5 ms·

Why not Ubuntu and i3? I love my Mac for photo/video/audio work, but linux for pure dev is wonderful!

dsego 7y ago
Why is a tiling window manager so important for dev work (but not for anything else)? I am a dev and I can never wrap my head around why anyone would want to spend time on tiling windows, it looks so tedious.
- m0xte 7y ago
  I have to agree. Total cult.
- gimboland 7y ago
  I don't know how generally true this is of people who like tiling WMs, but for me: a lot of it is about (easily) maximising the use of the screen, and (quickly and easily) moving windows to where I want them to be via the keyboard. I always found managing windows with the mouse to be (comparatively) tedious and slow, which led me fairly naturally to tiling WMs. These days I'm on macOS not linux but my desire for that kind of control and speed remains; fortunately tools like BetterTouchTool enable this really nicely, and I get the best of both worlds: nice mouse-driven control when I want it, and a quick/easy way to throw a window where I want it the rest of the time (i.e. most of the time). (I'd also say, addressing the parenthesised part of your first question, that for me, this isn't just about dev - this is a general preference; for some tools, e.g. the GIMP, tiling's a bad fit and the mouse is where it's at, but in general, if I can keyboard it, I will.)
  - skinnymuch 7y ago
    You can use BetterTouchTool to do tiling like stuff?
    - gimboland 7y ago
      Well, yeah, sort of, depending on what you mean by "tiling like stuff", I suppose. For me, tiling was all about maximising my use of the screen and minimising labour, which meant being able to easily place windows where I wanted, without space between them, and without using the mouse or otherwise laboriously moving/resizing by hand. That was the "why" of tiling for me, and while BTT doesn't do the "how" of tiling (i.e. it has no capability to force tiling as you move windows around, and doesn't maintain a tree of windows liking a tiling WM does), it does have a pretty powerful "move/resize window" action. Using that action I can scratch my itch and do everything I ever used a tiling WM for. So I've got a whole bunch of hotkeys doing things like "maximise window", "put window in top-right quadrant", "put window on display 3, taking up 1/3 of the width of the screen at the right and at full height". That kinda thing. This allows me to quickly/easily set things up as I want (not _automatically_ but that's fine for me in practice since the world and my needs are always in flux.) If you dig into it you can do some fairly powerful things... E.g. you can set up named triggers (i.e. actions not bound to hotkeys) which you can then call from AppleScript triggered by hotkeys (or, if you want, triggered externally by, e.g. Alfred, though I don't do that); the AppleScripts can maintain state between calls, so I have some hotkeys that move windows in cycles, e.g. "maximise the window's height and push it all the way to the left, and on each call cycle its width between 1/6, 1/3, 1/4, 1/2, 2/3" - stuff like that. It's true you don't get "real" tiling with this - but as I say, for me, it satisfies the "why" of tiling WMs, without doing the "how". Hope that makes sense.
- lunchables 7y ago
  >why anyone would want to spend time on tiling windows, it looks so tedious. Weird, I always ask people the opposite. Why would you spend time manually positioning windows when the window manager can do it for you? What is "tedious" about tiling window managers?
  - dsego 7y ago
    But I don't spend time positioning them. I switch to a window that needs my attention, or sometimes snap them to get a split view, but that's not common. Maybe it makes more sense on a bigger screen, I'm always on my laptop, so there is not really enough real estate to have many windows shown at the same time.
    - snailmailman 7y ago
      I use a tiling window manager and I dont really spend time positioning windows either. 99% of the time my programs are in one of two states. Either full screen or split down the middle. In a tiling WM full screen is the default. I never have to manually full screen something, it’s automatically taking up the whole screen. I usually have it in tabbed mode, so all new programs are just full screen in tabs. (And split view is just a hot key or two away) Really though my favorite thing is the easy multiple desktops. Win+4 is always my chat program. Win+2 is always my ide, win+1 is always my web browser. I never have to mash alt+tab a varying number of times. and more importantly if the second desktop is actually two programs in split screen, it’s still easy to switch to and from. Otherwise I frequently find myself looking at one thing in full screen, then having to alt+tab multiple times to bring two half-screen programs back to the front. I’ve tried to install various windows tools to either provide hot keys to virtual desktops, or otherwise replicate my tiling WM setup but nothing seems to be quite as convenient to me. I feel like I waste so much time alt+tabbing and getting things where I want them whenever I’m in a normal WM. In i3 it’s all either already the way I like or it’s 1-2 hotkeys to fix it.
    - lunchables 7y ago
      How is that different on a tiling window manager? I would assume a smaller screen would be more apt to using a tiling window manager. It automatically makes the window you're using take up 100% of the screen. You can also switch between tiling and a maximized view in pretty much every tiling wm. Also, there are usually multiple desktops (or even better, "tags" like in dwm) which allow you to easily switch between applications in any of the different tiling modes.

