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Other commenters are speaking to the ability to have them auto-configure to specific layouts, which is indeed useful for some people. I also find they provide e
by extr 5y ago
Other commenters are speaking to the ability to have them auto-configure to specific layouts, which is indeed useful for some people. I also find they provide easier window management/navigation on laptops. Rather than using gestures, task view, or alt-tabbing to find your window, you typically have specific groups of windows on specific virtual desktops which are bound to predictable hotkeys. So you might have something going on like:
Desktop 1 = WinKey + 1 = Browser
Desktop 2 = WinKey + 2 = Email application + WIP Reply
Desktop 3 = WinKey + 3 = Multiple Chat Apps
Desktop 4 = WinKey + 4 = IDE
Desktop 5 = WinKey + 5 = Debug Window + Documentation + Another Browser
I don't really have any hard and fast rules for what goes where, I just let things develop organically and don't restart my computer that often. For me, I find the ease/convenience of this makes working on a laptop 10x better. It sounds crazy but I almost prefer working on a laptop screen with a good Tiling WM to docking it with multiple screens.
On a larger/multiple screens, I find it's less necessarily to have the full features of a tiling WM. Something like FancyZones in PowerToys is good enough.
- moonchild 5y agoVirtual desktops and tiling are orthogonal.
- extr 5y agoYou're right they are different features and you could have one without the other. But imo it's the implementation of them together you see in most linux wms (i3, bspwm, sway, etc) that makes my example scenario work so well. When I try to use virtual desktops on windows without tiling/hotkeys, I just get confused about what windows are on what desktop. And if I had tiling without virtual desktops, I would just run out of space, or be forced to use the i3 "tab mode" which I'm not a fan of.
- howinteresting 5y agoI disagree. While it's possible to use them separately, in my experience virtual desktops don't make sense without tiling, and tiling doesn't make sense without virtual desktops.
- ancienthope 5y agoSimilarly, I use an app like Alfred to bind specific hotkeys to activate any app I want. But I use this without any kind of workspace construct.