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Show HN: A Tiling Window Manager for Windows, Written in Janet

297 points by agentkilo 1y ago

Hi HN! I read[1] about Janet[2] some time ago, then immediately got impressed by the enthusiasm of its community, and by the language itself, so I started playing with it. At the time I was searching for a tiling window manager for Windows, and unavoidably the idea of scratching my own itch with Janet got hold of me, so Jwno was born. Simply put, Jwno is a keyboard-driven tiling window manager for Windows, scriptable with Janet. But since it has a complete Lisp runtime, and a thin wrapper library for Win32 APIs[3], you can certainly do much more with it. I hope you'll enjoy playing with it as much as I enjoyed building it. And yes, I use StumpWM on the Linux side, by the way. [1]: https://ianthehenry.com/posts/why-janet/ https://ianthehenry.com/posts/why-janet/ [2]: https://janet-lang.org/ https://janet-lang.org/ [3]: https://github.com/agent-kilo/jw32 https://github.com/agent-kilo/jw32

-__---____-ZXyw 1y ago
So amazing. I might have to use Windows soon, against my will, and this could sweeten the deal for me considerably!
pjerem 1y ago
Oh ! That looks cool :)
- agentkilo 1y ago
  Thanks :)
piskov 1y ago
Just in case someone new is looking, komorebi is great: https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi
- deleted 1y ago
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- agentkilo 1y ago
  Definitely! I got great inspirations from both of the Komorebi and GlazeWM communities. People who like tidy desktops are definitely nice people :)
- bsnnkv 1y ago
  komorebi dev here - Jwno is awesome and I highly recommend people give it a try (especially people who enjoy writing Lisp!) The Windows tiling window manager development scene is a very kind, relaxed and collaborative space where we all take inspiration from and support each other
  - TeMPOraL 1y ago
    That is amazing and I hope it'll continue to be so :). The Linux scene isn't bad either (or at least it wasn't 4+ years ago when I was into this); I've used StumpWM as a daily driver for many years, and while it was definitely niche, I still saw friendly exchange of ideas and experiences with people using and/or contributing to dwm, i3, and ratpoison. (Then there's EXWM, but I never really mustered the courage necessary to try it.)
bsnnkv 1y ago
Jwno is great, agentkilo is kind, Lisp is magic :)
- agentkilo 1y ago
  Thanks for the kind words! It means a lot coming from you :)
  - I_complete_me 1y ago
    This means something to me that one dev recognizes another and gives them kudos. I applaud this positive behaviour. You'd never get that from the AI monsters. But of course, now you probably will. Sorry, everyone.
pbohun 1y ago
This is so cool! It's funny because open source devs are making Windows better while MS is actively making it worse. If MS removed all telemetry and AI (and restored win10 functions in context menus), I would probably move back to it. I've recently started playing around with Janet, and it's a great language. I think it's inspired by Clojure and Lua, and somehow manages to be better than both (in my opinion).
- agentkilo 1y ago
  > I think it's inspired by Clojure and Lua, and somehow manages to be better than both This is exactly how I feel about Janet too. I don't think I have enough experience on Clojure or Lua to comment on them, but I got attracted to Janet almost immediately. Working on Jwno also confirms my first impression on Janet: It's really a practical language. The tooling has some room for improvement, but the language itself can get things done - usually fast and easily.
  - cfiggers 1y ago
    Agreed on the need for better Janet tooling. I'm trying to be the change I wish to see with Janet LSP[0]. Issues and contributions are welcome! [0] https://GitHub.com/CFiggers/janet-lsp https://GitHub.com/CFiggers/janet-lsp
  - pbohun 1y ago
    This is how I feel about Janet too, absolutely practical. So far it's been a breeze to write the little experiments I've done so far.
  - sph 1y ago
    How’s the REPL/interactive editing story? I feel weird using a Lisp that is not as interactive as Racket, Scheme or Common Lisp. Running scripts from the REPL ain’t the same thing as C-x C-e an expression on a live program
    - behnamoh 1y ago
      > I feel weird using a Lisp that is not as interactive as Racket, Scheme or Common Lisp I think Racket and Scheme don't belong in there because neither has a REPL as powerful and "interactive" as Common Lisp REPL. They don't support images either (but Janet and CL do).
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rich_sasha 1y ago
I'm curious, did you find there were things that were easier to do because it's Janet/lisp-like language? Or you just fancied like using it (perfectly valid reason of course!). I tried various lisp dialects, but I could never find the killer feature vs other languages I already use. And I can justify why I use these specific languages I do use, if that makes sense.
- agentkilo 1y ago
  I find the REPL and interactive development workflow invaluable. A window manager is a long-running background service by nature, and has a lot of accumulated runtime states. The ability to peek inside and debug while the process keeps running helped me a lot when building Jwno. I think Jwno's REPL module is so important, I specifically changed Jwno's architecture at one point to make it work.
  - behnamoh 1y ago
    > I find the REPL and interactive development workflow invaluable. A window manager is a long-running background service by nature, and has a lot of accumulated runtime states. The ability to peek inside and debug while the process keeps running helped me a lot when building Jwno. Sure, but any particular reason you picked Janet over Common Lisp? They both support images, REPL, hot-code-reloading, etc.
    - agentkilo 1y ago
      TBH I dived right in when I decided I should build something with Janet, and didn't really consider any alternatives. Now you mentioned it, I think Janet's simplicity and conciseness played a large part in attracting me to it, comparing to Common Lisp at least.
