3 ms·

There's nothing stopping you having a messenger window and a browser window open side by side. You don't have to combine disparate applications into a single a

There's nothing stopping you having a messenger window and a browser window open side by side. You don't have to combine disparate applications into a single application just to show them both on the screen at once.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
True, if your WM doesn't suck, which rules out Windows and MacOS (ok, for the former someone wrote a tiling WM overlay in... AutoHotkey). Otherwise it's annoying hassle to keep the windows properly sized and displayed.
- akx 10y ago
  And for the latter, you have Moom, kwm, amethyst, divvy, Better(Snap|Touch)Tool, Slate, Breeze, etc.
  - AlexandrB 10y ago
    Divvy also works on Windows. So this covers the former as well. Plus there are other options [1]. The fact that this keeps coming up makes me think that people have forgotten how customizable the desktop experience can be. Unlike iOS/Android you're not tied down to what the app designer thought a good layout is when organizing your windows. [1] http://alternativeto.net/software/divvy/?platform=windows http://alternativeto.net/software/divvy/?platform=windows
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Things must have changed over the years. I remember that back in times of 2003 and XP, the windowing experience wasn't really that customizable; people were trying to replace explorer.exe with custom "shells", but those were always buggy and easily crashed. I guess I gave up on the whole space after that.
- aepiepaey 10y ago
  Windows has some tiling features built-in these days (enough to tile a messenger side-by-side with a browser). Winkey+Left/Right (or do a web search for "snap assistant").
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I know about those, but I wouldn't say it's enough - it only works in screen halves. Good messenger/browser split is at least 1:2. I did check out AlexandrB's suggestion of WindowGrid[0] and it works very nice; I'm now using it on my Windows machine at work. [0] - http://windowgrid.net/ http://windowgrid.net/

TeMPOraL 10y ago

True, if your WM doesn't suck, which rules out Windows and MacOS (ok, for the former someone wrote a tiling WM overlay in... AutoHotkey). Otherwise it's annoying hassle to keep the windows properly sized and displayed.

akx 10y ago
And for the latter, you have Moom, kwm, amethyst, divvy, Better(Snap|Touch)Tool, Slate, Breeze, etc.
- AlexandrB 10y ago
  Divvy also works on Windows. So this covers the former as well. Plus there are other options [1]. The fact that this keeps coming up makes me think that people have forgotten how customizable the desktop experience can be. Unlike iOS/Android you're not tied down to what the app designer thought a good layout is when organizing your windows. [1] http://alternativeto.net/software/divvy/?platform=windows http://alternativeto.net/software/divvy/?platform=windows
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Things must have changed over the years. I remember that back in times of 2003 and XP, the windowing experience wasn't really that customizable; people were trying to replace explorer.exe with custom "shells", but those were always buggy and easily crashed. I guess I gave up on the whole space after that.
aepiepaey 10y ago
Windows has some tiling features built-in these days (enough to tile a messenger side-by-side with a browser). Winkey+Left/Right (or do a web search for "snap assistant").
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  I know about those, but I wouldn't say it's enough - it only works in screen halves. Good messenger/browser split is at least 1:2. I did check out AlexandrB's suggestion of WindowGrid[0] and it works very nice; I'm now using it on my Windows machine at work. [0] - http://windowgrid.net/ http://windowgrid.net/