Sway 1.0 - Hackdot

Re:Sway 1.0 by colordrops on Monday March 11, 2019 @12:24PM (#19360177)

I get the opposite feeling. I feel like I'm in a trash dump when I use an overlapping window manager, and have to sort through the pile to find what I need. Tiling window managers perhaps make more sense for devs or other professionals who use several of the same applications every day and know what window and pane they will be on, and can switch quickly with keystrokes. That being said, once you internalize the model and key bindings, it's not restrictive at all and can work for the general case as well, and actually feels freeing rather than boxed in. And there is always the option to break a window out from tiles and overlap if you so wish.

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Re:Sway 1.0 by kstenerud on Monday March 11, 2019 @12:30PM (#19360257)

What I usually want to do is just click and resize to something that "feels right" for each of my programs, and then flip between them as needed, then resize again later as I workflow progresses. Often I want some important text from one to be visible while I'm working in another (thus overlapping), so I jockey them around until it feels right, and go.

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Re:Sway 1.0 by boudin on Monday March 11, 2019 @03:54PM (#19362191)

Tiling manager remove the need to resize. You use virtual desktop to switch between apps. If you need several apps side by side, tiling comes in place.

Tiling manager are often keyboard driven. If you use mainly your mouse/touchpad, it can be quite painful.

My feeling in floating window manager is that i soon as a window is hiding another, the one on top should just use all the available space, there's no point in seeing the one bellow. If you need information from 2 windows, it's much better side by side.

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Re:Sway 1.0 by snazz on Monday March 11, 2019 @02:06PM (#19361221)

You might like the minimal tiling present in CWM (and likely other window managers, too). Basically, it is a regular old overlapping window manager but with keyboard commands as the primary control. If you have two or more windows you want to see on the screen at the same time tiling style, simply press the hotkey for either vertical or horizontal (Super+v for me). When I want to open a terminal window on top of a browser, pressing Super+enter puts it at the mouse cursor, scaled to the application’s default size.

For many terminal windows or one Emacs and one terminal, I might use tiling, but I can still overlap whenever it makes more sense. Plus, the consistent keyboard controls (I use a config pretty similar to https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/openbsd-on-a-laptop/#cwm) make me more efficient than a mouse interface.

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Re:Sway 1.0 by colordrops on Monday March 11, 2019 @02:21PM (#19361372)

Funny enough that's precisely my use case for tiling window managers. I'm often referencing one app to do work in another, and often one is just a bit too overlapped to see what I need, and I also need to lay windows out every time I do this work. With a tiling window manager, you can be sure that your app is not obfuscated, and there are various adjustments you can make to pane size and layout to get the right amount of screen space and positioning for apps. You can also save and restore layouts for particulars workflows.

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Re:Sway 1.0 by leshow on Monday March 11, 2019 @05:36PM (#19363078)

I think the key difference here is the use of multiple virtual desktops in the tiling case. In my setup I typically have one vdesk for browsing, one for docs, one split between code/terminal. I may have others open for chat and music, and I can switch between any with one key combination, or resize with another. I love that when I open a new window it will maximize the screen real estate of wherever I put it.

Granted, I've been using i3 for more than half a decade, but I do agree with sibling posters on how 'freeing' the experience is once you get used to it. There is no doubt a learning curve; but in my experience it's on the order of days.

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Re:Sway 1.0 by com2kid on Monday March 11, 2019 @08:07PM (#19364159)

I use tools that let me jump to an open window by typing its name. Spotlight on MacOS, equivalent tools exist on Windows.

I don't care how things are arranged spacially if they are just a few quick letters away.

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