    - netbioserror 1y ago
      Janet being a tiny embeddable runtime similar to Lua probably makes it perfect for a use-case like this. You have a full language, standard library, and interpreter in ~1 MB, along with the ability to bundle the runtime with your scripts into one binary. That's worth a lot.
90s_dev 1y ago
> You can implement custom commands and hooks to trigger. It's even possible to call native Win32 APIs in your own implementations. For example, to always move a Notepad window to the (100, 100) coordinates on your screen(s), using the low-level SetWindowPos function Great job. Looks really interesting and useful. And a fun excuse to write Lisp. I really appreciate it when APIs give you high-level functionality but keep the door open to lower-level APIs when you really need them.
packetlost 1y ago
This might be the coolest project I've seen using Janet yet!
pona-a 1y ago
What kinds of automation are possible with having a scripting language inside your WM, rather than Sway-style IPC? I heard the new Windows WMs were where most pure workflow advances happen, so I wonder if they can be replicated on Linux.
roxolotl 1y ago
Tangential but I’ve been writing a lot of Janet recently using Joy[0], web framework, to build a small web app. Would love to hear what you learned about Janet from doing this work and how you feel about the language afterwards. The one thing I’ve noticed is that it seems like Janet had a burst of interest 2020-2022 but it has since slowed down. Would love to see it become popular again. The main reason I’m using it is because I like how it’s both powerful and lightweight. I’d use clojure but I don’t want Java. I’m tempted to also try Common Lisp but so far Janet has been great. [0]: https://github.com/joy-framework/joy https://github.com/joy-framework/joy
- agentkilo 1y ago
  I think Janet is quite...liberal? It's a practical language, but doesn't force a specific paradigm on you. There're "escape hatches" in different levels of the language, and I like that. Maybe the most "opinionated" things in Janet are the ev stuff and fibers. I think they're done right though, you just need to be careful with the event loop when embedding Janet.
  - nicce 1y ago
    How it compares with Lua?
    - 77pt77 1y ago
      This one actually has real arrays (mutable and immutable)
    - giraffe_lady 1y ago
      Strictly better unless you need an extremely small runtime rather than a very small one, or are exposing a scripting API to users who will recoil from prefix notation.
    - behnamoh 1y ago
      If you like Janet and Lua, might as well try Fennel, which was made by the creator of Janet.
ang_cire 1y ago
Custom windows shells (I know this is just a window manager, but still) in the year of our lord 2025? This takes me back to the days of installing bb4win and litestep in XP. I'm a kid again!
- insin 1y ago
  TIL bbLean [1] still works in Windows 11! Currently digging through my archives for my old BB4Win styles repository [1] https://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/ https://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/
  - 90s_dev 1y ago
    Wow, bb4win and bblean take me way back. In fact, they were a huge inspiration for my shells[1] feature, which are just userland programs that happen to be able to manage panels (windows). [1] https://90s.dev/technical/architecture.html#shells https://90s.dev/technical/architecture.html#shells
- reddit_clone 1y ago
  >litestep Brings back memories !
- piskov 1y ago
  Oh shit yes: Rainlendar
- scbrg 1y ago
  flashback, 2001. I'm 25, sitting in the office with litestep installed (which honestly was the only alternative to Linux or resignation). My five years younger colleague steps up to my desk and says "hey, cool desktop!" I start explaining, very carefully, like I'm talking to a child, that this is an alternative shell, which replaces the standard Windows Explorer et cetera, und so weiter... it's very complicated you know... Guy says, "cool... hey, why don't you check out this URL?". I do. It's the litestep contributor page. His nick is on it. Near the top. Ow.
  - 1y ago
aus10d 1y ago
Janet looks really neat. And this project seems really cool. Windows DESPERATELY needs a more powerful built-in manager. It's ridiculous to use the mouse all the time.
- Rasthor 1y ago
  One of the later PowerToys updates makes the first few steps in the right direction with "fancy zones". It's not strictly native windows, but still developed by Microsoft and adds keyboard shortcuts for all its utilities
  - TeMPOraL 1y ago
    PowerToys seems to be making two step forward, one step backwards, and then makes a leap in a random off-axis direction. Every time an update comes, I feel both joy and worry - I expect to see some new cool thing (and possibly even useful to me), but I also worry about bloat and random performance degradations. I haven't bothered with measuring and quantifying it properly, but I do feel PowerToys got heavier and slower over the last 2 years. Ironically, 90% of use I get from them is remapping Caps Lock to CTRL. Which I historically did with AutoHotkey, which was much lighter, but then there's the 10% of the time I need something else from PowerToys...
    - nemomarx 1y ago
      Even lighter than autohotkey is remapping on the hardware of the keyboard. There's a lot of open source firmware options for that now in the custom scene
      - whywhywhywhy 1y ago
        Yeah I found all the software based remapping to be a bit janky on Windows, ended up just doing it in the keyboard firmware instead to move my ctrl keys beside the spacebar.
    - layer8 1y ago
      The even simpler solution to remapping Caps Lock is to use SharpKeys, which applies registry settings to make use of Windows’ built-in remapping functionality.
MisterKent 1y ago
How does it compare to komorebi? I've been using it for about 5 months with great success. I'm a Hyprland user when I'm on my personal machine, but for windows Komorebi has let me keep my muscle memory and workflow largely intact.
