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I've been considering trying out a tiling window manager. I'm curious what people feel they gain using a tiling window manager versus something like Windows/Gno

I've been considering trying out a tiling window manager. I'm curious what people feel they gain using a tiling window manager versus something like Windows/Gnome's screen splitting features. Is it being able to arrange more windows on the screen than just side-by-side windows? Is it keyboard shortcut efficiencies? Is it just cool?

Zhyl 7y ago
I initially installed because it was cool, but I stayed because I started to think in i3 keyboard commands. Being able to summon a new terminal window and have it slot into place when you have a new thought is another one of those things which remove friction similar to using the command line over a GUI. I've noticed when going back to Mint/Cinnamon that even though the terminal is only a click/keypress away, I think about it differently because it feels heavier and slower, the window chrome makes it feel more 'desktoppy' and if I want to summon a bunch of them to do a few different things (or one thing with a few different strands) I'll need to put in some cognitive effort to rearrange them how I like them. It's a bit of an immersion breaker.
qzx_pierri 7y ago
Having all windows tiled efficiently is awesome if you multitask a lot. If you don’t have a second monitor, it can be pretty comfy.
happimess 7y ago
On my personal machine, I use i3wm, and on my work machine I use OSX with Spectacle (a window tiler). For me, the killer feature of i3wm is not how it lets me arrange windows on my screen, but how it lets me switch between them. With OSX, I have to maintain a mental stack of recently-used applications: If I'm in my terminal and I want to get to firefox, I have to hit cmd-tab, or maybe cmd-tab-tab, or maybe cmd-tab-tab-tab. At least once a day, I make an off-by-one error and get stuck in a context-shift loop until I pause, think, and do the needful. With i3wm, I have 10 workspaces, and each is available with a single chord press. I have my own conventions about what's where, and there's no cognitive load associated with switching between text editor and documentation, or whatever. Along the same lines, I like to keep a roguelike open for quick breaks, but ideally I'd never accidentally switch to a video game. OSX gives you no ability to punt an application from your cmd-tab list except to quit the application. With i3wm, I keep that on workspace 0, and have never accidentally switched over to it. You may think I'm being precious, but it really does make a huge difference in my ability to stay in the zone.
- flyingcircus3 7y ago
  Do you manually move certain apps to certain workspaces, or do you have configurations to do it automatically? I've tried setting up the config to always have Firefox on workspace 3 and Slack on 4, but it doesn't work. I can do it with terminal, though. I've also done the xprop command to find the WM_CLASS property, but still no luck
  - happimess 7y ago
    I move everything around manually on login, and then try not to log out. For a while I was using xmonad, and setting things to automatically land on the right workspace was easy there, but ultimately I like the i3wm experience better. I saw something in the i3 docs about this feature, but it didn't work on the first try and I didn't dig deeper.
  - Kubuxu 7y ago
    See my dotfiles: https://github.com/Kubuxu/dotfiles/blob/master/i3/config.base#L193-L211 https://github.com/Kubuxu/dotfiles/blob/master/i3/config.bas... 'assign' allows you make so if window opens, it opens on given screen Lower, you can see me switch to given workspace before autostarting apps.
    - flyingcircus3 7y ago
      I've tried the assign keyword, but I can't get it to work with Firefox or slack assign [class="Firefox] 3 assign [class="Slack"] 4 But it doesn't work for me
      - cycomanic 7y ago
        It definitely works. I'm on mobile now but remember that the two parameters in the wm_class correspond to name and class (I always forget which is which) . Also you can use regex in the matching iirc
paulddraper 7y ago
> Is it being able to arrange more windows on the screen than just side-by-side windows? Yes. > Is it keyboard shortcut efficiencies? Yes. > Is it just cool? That too :) --- Tiling window managers give lots of possibilities for very efficient screen usage: here's my IDE, my terminal, my browser, and my other browser all easily arranged in a nice way. Plus, i3 also gives you composable stacked and tabbed layouts, for even more flexibilty.
flyingcircus3 7y ago
I started using it a couple of weeks ago because I use three or four terminals on one screen, and I was sick of manually tiling them with the mouse. There are several 3rd party programs for MacOS that let you organize windows with just the keyboard, but I couldn't find anything for Gnome. Honestly, if I could find a program to tile terminal windows, not tmux style, but actual windows, I'd drop i3.
ppseafield 7y ago
You can indeed get pretty far with most screen splitting as supported by Windows/Gnome. Tilers go even further than that and give you a few more nice features. I run i3 inside Mate (gnome 2 fork). The features I use most are switching between tiled and "tabbed", where you have fullscreen windows that can be navigated between like tabs quickly. I can pull up a browser and terminal or editor side by side, then switch to fullscreen terminal/editor, then back, very quickly. i3 works in sort of a tree structure, so you can, say, split the root window level into two horizontal frames, then split the left one into three vertical ones, and the right one into three internal horizontal ones (if that's what you want). I suspect I use the mouse more than most tilers, but I find <mod+Right Click> to resize while the windows stay tiled is quick enough and very accurate.
hsitz 7y ago
The gains come a few different ways: from using keys (avoiding mouse); not having to fiddle with window size and placement, windows blocked by other windows, etc.; from making workspaces an essential part of your ui. After using i3 for a bit, non-tiled window management seems very fiddly, and more importantly, a completely unnecessary waste of time and attention.
Evanbenn 7y ago
I initially started using it because I found I could not control multiple screens well with gnome and friends. Moving windows between screens and workplaces, moving workplaces between screens, arranging windows. Then I got addicted to the speed of flipping between windows and not having to fiddle with layout. Now I only have one screen but it is always the first install on a new Linux. Nice small and configurable window dressing and i3bar were very nice also.
Random_ernest 7y ago
To me it's two things. Firstly, I don't really like using the mouse. Secondly, the minimalistic design helps me focus and organise things better. Once you got used to it, you notice other things like the speed and configurability. But tbh I do think it only makes sense if you do a lot in the terminal, and need to switch often between applications.
boomlinde 7y ago
I started using tiling window managers when I had a netbook with a tiny screen. Most of the time I would want to run applications in full screen or occasionally split side by side, with minimal window decorations to make as much use of the limited screen space as possible. I found that it makes it easier in general to manage windows and results in less mouse use for me, which is good ergonomically.

