5 ms·

I use i3 on a Linux laptop, I really enjoy it. Too bad nothing exists like that on Windows. Snapping or splitting 2 windows side by side (the Windows 10 snap f

by nickjj 7y ago

I use i3 on a Linux laptop, I really enjoy it. Too bad nothing exists like that on Windows. Snapping or splitting 2 windows side by side (the Windows 10 snap feature) isn't enough. On the bright side most of the other features that you would use along side a tiling wm can be used in Windows, and it's very good. - AHK to manage global hotkeys and remapping keys - Keypirinha to launch apps / folder paths with fuzzy search - DexPot to have multiple virtual desktops that supports moving windows across them (same key binds as i3) I made a video about 6 months ago showing some of these tools in use at: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/a-linux-dev-environment-on-windows-with-wsl-docker-tmux-and-vscode https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/a-linux-dev-environment-on-wi... Although I changed a couple of things since then, such as I use Vim instead of VSCode, but I still use the above tools every day. They are really solid.

EngCanMan 7y ago
I recently found WinDock (https://www.ivanyu.ca/windock https://www.ivanyu.ca/windock) for windows and just love it. It is scriptable so you can define how windows get tiled in any part of the monitor, and you can make each of your monitors different if you want. You can also set different profiles, which could be used say during work ours, and after work hours.
- nickjj 7y ago
  Thanks, but from its home page, it sounds like it resembles an automatic tiling wm where you have predefined layouts? I much prefer i3's tiling strategy where it's not predefined, and instead it reacts to how you're using it on the fly. So if you had 2 windows split and you wanted a third window split, you just get that by default without having to define that triple column layout ahead of time.
dtn 7y ago
https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n exists for Windows
- nickjj 7y ago
  Yes, I tried using that multiple times. It's very buggy / not suitable for full time usage (which is funny given its name).
  - enzelb 7y ago
    I've been using it everyday for ~6 months and find that it's fantastic for full time usage. The only feature that it doesn't have out-of-the-box is an "always on top" option for floating windows (but can be implemented by running a separate AHK script).
    - nickjj 7y ago
      Are you using the stable version or something else? When I ran the stable version a few months ago it didn't even act like a tiled window manager. After you open it, all it did was tile a bunch of existing windows automatically, but then if you tried to resize them, it only resized the window that had mouse focus. i3 would have resized all of the windows to fit so there's no gaps. Overall it just felt very flaky and it had a lot of screen flickering when moving things around.
tinus_hn 7y ago
On Windows you can create programs that rearrange all windows but the title bars and frames are handled by the applications themselves, using defaults or overriding them. So you can arrange the windows the way you want but you can’t really prevent them from moving when the user drags the title bar.
vegardlarsen 7y ago
Full disclosure: I am the author of MaxTo. Have you looked at MaxTo? https://maxto.net https://maxto.net It does not work in the exact same manner as i3wm does; it lets you decide on a set of regions that windows are maximized into (the regions can be a non-uniform grid). This lets you focus on one task at a time. It has great support for hotkeys. At the moment I believe MaxTo is the closest you'll get to i3 on Windows.
- nickjj 7y ago
  Yep. It was one of the first apps I tried in this category. I know a lot of people prefer having pre-defined layouts but I'm not a fan of that. I'm often always moving windows around slightly in size and really lean on the wm or tool auto-adjusting things on the fly.
ryansmccoy 7y ago
https://www.displayfusion.com/ https://www.displayfusion.com/ https://www.voidtools.com/ https://www.voidtools.com/ https://conemu.github.io/ https://conemu.github.io/ https://www.zabkat.com/ https://www.zabkat.com/ https://symless.com/synergy https://symless.com/synergy

by nickjj 7y ago

EngCanMan 7y ago

I recently found WinDock (https://www.ivanyu.ca/windock https://www.ivanyu.ca/windock) for windows and just love it. It is scriptable so you can define how windows get tiled in any part of the monitor, and you can make each of your monitors different if you want. You can also set different profiles, which could be used say during work ours, and after work hours.

nickjj 7y ago
Thanks, but from its home page, it sounds like it resembles an automatic tiling wm where you have predefined layouts? I much prefer i3's tiling strategy where it's not predefined, and instead it reacts to how you're using it on the fly. So if you had 2 windows split and you wanted a third window split, you just get that by default without having to define that triple column layout ahead of time.

dtn 7y ago

https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n exists for Windows

nickjj 7y ago
Yes, I tried using that multiple times. It's very buggy / not suitable for full time usage (which is funny given its name).
- enzelb 7y ago
  I've been using it everyday for ~6 months and find that it's fantastic for full time usage. The only feature that it doesn't have out-of-the-box is an "always on top" option for floating windows (but can be implemented by running a separate AHK script).
  - nickjj 7y ago
    Are you using the stable version or something else? When I ran the stable version a few months ago it didn't even act like a tiled window manager. After you open it, all it did was tile a bunch of existing windows automatically, but then if you tried to resize them, it only resized the window that had mouse focus. i3 would have resized all of the windows to fit so there's no gaps. Overall it just felt very flaky and it had a lot of screen flickering when moving things around.

tinus_hn 7y ago

On Windows you can create programs that rearrange all windows but the title bars and frames are handled by the applications themselves, using defaults or overriding them. So you can arrange the windows the way you want but you can’t really prevent them from moving when the user drags the title bar.

vegardlarsen 7y ago

Full disclosure: I am the author of MaxTo. Have you looked at MaxTo? https://maxto.net https://maxto.net It does not work in the exact same manner as i3wm does; it lets you decide on a set of regions that windows are maximized into (the regions can be a non-uniform grid). This lets you focus on one task at a time. It has great support for hotkeys. At the moment I believe MaxTo is the closest you'll get to i3 on Windows.

nickjj 7y ago
Yep. It was one of the first apps I tried in this category. I know a lot of people prefer having pre-defined layouts but I'm not a fan of that. I'm often always moving windows around slightly in size and really lean on the wm or tool auto-adjusting things on the fly.

ryansmccoy 7y ago

https://www.displayfusion.com/ https://www.displayfusion.com/ https://www.voidtools.com/ https://www.voidtools.com/ https://conemu.github.io/ https://conemu.github.io/ https://www.zabkat.com/ https://www.zabkat.com/ https://symless.com/synergy https://symless.com/synergy