- agentkilo 1y ago
  I think these are the most obvious differences between the two: * By default, Komorebi uses dynamic tiling, while Jwno uses manual tiling. * Komorebi has workspaces, Jwno works with Windows native virtual desktops instead. * Komorebi uses IPC and native system command line to send commands, while Jwno usually operates all by itself. There are definitely other details that are important to you, but these are the things that immediately came to my mind. I don't run Hyprland so can't really comment on that.
- deleted 1y ago
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iLemming 1y ago
Whoa, very cool. I love WMs, I love Lisp, and I hate Windows. This seems to be a perfect "medicine" for my frustration with it.
alpb 1y ago
It's not a tiling manager but slightly related: I replicated Spectacle/Rectangle (macOS apps) on Windows a while ago to snap windows to edges/corners/two-thirds/one-thirds etc a while back. If you're interested: https://github.com/ahmetb/RectangleWin/blob/main/README.md https://github.com/ahmetb/RectangleWin/blob/main/README.md
- videogreg93 1y ago
  I love Rectangle, will definetly check this out!
Pfeil 1y ago
I always disliked the chaos that happens quickly with application windows, and loved the idea of tiling. But none of them really worked for me practically until I found PaperWM around a year ago or so (gnome extension). It has few core shortcuts and feels more natural. Like you would really arrange applications directly on your desk. It does not limit itself by your screen width and has the nice default that a new window appears to the right of the current window (configurable). You seldomly have the need to re-arrange windows, because the default just fits 99% of all cases. In addition, you still have the comfort of gnome. No hacky config files just to get wifi working or so. For work we have OSX, and I am really missing it there (I am using rectangle there instead). https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM?tab=readme-ov-file#usage https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM?tab=readme-ov-file#usage
- bsnnkv 1y ago
  Jwno can do this! https://agentkilo.itch.io/jwno/devlog/871672/scroll-jwno-scroll https://agentkilo.itch.io/jwno/devlog/871672/scroll-jwno-scr...
  - Pfeil 1y ago
    Neat! This looks pretty close, at least for the base principle. If I had a windows machine I would definitely give it a try.
  - agentkilo 1y ago
    Thanks for posting the link! It's a quick-and-dirty PoC with lots of caveats and limitations though. E.g. it works only for a single monitor. I don't think we can clip windows to a "view port" on Windows (the OS), so this may never be as nice as PaperWM, Niri etc.
- deleted 1y ago
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- modzu 1y ago
  scrolling window management is a new paradigm for me - really liking paper so far, thanks for sharing! (for what its worth, traditionally my approach has been fixed window positions for all applications, and enough screen real estate to support that. but that doesnt work in wayland with any mainstream compositor afaik)
TeMPOraL 1y ago
Long-time StumpWM user, before I switched back to Windows a few years ago. This is super-exciting to see, and I'm going to take it for a spin. It might just address my major frustrations with arranging windows and switching between them; my monitor seems just the right shape/resolution for the standard Windows splits to be suboptimal. (Browsers, in particular, I use full-screen less and less. That annoying trend of squeezing everything into short lines "because readability" is just wasting too much screen space; zooming in makes everything too big, and I'm getting tired of writing userstyles or userscript to fix it for every other page I open, so I'm back to keeping 2 or 3 columns of windows running.) Also, any excuse to use more Lisp is good in my book. Based on the screenshots, it looks stellar; if it works half as well as it comes across, I'll switch over instantly.
- agentkilo 1y ago
  A fellow StumpWM user! My StumpWM is heavily customized though, and I mostly modeled Jwno's behavior after my own config, so it may not be what you expected at all. But that's one of the reasons I like Lisp and things built in Lisp: They are so flexible, you can sometimes build something based on the original thing, while it feels completely different from the original. > my monitor seems just the right shape/resolution for the standard Windows splits to be suboptimal Do you use an ultra-wide? In that case, Jwno has no OOTB ultra-wide support, but there's a section for adjusting it in the cookbook[1]. [1]: https://agent-kilo.github.io/jwno/cookbook/adjust-top-level-frames-for-ultrawide-monitors.html https://agent-kilo.github.io/jwno/cookbook/adjust-top-level-...
  - TeMPOraL 1y ago
    > Do you use an ultra-wide? In that case, Jwno has no OOTB ultra-wide support Actually no, I'm using two regular, 16:19, 2560x1440 screens. It's more that my understanding of readability does not agree with what designers think, and when I split the screen in half, many pages end up with text a little too small for my comfort, and if zoom in to compensate, the lines get slightly too short or horizontal scrollbar appears. (I'd guess it's probably my somewhat strong myopia glasses that are getting me "out of alignment" from average user when it comes to text size and line length preferences.) > but there's a section for adjusting it in the cookbook[1]. Lovely! FWIW, I took it for a spin briefly (only briefly - had work to finish, but I plan on getting back to it) and I was pleasantly surprised by how good it is, and how well it handles Windows quirks. It feels nicer than StumpWM did back when I used it. The only thing that didn't work well was VLC - it does something weird with recreating its window when switching between videos, and in the process, it "breaks out of confinement" and ends up returning to original size and position it had before Jwno took custody of it.
entropie 1y ago
