61–70 of 88 posts
I3 is the only software I miss when working on Windows.
I don't know, i don't understand how networking works with windows 10, and the memories i have of versioning with IIS (is that stuff still a thing on win10?) still makes me cry.
> it can feel quite overwhelming as you need to visualize the tree in your head And that's why I don't use a tiling window manager. I prefer to use my brain for actual work, not futzing around with configuration and OS BS. I mean if it takes 3000 lines of code to make your friggin window manager work then you're doing it wrong. I happen to like overlapping windows, it's just natural and free-flowing. I don't mind was…
Now everything is fixed in muscle memory, and I certainly don't need to expand any thought arranging a workspace for some task. I can do it with even looking at the screen, so predictable and easy it is. I can't imagine doing the workspace arrangement out of muscle memory with a mouse.
I also like how customizable i3wm is. That helps with orientation even more. For example I have my browser instances running under different system users, to have some relatively strong isolation between various work environments, and i3wm allows me to highlight the browser name and show a system user name it's running under in the titlebar.
https://megous.com/dl/tmp/98179a60c08bbdb1.png
If a command running in a terminal fails or is still in progress I get notified:
https://megous.com/dl/tmp/bc3e6c16abad3713.png
I don't even need to switch between terminals to see if something succeeded, or is still in progress.
Small but invaluable productivity things that I can't get elsewhere, without sacrificing something else. :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I encourage you to browse /r/unixporn [0]. I my opinion, a nicely configured tiling wm can look just as good as a stacking wm. And people on the subreddit are happy to share configs, so you don't have to spend more effort than some copying and pasting. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/
Those /r/unixporn screenshots are as real as a McDonald's burger in an ad. In both cases it's mostly careful staging to make it appear better than it is in real life (or when you're actually using your computer).
> it can feel quite overwhelming as you need to visualize the tree in your head And that's why I don't use a tiling window manager. I prefer to use my brain for actual work, not futzing around with configuration and OS BS. I mean if it takes 3000 lines of code to make your friggin window manager work then you're doing it wrong. I happen to like overlapping windows, it's just natural and free-flowing. I don't mind was…
> it can feel quite overwhelming as you need to visualize the tree in your head
I find it strange that the author finds it overwhelming here. You don't need to visualise the tree in your head - it's literally there in front of you, visually, with clear UX cues and four very simple keyboard shortcuts. and that's if you even want to bother with the tree anyway - I need to nest windows perhaps once a month.
> I mean if it takes 3000 lines of code to make your friggin window manager work then you're doing it wrong.
This is exaggeration. 5 years down the line, my i3 config is 280 lines, perhaps 70% of which are default. Additionally, it is not your place to tell others they're doing something wrong. Perhaps spending n hours writing 3000 lines of i3 code actually saved someone 10n time over 1 year. How would you know?
> I happen to like overlapping windows
You can achieve this with i3 floating windows. I use them sometimes, works very well.
I used to use Awesome. And I3 before that. My young adult son would sometimes ask to do something quick on my laptop. Hilarity ensued. Now I'm a truck driver. Bought a new laptop awhile back. Don't have time to fiddle (drive, eat, sleep) so I left the default Mint desktop. Right now I'm being unloaded at a distribution center in Alabama. They tell me it will be 5 to 6 hours until they're done. No labor on Labor Day,…
Commence fiddling in three ... two ... one ...
EDIT: One thing I like immediately is the little shortcut hint menu on the right. I first expected to be able to click each hint, and have that action happen. But it doesn't do that. It doesn't do anything. You have to actually read the hint, and type the displayed shortcut, thus forcing you to learn the system. Not tough love, just firm love.
For my new job I had to switch to Ubuntu on my corporate laptop and I installed Regolith ( https://regolith-linux.org/ ) on it which is basically i3 on top of Gnome (was using Awesome WM on Debian before) and so far it is a very pleasant experience 9 month in.
Does Regolith offer an out-of-the-box i3 experience or do you have to tweak it the same ?
Here's my config files with a lot of i3 goodies: https://github.com/riccardomc/rcs
Maybe you'll find something useful in there.
Tiling window managers are great and they are the biggest overall UX difference I miss when using macOS and Windows vs Linux. I've tried many things for both macOS and Windows to get that "i3wm feel" but nothing quite scratches the itch. macOS can get close but sadly requires disabling security features in macOS for deep integration and that is something I don't care to entertain personally. So I make do with macOS's…
For macOS, I use Amethyst, recommended here on HN and works fine without disabling security features. https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst
