Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity

Re:Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for produc... by nickjj on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @12:59PM (#20157240)

It's already there on Linux with tiled window managers. You can quickly switch between different contexts with work spaces, almost no pixels are wasted and it scales beautifully with high resolution screens.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for produc... by olejorgenb on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @01:37PM (#20157607)

Our gnome-shell plugin https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM actually implements the tiling aspect of this mockup. Although we allow partially visible windows and mixing tiled and floating windows.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for produc... by auraham on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @01:57PM (#20157818)

This project seems interesting. I usually use a 4x4 grid on i3. I wonder if your pluggin can handle this kind of grid. From the pictures, it seems like new windows are arranged vertically only, as columns.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for produc... by olejorgenb on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @02:43PM (#20158288)

Yes, new windows is added as columns, but it's possible to manually tile two (or more) columns into rows after.

Adding some sort of toggle that opens new windows as a new row is certainly possible. Interesting idea to open in new row if the current column only has X windows and new column otherwise :)

This rule could also be window type specific. Eg. if the current window is a browser open in new column. If its a terminal, new row.

EDIT: Vertical tiling screenshot: https://imgur.com/g7CRfgR

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for produc... by the_pwner224 on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @07:13PM (#20160366)

I do the same on KDE with the grid-tiling plugin [0]. You can also configure the rows/columns inside each workspace (I use 2x2 for max 4 windows per workspace).

meta+WASD/arrow keys to move in the workspace grid, plus a 4x4 square on my keyboard mapped to each individual workspace, hold down alt too to bring the current window with you.

meta+Q/E to resize the active window, and meta+tab is like alt-tab but for workspaces. meta+ctrl+WASD/arrow keys to swap window positions.

meta+F/T to toggle floating/tiling, useful for calculators etc. Floated windows always stay on top.

[0]: https://store.kde.org/p/1198671/ and https://github.com/lingtjien/Grid-Tiling-Kwin

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for produc... by sbov on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @06:11PM (#20159978)

I wish workspaces had shortcuts like alt-tab and superkey-<number> only look at your current workspace.

If I'm on workspace 2, and my superkey-1 corresponds to an application that is only open on workspace 1, i don't want to switch to workspace 1, i want to open a new window of the application in workspace 2.

Similarly, if I'm in workspace 2, I don't want alt tab to show me applications open in workspace 1.

To me, these behaviors make workspaces inadequate for context switching.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for produc... by rodamaral on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @12:34AM (#20161799)

This can be done, depending on the window manager.

In my awesome window manager setup, super+tab always toggle the last 2 windows on the current tag (workspace). It's also possible to map super+1 to make an application be part of the current workspace (or open a new instance there). In this model, a window can be part of more than 1 workspace at the same time.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for produc... by hobofan on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @01:21PM (#20157465)

It's also there on MacOS (mostly). Amethyst as a tiling window manager + Alfred makes for a great productivity combo. With both of them, most of the pain points in the article are adequately solved already.

[ Parent | on HN ]