Zhyl 7y ago

I initially installed because it was cool, but I stayed because I started to think in i3 keyboard commands. Being able to summon a new terminal window and have it slot into place when you have a new thought is another one of those things which remove friction similar to using the command line over a GUI. I've noticed when going back to Mint/Cinnamon that even though the terminal is only a click/keypress away, I think about it differently because it feels heavier and slower, the window chrome makes it feel more 'desktoppy' and if I want to summon a bunch of them to do a few different things (or one thing with a few different strands) I'll need to put in some cognitive effort to rearrange them how I like them. It's a bit of an immersion breaker.

qzx_pierri 7y ago

Having all windows tiled efficiently is awesome if you multitask a lot. If you don’t have a second monitor, it can be pretty comfy.

happimess 7y ago

On my personal machine, I use i3wm, and on my work machine I use OSX with Spectacle (a window tiler). For me, the killer feature of i3wm is not how it lets me arrange windows on my screen, but how it lets me switch between them. With OSX, I have to maintain a mental stack of recently-used applications: If I'm in my terminal and I want to get to firefox, I have to hit cmd-tab, or maybe cmd-tab-tab, or maybe cmd-tab-tab-tab. At least once a day, I make an off-by-one error and get stuck in a context-shift loop until I pause, think, and do the needful. With i3wm, I have 10 workspaces, and each is available with a single chord press. I have my own conventions about what's where, and there's no cognitive load associated with switching between text editor and documentation, or whatever. Along the same lines, I like to keep a roguelike open for quick breaks, but ideally I'd never accidentally switch to a video game. OSX gives you no ability to punt an application from your cmd-tab list except to quit the application. With i3wm, I keep that on workspace 0, and have never accidentally switched over to it. You may think I'm being precious, but it really does make a huge difference in my ability to stay in the zone.