Why is a tiling window manager so important for dev work (but not for anything else)? I am a dev and I can never wrap my head around why anyone would want to spend time on tiling windows, it looks so tedious.

m0xte 7y ago
I have to agree. Total cult.
gimboland 7y ago
I don't know how generally true this is of people who like tiling WMs, but for me: a lot of it is about (easily) maximising the use of the screen, and (quickly and easily) moving windows to where I want them to be via the keyboard. I always found managing windows with the mouse to be (comparatively) tedious and slow, which led me fairly naturally to tiling WMs. These days I'm on macOS not linux but my desire for that kind of control and speed remains; fortunately tools like BetterTouchTool enable this really nicely, and I get the best of both worlds: nice mouse-driven control when I want it, and a quick/easy way to throw a window where I want it the rest of the time (i.e. most of the time). (I'd also say, addressing the parenthesised part of your first question, that for me, this isn't just about dev - this is a general preference; for some tools, e.g. the GIMP, tiling's a bad fit and the mouse is where it's at, but in general, if I can keyboard it, I will.)
- skinnymuch 7y ago
  You can use BetterTouchTool to do tiling like stuff?
  - gimboland 7y ago
    Well, yeah, sort of, depending on what you mean by "tiling like stuff", I suppose. For me, tiling was all about maximising my use of the screen and minimising labour, which meant being able to easily place windows where I wanted, without space between them, and without using the mouse or otherwise laboriously moving/resizing by hand. That was the "why" of tiling for me, and while BTT doesn't do the "how" of tiling (i.e. it has no capability to force tiling as you move windows around, and doesn't maintain a tree of windows liking a tiling WM does), it does have a pretty powerful "move/resize window" action. Using that action I can scratch my itch and do everything I ever used a tiling WM for. So I've got a whole bunch of hotkeys doing things like "maximise window", "put window in top-right quadrant", "put window on display 3, taking up 1/3 of the width of the screen at the right and at full height". That kinda thing. This allows me to quickly/easily set things up as I want (not _automatically_ but that's fine for me in practice since the world and my needs are always in flux.) If you dig into it you can do some fairly powerful things... E.g. you can set up named triggers (i.e. actions not bound to hotkeys) which you can then call from AppleScript triggered by hotkeys (or, if you want, triggered externally by, e.g. Alfred, though I don't do that); the AppleScripts can maintain state between calls, so I have some hotkeys that move windows in cycles, e.g. "maximise the window's height and push it all the way to the left, and on each call cycle its width between 1/6, 1/3, 1/4, 1/2, 2/3" - stuff like that. It's true you don't get "real" tiling with this - but as I say, for me, it satisfies the "why" of tiling WMs, without doing the "how". Hope that makes sense.
lunchables 7y ago
>why anyone would want to spend time on tiling windows, it looks so tedious. Weird, I always ask people the opposite. Why would you spend time manually positioning windows when the window manager can do it for you? What is "tedious" about tiling window managers?
- dsego 7y ago
  But I don't spend time positioning them. I switch to a window that needs my attention, or sometimes snap them to get a split view, but that's not common. Maybe it makes more sense on a bigger screen, I'm always on my laptop, so there is not really enough real estate to have many windows shown at the same time.
  - snailmailman 7y ago
    I use a tiling window manager and I dont really spend time positioning windows either. 99% of the time my programs are in one of two states. Either full screen or split down the middle. In a tiling WM full screen is the default. I never have to manually full screen something, it’s automatically taking up the whole screen. I usually have it in tabbed mode, so all new programs are just full screen in tabs. (And split view is just a hot key or two away) Really though my favorite thing is the easy multiple desktops. Win+4 is always my chat program. Win+2 is always my ide, win+1 is always my web browser. I never have to mash alt+tab a varying number of times. and more importantly if the second desktop is actually two programs in split screen, it’s still easy to switch to and from. Otherwise I frequently find myself looking at one thing in full screen, then having to alt+tab multiple times to bring two half-screen programs back to the front. I’ve tried to install various windows tools to either provide hot keys to virtual desktops, or otherwise replicate my tiling WM setup but nothing seems to be quite as convenient to me. I feel like I waste so much time alt+tabbing and getting things where I want them whenever I’m in a normal WM. In i3 it’s all either already the way I like or it’s 1-2 hotkeys to fix it.
  - lunchables 7y ago
    How is that different on a tiling window manager? I would assume a smaller screen would be more apt to using a tiling window manager. It automatically makes the window you're using take up 100% of the screen. You can also switch between tiling and a maximized view in pretty much every tiling wm. Also, there are usually multiple desktops (or even better, "tags" like in dwm) which allow you to easily switch between applications in any of the different tiling modes.