I recently tried hyprland after using xmonad for like 10+ years and wondered about the decision to bind workspaces to displays. I didnt like that. How does Jwno handle multiple monitors? I have looked at the docs and didnt see it mention anywhere.
- agentkilo 1y ago
  Sorry for the confusion. Multi-monitor support is only briefly mentioned in the docs[1] and the interactive tutorial[2]. Jwno's internal data structure has these levels (higher-level comes first): Root - Virtual Desktops - Monitors - Normal Frames - Windows So monitors are part of a virtual desktop, and every virtual desktop has the same layout that reflects your physical monitor arrangement. When you switch virtual desktops, all monitors switch to the new desktop at the same time. [1]:https://agent-kilo.github.io/jwno/frame-tree/frame-nodes.html https://agent-kilo.github.io/jwno/frame-tree/frame-nodes.htm... [2]: https://github.com/agent-kilo/jwno/blob/master/example/tutorial.janet https://github.com/agent-kilo/jwno/blob/master/example/tutor...
avindrag 1y ago
That UI hinting feature is killer. Is something similar available outside of this repo?
- accrual 1y ago
  I agree, it's impressive. It brings me back to early Windows when keyboard control was a first class citizen in the UI, and most functions had dedicated alt key combos per dialog.
jackemerson 1y ago
Looks very good! This one is what I need
wodenokoto 1y ago
What resource did you use to learn Janet? And did you already know lisp before? Comming from Python and php I found the "Janet for mortals" very difficult. It expected me to know what closures and macros are.
- harryvederci 1y ago
  I'm not the one you asked, but maybe this is helpful: I learnt Janet after learning Clojure, and it all felt very natural. So a possible approach is to grab a beginner Clojure book/tutorial first, run some of the examples, and then see how far you get with Janet. Not everything is the same, but you'll find that out along the way, and the people in the Janet Zulip chat are always super helpful. Also check out https://janetdocs.com https://janetdocs.com for some examples.
once_inc 1y ago
My experiences with tiling window managers is that they struggle in judging a modal screen like a confirmation box or detachable/dockable mini-containers like the interface of certain programs like GIMP. Considering those as new tile-able windows tends to be a hinderance instead of increasing productivity.
- roflmaostc 1y ago
  I use AwesomeWM on Linux since over ten years. For example, GIMP works without any issues. And the productivity boost is tremendous, for me it's very hard to work on anything else. I barely encounter programs where it does more harm than use. Especially having multiple desktops with different names allow me to localize windows so much quicker than looking through a dozens of terminals manually. Right now, I do have: 1 mail, 2 web, 3 gimp, 4 chat, 5 notes, 6 terminal, 7 ssh cluster
- 3036e4 1y ago
  They do struggle with that, or rather some developers struggle with not making assumptions about the way a user's window manager is laying out their windows? I use StumpWM, and for the few applications that this becomes a real problem it is possible to run those in a floating windows group that works just like a minimalistic non-tiling window manager. I think this is a common features of tiling window managers.
weeb 1y ago
This looks to have great potential for accessibility! I work with individuals who use eye gaze input, where a significant part of the screen is taken up by an on-screen keyboard (including various shortcut/macro keys as well as for typing). Having tiling options that fit within a smaller part of the screen (e.g. still allow side by side or top/bottom split, but in a smaller total region) would be great. Particularly as Windows 11 has broken vertical docking of appbars. The UI hints also look promising, but I can't get them working. Using example-config.janet I tried pressing RAlt or RAlt+K and I get the UI hint shortcuts list coming up, but none of them seem to do anything, except in Notepad where I sometimes get the standard UI hints (that always come up here with a long press of left alt) Fwiw, as a newbie I found it a bit intimidating/off-putting that it doesn't work out the box without choosing a config file. That's quite a lot of extra cognitive effort and link-clicking before you can try it out. And I'm left quite unsure what I'm missing out on. Am I able to access the different documented features with the config file I have? It's not clear.
- agentkilo 1y ago
  > Having tiling options that fit within a smaller part of the screen (e.g. still allow side by side or top/bottom split, but in a smaller total region) would be great. Do you mean reserving screen space for the on-screen keyboard? If that's the case, you can try to "transform" the top-level frame (a frame that tracks a monitor's screen area), either in the REPL or in your config: https://agent-kilo.github.io/jwno/cookbook/adjust-top-level-frames-for-ultrawide-monitors.html https://agent-kilo.github.io/jwno/cookbook/adjust-top-level-... > Using example-config.janet I tried pressing RAlt or RAlt+K and I get the UI hint shortcuts list coming up, but none of them seem to do anything Can you please file a bug report and attach relevant logs? You can write logs to a file by starting Jwno like this: jwno.exe --log-file C:\jwno.log --log-level debug --no-console your-config.janet There should be some interesting logs when you press one of the UI hint shortcuts. > Fwiw, as a newbie I found it a bit intimidating/off-putting that it doesn't work out the box without choosing a config file. That's quite a lot of extra cognitive effort and link-clicking before you can try it out. I totally understand. But I chose to not include a default config in the executable, because I thought a window manager is a... personal thing. It should evolve with your habits and workflows, so the default config will most likely get changed to something dramatically different anyway. I can be wrong though.
xtiansimon 1y ago
Does your project have any influence on Windows focus stealing?