flyingcircus3 7y ago
Do you manually move certain apps to certain workspaces, or do you have configurations to do it automatically? I've tried setting up the config to always have Firefox on workspace 3 and Slack on 4, but it doesn't work. I can do it with terminal, though. I've also done the xprop command to find the WM_CLASS property, but still no luck
- happimess 7y ago
  I move everything around manually on login, and then try not to log out. For a while I was using xmonad, and setting things to automatically land on the right workspace was easy there, but ultimately I like the i3wm experience better. I saw something in the i3 docs about this feature, but it didn't work on the first try and I didn't dig deeper.
- Kubuxu 7y ago
  See my dotfiles: https://github.com/Kubuxu/dotfiles/blob/master/i3/config.base#L193-L211 https://github.com/Kubuxu/dotfiles/blob/master/i3/config.bas... 'assign' allows you make so if window opens, it opens on given screen Lower, you can see me switch to given workspace before autostarting apps.
  - flyingcircus3 7y ago
    I've tried the assign keyword, but I can't get it to work with Firefox or slack assign [class="Firefox] 3 assign [class="Slack"] 4 But it doesn't work for me
    - cycomanic 7y ago
      It definitely works. I'm on mobile now but remember that the two parameters in the wm_class correspond to name and class (I always forget which is which) . Also you can use regex in the matching iirc

paulddraper 7y ago

> Is it being able to arrange more windows on the screen than just side-by-side windows? Yes. > Is it keyboard shortcut efficiencies? Yes. > Is it just cool? That too :) --- Tiling window managers give lots of possibilities for very efficient screen usage: here's my IDE, my terminal, my browser, and my other browser all easily arranged in a nice way. Plus, i3 also gives you composable stacked and tabbed layouts, for even more flexibilty.

flyingcircus3 7y ago

I started using it a couple of weeks ago because I use three or four terminals on one screen, and I was sick of manually tiling them with the mouse. There are several 3rd party programs for MacOS that let you organize windows with just the keyboard, but I couldn't find anything for Gnome. Honestly, if I could find a program to tile terminal windows, not tmux style, but actual windows, I'd drop i3.

ppseafield 7y ago

You can indeed get pretty far with most screen splitting as supported by Windows/Gnome. Tilers go even further than that and give you a few more nice features. I run i3 inside Mate (gnome 2 fork). The features I use most are switching between tiled and "tabbed", where you have fullscreen windows that can be navigated between like tabs quickly. I can pull up a browser and terminal or editor side by side, then switch to fullscreen terminal/editor, then back, very quickly. i3 works in sort of a tree structure, so you can, say, split the root window level into two horizontal frames, then split the left one into three vertical ones, and the right one into three internal horizontal ones (if that's what you want). I suspect I use the mouse more than most tilers, but I find <mod+Right Click> to resize while the windows stay tiled is quick enough and very accurate.

hsitz 7y ago

The gains come a few different ways: from using keys (avoiding mouse); not having to fiddle with window size and placement, windows blocked by other windows, etc.; from making workspaces an essential part of your ui. After using i3 for a bit, non-tiled window management seems very fiddly, and more importantly, a completely unnecessary waste of time and attention.

Evanbenn 7y ago

I initially started using it because I found I could not control multiple screens well with gnome and friends. Moving windows between screens and workplaces, moving workplaces between screens, arranging windows. Then I got addicted to the speed of flipping between windows and not having to fiddle with layout. Now I only have one screen but it is always the first install on a new Linux. Nice small and configurable window dressing and i3bar were very nice also.

Random_ernest 7y ago

To me it's two things. Firstly, I don't really like using the mouse. Secondly, the minimalistic design helps me focus and organise things better. Once you got used to it, you notice other things like the speed and configurability. But tbh I do think it only makes sense if you do a lot in the terminal, and need to switch often between applications.

boomlinde 7y ago

I started using tiling window managers when I had a netbook with a tiny screen. Most of the time I would want to run applications in full screen or occasionally split side by side, with minimal window decorations to make as much use of the limited screen space as possible. I found that it makes it easier in general to manage windows and results in less mouse use for me, which is good ergonomically.