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I know that several of my Windows-based co-workers will like this. Looking at the screenshots it does look cumbersome though. The real power of i3 is it's sim

I know that several of my Windows-based co-workers will like this. Looking at the screenshots it does look cumbersome though. The real power of i3 is it's simplicity. You are not overwhelmed by complicated constructs. This appears to be a more static approach to tiling 'I want Layout #3' vs 'Open a new window here'. I really hope this catches on. It's a fantastic productivity booster that I feel is on-par with having a second monitor.

jplayer01 7y ago
I actually like it this way. I moved from i3 to AwesomeWM years ago, which basically has a bunch of pre-defined layouts. It's incredibly convenient, imo. Not sure what's complicated about it. I just hope it has hotkeys that let you switch layouts and it can assign the windows automatically (or remembers previous assignments). Otherwise it would be tedious. edit: Just checked. It has a hotkey to switch between saved layouts. And you can set it so a newly opened program goes to its last known zone. That's pretty cool. I'll have to try it.
- UI_at_80x24 7y ago
  Ahh that's pretty cool. I've never used Awesome, so my experience is biased.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
shawnz 7y ago
In my opinion, the major disadvantage of current tiling WMs like i3 is that they don't make effective use of the mouse, which can be a very efficient input device for some usages. If this product is able to change that, then that could outweigh the pain of the awkward configuration for me.
- TickleSteve 7y ago
  Regarding the mouse... thats the entire point of i3, i.e. to make it all keyboard-driven. It's sort of like saying "the problem with cars is that they don't make effective use of the horse". i3 doesn't do anything to prevent you using the mouse for whatever application you like.
  - shawnz 7y ago
    I understand that's a design goal of i3. I wasn't specifically talking about i3 though, in fact it seems like every tiling window manager has that philosophy and I think it is a mistake. Enabling effective use of the mouse doesn't negate the ability to use the keyboard effectively too -- they serve different use cases.
    - robto 7y ago
      My mouse is actually critical to how I use i3 - I've got a lenovo thinkpad usb keyboard, with the left, middle, and right mouse buttons below the spacebar and the red nub for the pointer. I use focus-follow-mouse and when I need to change my active window I just flick the mouse over to where it needs to be - it's super fast. It also works really well with laptop trackpads and an actual mouse. I know other window managers allow you to use focus-follow-mouse, but I haven't found any that make it nearly as effective as i3.
    - Slenth 7y ago
      Would you mind elaborating on what use case you think a mouse could come in handy for when you would be using a tiling WM? I recently switched over to one and the only time I've used my mouse was when I had to click on something in Firefox.
      - omaranto 7y ago
        The mouse could be convenient to resize or rearrange windows. For example, it would be nice if dragging one window onto another swapped them. I think that would be faster than swapping them with i3's shortcuts.
      - 7y ago
- snazz 7y ago
  The mouse works great in Sway for resizing splits, moving floating windows, and changing window focus.
  - shawnz 7y ago
    Interesting! Thanks for the recommendation

jplayer01 7y ago

I actually like it this way. I moved from i3 to AwesomeWM years ago, which basically has a bunch of pre-defined layouts. It's incredibly convenient, imo. Not sure what's complicated about it. I just hope it has hotkeys that let you switch layouts and it can assign the windows automatically (or remembers previous assignments). Otherwise it would be tedious. edit: Just checked. It has a hotkey to switch between saved layouts. And you can set it so a newly opened program goes to its last known zone. That's pretty cool. I'll have to try it.

UI_at_80x24 7y ago
Ahh that's pretty cool. I've never used Awesome, so my experience is biased.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

shawnz 7y ago

In my opinion, the major disadvantage of current tiling WMs like i3 is that they don't make effective use of the mouse, which can be a very efficient input device for some usages. If this product is able to change that, then that could outweigh the pain of the awkward configuration for me.

TickleSteve 7y ago
Regarding the mouse... thats the entire point of i3, i.e. to make it all keyboard-driven. It's sort of like saying "the problem with cars is that they don't make effective use of the horse". i3 doesn't do anything to prevent you using the mouse for whatever application you like.
- shawnz 7y ago
  I understand that's a design goal of i3. I wasn't specifically talking about i3 though, in fact it seems like every tiling window manager has that philosophy and I think it is a mistake. Enabling effective use of the mouse doesn't negate the ability to use the keyboard effectively too -- they serve different use cases.
  - robto 7y ago
    My mouse is actually critical to how I use i3 - I've got a lenovo thinkpad usb keyboard, with the left, middle, and right mouse buttons below the spacebar and the red nub for the pointer. I use focus-follow-mouse and when I need to change my active window I just flick the mouse over to where it needs to be - it's super fast. It also works really well with laptop trackpads and an actual mouse. I know other window managers allow you to use focus-follow-mouse, but I haven't found any that make it nearly as effective as i3.
  - Slenth 7y ago
    Would you mind elaborating on what use case you think a mouse could come in handy for when you would be using a tiling WM? I recently switched over to one and the only time I've used my mouse was when I had to click on something in Firefox.
    - omaranto 7y ago
      The mouse could be convenient to resize or rearrange windows. For example, it would be nice if dragging one window onto another swapped them. I think that would be faster than swapping them with i3's shortcuts.
    - 7y ago
snazz 7y ago
The mouse works great in Sway for resizing splits, moving floating windows, and changing window focus.
- shawnz 7y ago
  Interesting! Thanks for the recommendation