297 points by agentkilo 1y ago

-__---____-ZXyw 1y ago

So amazing. I might have to use Windows soon, against my will, and this could sweeten the deal for me considerably!

pjerem 1y ago

Oh ! That looks cool :)

agentkilo 1y ago
Thanks :)

piskov 1y ago

Just in case someone new is looking, komorebi is great: https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi

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agentkilo 1y ago
Definitely! I got great inspirations from both of the Komorebi and GlazeWM communities. People who like tidy desktops are definitely nice people :)
bsnnkv 1y ago
komorebi dev here - Jwno is awesome and I highly recommend people give it a try (especially people who enjoy writing Lisp!) The Windows tiling window manager development scene is a very kind, relaxed and collaborative space where we all take inspiration from and support each other
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  That is amazing and I hope it'll continue to be so :). The Linux scene isn't bad either (or at least it wasn't 4+ years ago when I was into this); I've used StumpWM as a daily driver for many years, and while it was definitely niche, I still saw friendly exchange of ideas and experiences with people using and/or contributing to dwm, i3, and ratpoison. (Then there's EXWM, but I never really mustered the courage necessary to try it.)

bsnnkv 1y ago

Jwno is great, agentkilo is kind, Lisp is magic :)

agentkilo 1y ago
Thanks for the kind words! It means a lot coming from you :)
- I_complete_me 1y ago
  This means something to me that one dev recognizes another and gives them kudos. I applaud this positive behaviour. You'd never get that from the AI monsters. But of course, now you probably will. Sorry, everyone.

pbohun 1y ago

This is so cool! It's funny because open source devs are making Windows better while MS is actively making it worse. If MS removed all telemetry and AI (and restored win10 functions in context menus), I would probably move back to it. I've recently started playing around with Janet, and it's a great language. I think it's inspired by Clojure and Lua, and somehow manages to be better than both (in my opinion).

agentkilo 1y ago
> I think it's inspired by Clojure and Lua, and somehow manages to be better than both This is exactly how I feel about Janet too. I don't think I have enough experience on Clojure or Lua to comment on them, but I got attracted to Janet almost immediately. Working on Jwno also confirms my first impression on Janet: It's really a practical language. The tooling has some room for improvement, but the language itself can get things done - usually fast and easily.
- cfiggers 1y ago
  Agreed on the need for better Janet tooling. I'm trying to be the change I wish to see with Janet LSP[0]. Issues and contributions are welcome! [0] https://GitHub.com/CFiggers/janet-lsp https://GitHub.com/CFiggers/janet-lsp
- pbohun 1y ago
  This is how I feel about Janet too, absolutely practical. So far it's been a breeze to write the little experiments I've done so far.
- sph 1y ago
  How’s the REPL/interactive editing story? I feel weird using a Lisp that is not as interactive as Racket, Scheme or Common Lisp. Running scripts from the REPL ain’t the same thing as C-x C-e an expression on a live program
  - behnamoh 1y ago
    > I feel weird using a Lisp that is not as interactive as Racket, Scheme or Common Lisp I think Racket and Scheme don't belong in there because neither has a REPL as powerful and "interactive" as Common Lisp REPL. They don't support images either (but Janet and CL do).

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rich_sasha 1y ago

I'm curious, did you find there were things that were easier to do because it's Janet/lisp-like language? Or you just fancied like using it (perfectly valid reason of course!). I tried various lisp dialects, but I could never find the killer feature vs other languages I already use. And I can justify why I use these specific languages I do use, if that makes sense.

agentkilo 1y ago
I find the REPL and interactive development workflow invaluable. A window manager is a long-running background service by nature, and has a lot of accumulated runtime states. The ability to peek inside and debug while the process keeps running helped me a lot when building Jwno. I think Jwno's REPL module is so important, I specifically changed Jwno's architecture at one point to make it work.
- behnamoh 1y ago
  > I find the REPL and interactive development workflow invaluable. A window manager is a long-running background service by nature, and has a lot of accumulated runtime states. The ability to peek inside and debug while the process keeps running helped me a lot when building Jwno. Sure, but any particular reason you picked Janet over Common Lisp? They both support images, REPL, hot-code-reloading, etc.
  - agentkilo 1y ago
    TBH I dived right in when I decided I should build something with Janet, and didn't really consider any alternatives. Now you mentioned it, I think Janet's simplicity and conciseness played a large part in attracting me to it, comparing to Common Lisp at least.
  - netbioserror 1y ago
    Janet being a tiny embeddable runtime similar to Lua probably makes it perfect for a use-case like this. You have a full language, standard library, and interpreter in ~1 MB, along with the ability to bundle the runtime with your scripts into one binary. That's worth a lot.

