I wanted some beefier hardware, which was just not affordable for me within Apple’s ecosystem, plus they only…

I think the biggest contribution i3 has made to my computing life is helping me recognize just how superfluous most of what I normally did on my Windows and Mac computers was. Take away a lot of the chrome and it’s incredible how much can be achieved via simple text files and unfussy Linux tools. As an example, my GTD workflow (before I switched to a physical bullet journal) went from a variety of apps to a single i3…

Why use five i3 windows, if you can use five Vim windows? That would make moving things around a lot easier.

Re: I3: Improved Tiling Window Manager

#440

Post by dllthomas »

smabie wrote: post #410
dllthomas wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I currently use it. I guess you could say it "doesn't have mouse support" in that you don't interact with the window manager itself using a mouse. It certainly doesn't get in the way of you using the mouse with hosted applications, though. My favorite thing about it is the way it handles key bindings, where you populate any number of keymaps and one of the possible commands is `readkey`, which will read the next keyp…

If you like ratpoison, you should check out StumpWM. It's by the same guy, but takes the whole customization thing to a whole next level. It's written in Common Lisp so you can connect to the window mananger while it is running and make changes.

I'll check it out.
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