3 ms·

I don't see the cognitive load you are talking about. It's just windows. You put roughly where you want them when you need them to have what you want visible.

I don't see the cognitive load you are talking about. It's just windows. You put roughly where you want them when you need them to have what you want visible. They stack. If one is out of your sight and you need it, you use the list or expose to find it and move it where it will be useful. It's like manipulating documents in the physical world except it's always easy to find a window in your stack of windows. It's a very natural flow. Tiling is the solution imposing an unnatural cognitive burden on the user. With tiling you need to constantly think about exactly what you want to see, where you want your windows and you constantly need to fiddle with the arrangements and spend time preemptively positioning your windows. It gets very annoying to me as soon as I want more than one full screen window.

deadbunny 5y ago
I can't speak for everyone and I'm a multiscreen type, but for me I have things on specific workspaces. Workspace 1-4 Primary monitor (center, ultrawide, landscape) Workspace 5-7 Second Monitor (left, portrait) Workspace 8-10 Third Monitor (right, landscape) 1. Browser and terminals/vim for current project (ultrawide monitor = 4:3ish split) 2. As above if I need to switch to another project 3. As above if I need to switch to another project 4. Spare/"Personal" slacking off things like HN 5. Comms Slack/IRC etc... 6. Spare/Displaying things that work will in portrait like reading PDFs 7. Spare/Monitoring specific things to do with what I'm working on 8. Spare/Background noise videos 9. Music player 10. Email/Calendar For me I usually sit with 5, 1, 10 visible across the 3 monitors 95% of the time which means I can see everything I immediately need. However if on a single monitor device the workspaces have the same use (mostly, 1 might get split into 1 = Terminals, 2 = Browser because it's a bit cramped on 16:9). This means If I need my emails I hit Mod+0 which then focusses my email/calendar whether it's visible on my 3rd monitor or hidden on a single monitor setup. Or Mod+5 and I get Slack. Once it's in your muscle memory you don't even think about it. The way I see it is it's like vim, once you have the shortcuts in your muscle memory you don't even think about where things are, they just appear when you need them.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Yeah I do the same with virtual desktops, except I right now have only one screen. Because I hate the way KDE switches virtual desktops for all screens together, I would really want each screen to have its own separate virtual desktop. I have 9 of them and mapped my numpad to the virtual desktop because I don't like combo keys very much. And I don't normally use the numpad for anything anyway :P How did you manage that? Or don't you use KDE but something like i3? (Especially because you call them workspaces).
  - deadbunny 5y ago
    Ah yes, forgot that bit. You're correct I use i3.
salamandersauce 5y ago
You don't need to constantly think about exactly what you need to see. Nor do I need to fiddle with arrangements. There's less fiddling. With the WM I use every window is available in every frame and I can just cycle through them. I don't need to remember what a window is called or distinguish between 5 nearly identical thumbnails because I'm cycling through the windows at full size instead of looking at list or expose. I don't need to think about what monitor some window is on or what virtual desktop and there's never any visible clutter or noise because anything that's not something I want to look at is just not visible.
kiawe_fire 5y ago
I’ve been the same. I came from MacOS into Linux in the last couple of years, but gave Pop_os! a try early on with its tiling wm. I found myself constantly planning layouts and positioning things. Nothing ever ended up feeling right, and it was exhausting. “I’ll have my browser window take the full height and half the width over here. Then I’ll put my code editor over on the right, half high, then my Terminal below it. No wait, that’s not enough height for the code editor, so let’s shrink the Terminal down… except now the terminal’s uncomfortably short. Well, maybe the browser can be split with the Terminal and the code editor can be full height. Except now the code editor feels too narrow and I don’t really need it this tall, it would be really nice if I could have the browser window full height instead.” And then I’m back where I started. And if I finally get used to a layout and whatever shortcut keys I have for jumping around, then !!! A wild Slack message appears! Now I need to open a PDF viewer along with Slack along with my code editor but don’t need my browser but maybe need my Terminal, and I’m back to the layout drawing board for the next task. With overlapping windows, every window can be the exact size and shape it needs to be. I’m open to the likelihood that I’m just doing it wrong. I would also bet this is less of an issue if I were using multiple large, unscaled 4K monitors. So I’ll try it again someday with a different setup, but for now I’m mostly happy with my 1440p monitor(s), and overlapping windows.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  If your future 4K monitors are the exact same physical size having higher resolution wont make you want to have more tinier windows. The most useful arrangement for windows to be tiled into is 1-2 windows on a horizontal monitor with more windows accommodated by adding more monitors to your workspace instead of splitting a window 7 ways.
- smichel17 5y ago
  Psst. Try PaperWM. It allows quick resizing and tiling.
michaelmrose 5y ago
Keep in mind that to some degree workflows are inevitably a matter of taste and familiarity. That is we adjust over time to a certain way of working changing how we work to be in line with out our tools work and enjoy things whose workings are in line with our own mental models. I think you may have misunderstood how one works with a tiling wm rather than fiddling with the arrangement constantly one hardly does at all. Certain applications can be automatically routed to certain monitors and in certain arrangements. 99% of the time the primary window management operation one does is simply to switch what a given monitor is displaying or change focus between applications with none of the sizing arranging exposing or alt tabbing through lists of windows. The most useful arrangement of windows on a per monitor workspace is either a single large window or 2-3 aligned horizontally or vertically based on the orientation of the monitor and the creation of the arrangement is by no other means than simply opening an application and having it pop into the arrangement. This is increasingly evident and useful with multiple monitors and increasing number of windows. There is probably no meaningful difference in utility between any window management method that can be discerned with 3 windows on a single monitor but at some point between 3 windows and say 15 one really needs at least virtual desktops to break up the windows and switching windows is a 2-3 level operation switching virtual desktop then focusing the correct monitor and then expose. Much worse if it it would useful at the moment to have an application from Desktop 2 Monitor 2 on Desktop 1 Monitor 1 and then back again in its original location. Especially if you need it to share space with an existing window because now one most resize both windows in addition to rearranging. The cognitive overhead is in remembering which desktop one has which window however this is trivially mitigated by always using the same desktop for the same task. This ultimately microscopic amount of overhead is paid for by not constantly paying for windows arrangement amnesia by using overview and expose to find the window you were using 30 seconds ago.
- WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  I pretty much never use virtual desktops. I never got the point. I want my windows to always be available not be hidden somewhere else. They stack perfectly fine and now that starting things is nearly instant I just close the applications I’m not currently using (I still have between ten and twenty windows open but that’s perfectly manageable with one desktop). I can get wanting windows side by side however but most descent floating windows managers have that nowadays. Well, I guess it’s another thing I will never understand with people having trouble managing their hundreds of open tabs. It’s fascinating to me how people actually have very different way to use their tools and how it much shape the feelings they have towards them.