90s_dev 1y ago

> You can implement custom commands and hooks to trigger. It's even possible to call native Win32 APIs in your own implementations. For example, to always move a Notepad window to the (100, 100) coordinates on your screen(s), using the low-level SetWindowPos function Great job. Looks really interesting and useful. And a fun excuse to write Lisp. I really appreciate it when APIs give you high-level functionality but keep the door open to lower-level APIs when you really need them.

packetlost 1y ago

This might be the coolest project I've seen using Janet yet!

pona-a 1y ago

What kinds of automation are possible with having a scripting language inside your WM, rather than Sway-style IPC? I heard the new Windows WMs were where most pure workflow advances happen, so I wonder if they can be replicated on Linux.

roxolotl 1y ago

Tangential but I’ve been writing a lot of Janet recently using Joy[0], web framework, to build a small web app. Would love to hear what you learned about Janet from doing this work and how you feel about the language afterwards. The one thing I’ve noticed is that it seems like Janet had a burst of interest 2020-2022 but it has since slowed down. Would love to see it become popular again. The main reason I’m using it is because I like how it’s both powerful and lightweight. I’d use clojure but I don’t want Java. I’m tempted to also try Common Lisp but so far Janet has been great. [0]: https://github.com/joy-framework/joy https://github.com/joy-framework/joy

agentkilo 1y ago
I think Janet is quite...liberal? It's a practical language, but doesn't force a specific paradigm on you. There're "escape hatches" in different levels of the language, and I like that. Maybe the most "opinionated" things in Janet are the ev stuff and fibers. I think they're done right though, you just need to be careful with the event loop when embedding Janet.
- nicce 1y ago
  How it compares with Lua?
  - 77pt77 1y ago
    This one actually has real arrays (mutable and immutable)
  - giraffe_lady 1y ago
    Strictly better unless you need an extremely small runtime rather than a very small one, or are exposing a scripting API to users who will recoil from prefix notation.
  - behnamoh 1y ago
    If you like Janet and Lua, might as well try Fennel, which was made by the creator of Janet.

ang_cire 1y ago

Custom windows shells (I know this is just a window manager, but still) in the year of our lord 2025? This takes me back to the days of installing bb4win and litestep in XP. I'm a kid again!

insin 1y ago
TIL bbLean [1] still works in Windows 11! Currently digging through my archives for my old BB4Win styles repository [1] https://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/ https://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/
- 90s_dev 1y ago
  Wow, bb4win and bblean take me way back. In fact, they were a huge inspiration for my shells[1] feature, which are just userland programs that happen to be able to manage panels (windows). [1] https://90s.dev/technical/architecture.html#shells https://90s.dev/technical/architecture.html#shells
reddit_clone 1y ago
>litestep Brings back memories !
piskov 1y ago
Oh shit yes: Rainlendar
scbrg 1y ago
flashback, 2001. I'm 25, sitting in the office with litestep installed (which honestly was the only alternative to Linux or resignation). My five years younger colleague steps up to my desk and says "hey, cool desktop!" I start explaining, very carefully, like I'm talking to a child, that this is an alternative shell, which replaces the standard Windows Explorer et cetera, und so weiter... it's very complicated you know... Guy says, "cool... hey, why don't you check out this URL?". I do. It's the litestep contributor page. His nick is on it. Near the top. Ow.
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aus10d 1y ago

Janet looks really neat. And this project seems really cool. Windows DESPERATELY needs a more powerful built-in manager. It's ridiculous to use the mouse all the time.

Rasthor 1y ago
One of the later PowerToys updates makes the first few steps in the right direction with "fancy zones". It's not strictly native windows, but still developed by Microsoft and adds keyboard shortcuts for all its utilities
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  PowerToys seems to be making two step forward, one step backwards, and then makes a leap in a random off-axis direction. Every time an update comes, I feel both joy and worry - I expect to see some new cool thing (and possibly even useful to me), but I also worry about bloat and random performance degradations. I haven't bothered with measuring and quantifying it properly, but I do feel PowerToys got heavier and slower over the last 2 years. Ironically, 90% of use I get from them is remapping Caps Lock to CTRL. Which I historically did with AutoHotkey, which was much lighter, but then there's the 10% of the time I need something else from PowerToys...
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    Even lighter than autohotkey is remapping on the hardware of the keyboard. There's a lot of open source firmware options for that now in the custom scene
    - whywhywhywhy 1y ago
      Yeah I found all the software based remapping to be a bit janky on Windows, ended up just doing it in the keyboard firmware instead to move my ctrl keys beside the spacebar.
  - layer8 1y ago
    The even simpler solution to remapping Caps Lock is to use SharpKeys, which applies registry settings to make use of Windows’ built-in remapping functionality.

