6 ms·

The Typewriter Revolution article is a real beauty. It covers a nice history lesson as well as making some good points. One thing I take offense to is this sta

by Tharkun 10y ago

The Typewriter Revolution article is a real beauty. It covers a nice history lesson as well as making some good points. One thing I take offense to is this statement: > Opening multiple windows on a computer screen doesn't work for back-and-forth cross-referencing of other material during authoring work, both because of slow visual navigation and because of the limited space on the computer screen. That's a problem that's easily solved with a half decent window manager.

douche 10y ago
Or with multiple monitors.
- gkya 10y ago
  That one's covered in the article, wastes too much energy. I submitted this article yesterday and it went by with no upvotes because people probably thought it suggest we return to typewriters and paper piles, which it doesn't (I could've editorialised the title but guidelines say not to). It basically describes how energy inefficient today's offices are and how we can fix them.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Edit: Driving just one mile further to work is significantly more energy than a huge monitor and nobody thinks a 11 mile commute is vastly worse than a 10 mile one. Modern monitors are very low energy usage. The lights above you likely use more power than two 27" LED monitors, especially as overhead lights are often on more than your ~25-50w monitors are. Note, monitor brightness does impact usage. PS: 27 inch 4k monitors start pushing 75+w, but that's higher end than the average office setup. ex: https://www.energystar.gov/productfinder/most-efficient/me-certified-computer-monitors/details/2266009 https://www.energystar.gov/productfinder/most-efficient/me-c...
- BoorishBears 10y ago
  My main monitor at work is a 34" ultrawide, marginal increase in power consumption, but with Spectacles for OSX I'm able to use it as 2 monitors (I have secondary monitors but I hardly need to use them
BugsBunnySan 10y ago
Focus-Follows-Mouse for the win :) Which is even available on the crippled window manager that Windows has...
- thescriptkiddie 10y ago
  But not on OSX! Yes, really. No, not even with 3rd party software.
  - noelwelsh 10y ago
    Here you go: https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm
    - thescriptkiddie 10y ago
      Unfortunately kwm cannot do real focus-follows-mouse, it can only raise windows to the top. That works okay if you're using tiling mode exclusively, but with floating windows it's unusable. https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm/issues/476 https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm/issues/476
  - koenigdavidmj 10y ago
    Seems like there would be quite a few moments where it's hard to get to the menu bar without accidentally hitting another window.
  - delish 10y ago
    i use amethyst, an xmonad-inspired wm with pretty good focus-follows-mouse. i tried kwm, and couldn't get the keybindings to register, nor get FFM to work. xmonad is better than all of them for what it's worth.
    - thinkmassive 10y ago
      Coming from i3, I tried Amethyst for a while when I had to use a Mac at my previous job. It seems like the best solution within the constraints of OS X, but it always seemed like enough of a hack that I ended up battling both it and the real window manager, so I ended up disabling it after a few months. The focus-follows-mouse never came close to working as expected for me. Fighting with window size, positioning, and focus is such a productivity killer. Now I'm glad to be back in a real tiling window manager.
tonyarkles 10y ago
Yeah, I recently changed my main dev environment to be a 27" 2560x1440 monitor (Asus PB278, if anyone's curious) attached to a Mac Mini. There's enough space to happily keep a browser, evernote, and a terminal side-by-side (three vertical pillars); this has had very noticeable impacts on, if not my efficiency, at least my feeling of "not having to context switch". Everything's just right there and I just need to shift my eyes left and right.
- digler999 10y ago
  I'm rocking a 46" 4K tv at 4096x2160, using xmonad in split-screen mode so I have two viewable displays and 9 virtual displays. The hardest part was finding a 4K videocard with HDMI 2.0 output. I got the video card and TV for under $1k total and I'm very happy with it.
  - tonyarkles 10y ago
    I'm oddly jealous! That sounds amazing! I'm just looking at the wall behind my monitor and scratching my chin... It's Black Friday...
    - digler999 10y ago
      it works fine for software dev. there's some tearing when playing videos, not sure if it's the card (most likely) but it doesn't bother me at all. I dont do gaming, but I've heard the lag can get bad with tv's.
crpatino 10y ago
Your average office worker does not get decent screens. Even if the Windows default settings for the desktop have been kind of acceptable for many years, it does you little good if you are looking at it through a 9"-by-5" rectangle. Multiple monitors are beyond any discussion for most, even if we programmers have gotten used to those and find'em indispensable.
- slededit 10y ago
  Accountants often have 3 screens. Perfect for doing tax work - the form your working on, the customer's documents, and any relevant instructions/legal presidents for whatever they are doing. Of course different firms will vary.