MisterKent 1y ago

How does it compare to komorebi? I've been using it for about 5 months with great success. I'm a Hyprland user when I'm on my personal machine, but for windows Komorebi has let me keep my muscle memory and workflow largely intact.

agentkilo 1y ago
I think these are the most obvious differences between the two: * By default, Komorebi uses dynamic tiling, while Jwno uses manual tiling. * Komorebi has workspaces, Jwno works with Windows native virtual desktops instead. * Komorebi uses IPC and native system command line to send commands, while Jwno usually operates all by itself. There are definitely other details that are important to you, but these are the things that immediately came to my mind. I don't run Hyprland so can't really comment on that.
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iLemming 1y ago

Whoa, very cool. I love WMs, I love Lisp, and I hate Windows. This seems to be a perfect "medicine" for my frustration with it.

alpb 1y ago

It's not a tiling manager but slightly related: I replicated Spectacle/Rectangle (macOS apps) on Windows a while ago to snap windows to edges/corners/two-thirds/one-thirds etc a while back. If you're interested: https://github.com/ahmetb/RectangleWin/blob/main/README.md https://github.com/ahmetb/RectangleWin/blob/main/README.md

videogreg93 1y ago
I love Rectangle, will definetly check this out!

Pfeil 1y ago

I always disliked the chaos that happens quickly with application windows, and loved the idea of tiling. But none of them really worked for me practically until I found PaperWM around a year ago or so (gnome extension). It has few core shortcuts and feels more natural. Like you would really arrange applications directly on your desk. It does not limit itself by your screen width and has the nice default that a new window appears to the right of the current window (configurable). You seldomly have the need to re-arrange windows, because the default just fits 99% of all cases. In addition, you still have the comfort of gnome. No hacky config files just to get wifi working or so. For work we have OSX, and I am really missing it there (I am using rectangle there instead). https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM?tab=readme-ov-file#usage https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM?tab=readme-ov-file#usage

bsnnkv 1y ago
Jwno can do this! https://agentkilo.itch.io/jwno/devlog/871672/scroll-jwno-scroll https://agentkilo.itch.io/jwno/devlog/871672/scroll-jwno-scr...
- Pfeil 1y ago
  Neat! This looks pretty close, at least for the base principle. If I had a windows machine I would definitely give it a try.
- agentkilo 1y ago
  Thanks for posting the link! It's a quick-and-dirty PoC with lots of caveats and limitations though. E.g. it works only for a single monitor. I don't think we can clip windows to a "view port" on Windows (the OS), so this may never be as nice as PaperWM, Niri etc.
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modzu 1y ago
scrolling window management is a new paradigm for me - really liking paper so far, thanks for sharing! (for what its worth, traditionally my approach has been fixed window positions for all applications, and enough screen real estate to support that. but that doesnt work in wayland with any mainstream compositor afaik)

TeMPOraL 1y ago

Long-time StumpWM user, before I switched back to Windows a few years ago. This is super-exciting to see, and I'm going to take it for a spin. It might just address my major frustrations with arranging windows and switching between them; my monitor seems just the right shape/resolution for the standard Windows splits to be suboptimal. (Browsers, in particular, I use full-screen less and less. That annoying trend of squeezing everything into short lines "because readability" is just wasting too much screen space; zooming in makes everything too big, and I'm getting tired of writing userstyles or userscript to fix it for every other page I open, so I'm back to keeping 2 or 3 columns of windows running.) Also, any excuse to use more Lisp is good in my book. Based on the screenshots, it looks stellar; if it works half as well as it comes across, I'll switch over instantly.

agentkilo 1y ago
A fellow StumpWM user! My StumpWM is heavily customized though, and I mostly modeled Jwno's behavior after my own config, so it may not be what you expected at all. But that's one of the reasons I like Lisp and things built in Lisp: They are so flexible, you can sometimes build something based on the original thing, while it feels completely different from the original. > my monitor seems just the right shape/resolution for the standard Windows splits to be suboptimal Do you use an ultra-wide? In that case, Jwno has no OOTB ultra-wide support, but there's a section for adjusting it in the cookbook[1]. [1]: https://agent-kilo.github.io/jwno/cookbook/adjust-top-level-frames-for-ultrawide-monitors.html https://agent-kilo.github.io/jwno/cookbook/adjust-top-level-...
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  > Do you use an ultra-wide? In that case, Jwno has no OOTB ultra-wide support Actually no, I'm using two regular, 16:19, 2560x1440 screens. It's more that my understanding of readability does not agree with what designers think, and when I split the screen in half, many pages end up with text a little too small for my comfort, and if zoom in to compensate, the lines get slightly too short or horizontal scrollbar appears. (I'd guess it's probably my somewhat strong myopia glasses that are getting me "out of alignment" from average user when it comes to text size and line length preferences.) > but there's a section for adjusting it in the cookbook[1]. Lovely! FWIW, I took it for a spin briefly (only briefly - had work to finish, but I plan on getting back to it) and I was pleasantly surprised by how good it is, and how well it handles Windows quirks. It feels nicer than StumpWM did back when I used it. The only thing that didn't work well was VLC - it does something weird with recreating its window when switching between videos, and in the process, it "breaks out of confinement" and ends up returning to original size and position it had before Jwno took custody of it.

entropie 1y ago

I recently tried hyprland after using xmonad for like 10+ years and wondered about the decision to bind workspaces to displays. I didnt like that. How does Jwno handle multiple monitors? I have looked at the docs and didnt see it mention anywhere.

agentkilo 1y ago
Sorry for the confusion. Multi-monitor support is only briefly mentioned in the docs[1] and the interactive tutorial[2]. Jwno's internal data structure has these levels (higher-level comes first): Root - Virtual Desktops - Monitors - Normal Frames - Windows So monitors are part of a virtual desktop, and every virtual desktop has the same layout that reflects your physical monitor arrangement. When you switch virtual desktops, all monitors switch to the new desktop at the same time. [1]:https://agent-kilo.github.io/jwno/frame-tree/frame-nodes.html https://agent-kilo.github.io/jwno/frame-tree/frame-nodes.htm... [2]: https://github.com/agent-kilo/jwno/blob/master/example/tutorial.janet https://github.com/agent-kilo/jwno/blob/master/example/tutor...

avindrag 1y ago

That UI hinting feature is killer. Is something similar available outside of this repo?

accrual 1y ago
I agree, it's impressive. It brings me back to early Windows when keyboard control was a first class citizen in the UI, and most functions had dedicated alt key combos per dialog.

jackemerson 1y ago

Looks very good! This one is what I need

wodenokoto 1y ago

What resource did you use to learn Janet? And did you already know lisp before? Comming from Python and php I found the "Janet for mortals" very difficult. It expected me to know what closures and macros are.

harryvederci 1y ago
I'm not the one you asked, but maybe this is helpful: I learnt Janet after learning Clojure, and it all felt very natural. So a possible approach is to grab a beginner Clojure book/tutorial first, run some of the examples, and then see how far you get with Janet. Not everything is the same, but you'll find that out along the way, and the people in the Janet Zulip chat are always super helpful. Also check out https://janetdocs.com https://janetdocs.com for some examples.

once_inc 1y ago

My experiences with tiling window managers is that they struggle in judging a modal screen like a confirmation box or detachable/dockable mini-containers like the interface of certain programs like GIMP. Considering those as new tile-able windows tends to be a hinderance instead of increasing productivity.

roflmaostc 1y ago
I use AwesomeWM on Linux since over ten years. For example, GIMP works without any issues. And the productivity boost is tremendous, for me it's very hard to work on anything else. I barely encounter programs where it does more harm than use. Especially having multiple desktops with different names allow me to localize windows so much quicker than looking through a dozens of terminals manually. Right now, I do have: 1 mail, 2 web, 3 gimp, 4 chat, 5 notes, 6 terminal, 7 ssh cluster
3036e4 1y ago
They do struggle with that, or rather some developers struggle with not making assumptions about the way a user's window manager is laying out their windows? I use StumpWM, and for the few applications that this becomes a real problem it is possible to run those in a floating windows group that works just like a minimalistic non-tiling window manager. I think this is a common features of tiling window managers.

weeb 1y ago

This looks to have great potential for accessibility! I work with individuals who use eye gaze input, where a significant part of the screen is taken up by an on-screen keyboard (including various shortcut/macro keys as well as for typing). Having tiling options that fit within a smaller part of the screen (e.g. still allow side by side or top/bottom split, but in a smaller total region) would be great. Particularly as Windows 11 has broken vertical docking of appbars. The UI hints also look promising, but I can't get them working. Using example-config.janet I tried pressing RAlt or RAlt+K and I get the UI hint shortcuts list coming up, but none of them seem to do anything, except in Notepad where I sometimes get the standard UI hints (that always come up here with a long press of left alt) Fwiw, as a newbie I found it a bit intimidating/off-putting that it doesn't work out the box without choosing a config file. That's quite a lot of extra cognitive effort and link-clicking before you can try it out. And I'm left quite unsure what I'm missing out on. Am I able to access the different documented features with the config file I have? It's not clear.

agentkilo 1y ago
> Having tiling options that fit within a smaller part of the screen (e.g. still allow side by side or top/bottom split, but in a smaller total region) would be great. Do you mean reserving screen space for the on-screen keyboard? If that's the case, you can try to "transform" the top-level frame (a frame that tracks a monitor's screen area), either in the REPL or in your config: https://agent-kilo.github.io/jwno/cookbook/adjust-top-level-frames-for-ultrawide-monitors.html https://agent-kilo.github.io/jwno/cookbook/adjust-top-level-... > Using example-config.janet I tried pressing RAlt or RAlt+K and I get the UI hint shortcuts list coming up, but none of them seem to do anything Can you please file a bug report and attach relevant logs? You can write logs to a file by starting Jwno like this: jwno.exe --log-file C:\jwno.log --log-level debug --no-console your-config.janet There should be some interesting logs when you press one of the UI hint shortcuts. > Fwiw, as a newbie I found it a bit intimidating/off-putting that it doesn't work out the box without choosing a config file. That's quite a lot of extra cognitive effort and link-clicking before you can try it out. I totally understand. But I chose to not include a default config in the executable, because I thought a window manager is a... personal thing. It should evolve with your habits and workflows, so the default config will most likely get changed to something dramatically different anyway. I can be wrong though.

xtiansimon 1y ago

Does your project have any influence on Windows focus stealing?