by Tharkun 10y ago

douche 10y ago

Or with multiple monitors.

gkya 10y ago
That one's covered in the article, wastes too much energy. I submitted this article yesterday and it went by with no upvotes because people probably thought it suggest we return to typewriters and paper piles, which it doesn't (I could've editorialised the title but guidelines say not to). It basically describes how energy inefficient today's offices are and how we can fix them.
- Retric 10y ago
  Edit: Driving just one mile further to work is significantly more energy than a huge monitor and nobody thinks a 11 mile commute is vastly worse than a 10 mile one. Modern monitors are very low energy usage. The lights above you likely use more power than two 27" LED monitors, especially as overhead lights are often on more than your ~25-50w monitors are. Note, monitor brightness does impact usage. PS: 27 inch 4k monitors start pushing 75+w, but that's higher end than the average office setup. ex: https://www.energystar.gov/productfinder/most-efficient/me-certified-computer-monitors/details/2266009 https://www.energystar.gov/productfinder/most-efficient/me-c...
BoorishBears 10y ago
My main monitor at work is a 34" ultrawide, marginal increase in power consumption, but with Spectacles for OSX I'm able to use it as 2 monitors (I have secondary monitors but I hardly need to use them

BugsBunnySan 10y ago

Focus-Follows-Mouse for the win :) Which is even available on the crippled window manager that Windows has...

thescriptkiddie 10y ago
But not on OSX! Yes, really. No, not even with 3rd party software.
- noelwelsh 10y ago
  Here you go: https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm
  - thescriptkiddie 10y ago
    Unfortunately kwm cannot do real focus-follows-mouse, it can only raise windows to the top. That works okay if you're using tiling mode exclusively, but with floating windows it's unusable. https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm/issues/476 https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm/issues/476
- koenigdavidmj 10y ago
  Seems like there would be quite a few moments where it's hard to get to the menu bar without accidentally hitting another window.
- delish 10y ago
  i use amethyst, an xmonad-inspired wm with pretty good focus-follows-mouse. i tried kwm, and couldn't get the keybindings to register, nor get FFM to work. xmonad is better than all of them for what it's worth.
  - thinkmassive 10y ago
    Coming from i3, I tried Amethyst for a while when I had to use a Mac at my previous job. It seems like the best solution within the constraints of OS X, but it always seemed like enough of a hack that I ended up battling both it and the real window manager, so I ended up disabling it after a few months. The focus-follows-mouse never came close to working as expected for me. Fighting with window size, positioning, and focus is such a productivity killer. Now I'm glad to be back in a real tiling window manager.

tonyarkles 10y ago

Yeah, I recently changed my main dev environment to be a 27" 2560x1440 monitor (Asus PB278, if anyone's curious) attached to a Mac Mini. There's enough space to happily keep a browser, evernote, and a terminal side-by-side (three vertical pillars); this has had very noticeable impacts on, if not my efficiency, at least my feeling of "not having to context switch". Everything's just right there and I just need to shift my eyes left and right.

digler999 10y ago
I'm rocking a 46" 4K tv at 4096x2160, using xmonad in split-screen mode so I have two viewable displays and 9 virtual displays. The hardest part was finding a 4K videocard with HDMI 2.0 output. I got the video card and TV for under $1k total and I'm very happy with it.
- tonyarkles 10y ago
  I'm oddly jealous! That sounds amazing! I'm just looking at the wall behind my monitor and scratching my chin... It's Black Friday...
  - digler999 10y ago
    it works fine for software dev. there's some tearing when playing videos, not sure if it's the card (most likely) but it doesn't bother me at all. I dont do gaming, but I've heard the lag can get bad with tv's.

crpatino 10y ago

Your average office worker does not get decent screens. Even if the Windows default settings for the desktop have been kind of acceptable for many years, it does you little good if you are looking at it through a 9"-by-5" rectangle. Multiple monitors are beyond any discussion for most, even if we programmers have gotten used to those and find'em indispensable.

slededit 10y ago
Accountants often have 3 screens. Perfect for doing tax work - the form your working on, the customer's documents, and any relevant instructions/legal presidents for whatever they are doing. Of course different firms will vary.