deadbunny 5y ago

I can't speak for everyone and I'm a multiscreen type, but for me I have things on specific workspaces. Workspace 1-4 Primary monitor (center, ultrawide, landscape) Workspace 5-7 Second Monitor (left, portrait) Workspace 8-10 Third Monitor (right, landscape) 1. Browser and terminals/vim for current project (ultrawide monitor = 4:3ish split) 2. As above if I need to switch to another project 3. As above if I need to switch to another project 4. Spare/"Personal" slacking off things like HN 5. Comms Slack/IRC etc... 6. Spare/Displaying things that work will in portrait like reading PDFs 7. Spare/Monitoring specific things to do with what I'm working on 8. Spare/Background noise videos 9. Music player 10. Email/Calendar For me I usually sit with 5, 1, 10 visible across the 3 monitors 95% of the time which means I can see everything I immediately need. However if on a single monitor device the workspaces have the same use (mostly, 1 might get split into 1 = Terminals, 2 = Browser because it's a bit cramped on 16:9). This means If I need my emails I hit Mod+0 which then focusses my email/calendar whether it's visible on my 3rd monitor or hidden on a single monitor setup. Or Mod+5 and I get Slack. Once it's in your muscle memory you don't even think about it. The way I see it is it's like vim, once you have the shortcuts in your muscle memory you don't even think about where things are, they just appear when you need them.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
Yeah I do the same with virtual desktops, except I right now have only one screen. Because I hate the way KDE switches virtual desktops for all screens together, I would really want each screen to have its own separate virtual desktop. I have 9 of them and mapped my numpad to the virtual desktop because I don't like combo keys very much. And I don't normally use the numpad for anything anyway :P How did you manage that? Or don't you use KDE but something like i3? (Especially because you call them workspaces).
- deadbunny 5y ago
  Ah yes, forgot that bit. You're correct I use i3.

salamandersauce 5y ago

You don't need to constantly think about exactly what you need to see. Nor do I need to fiddle with arrangements. There's less fiddling. With the WM I use every window is available in every frame and I can just cycle through them. I don't need to remember what a window is called or distinguish between 5 nearly identical thumbnails because I'm cycling through the windows at full size instead of looking at list or expose. I don't need to think about what monitor some window is on or what virtual desktop and there's never any visible clutter or noise because anything that's not something I want to look at is just not visible.

kiawe_fire 5y ago

I’ve been the same. I came from MacOS into Linux in the last couple of years, but gave Pop_os! a try early on with its tiling wm. I found myself constantly planning layouts and positioning things. Nothing ever ended up feeling right, and it was exhausting. “I’ll have my browser window take the full height and half the width over here. Then I’ll put my code editor over on the right, half high, then my Terminal below it. No wait, that’s not enough height for the code editor, so let’s shrink the Terminal down… except now the terminal’s uncomfortably short. Well, maybe the browser can be split with the Terminal and the code editor can be full height. Except now the code editor feels too narrow and I don’t really need it this tall, it would be really nice if I could have the browser window full height instead.” And then I’m back where I started. And if I finally get used to a layout and whatever shortcut keys I have for jumping around, then !!! A wild Slack message appears! Now I need to open a PDF viewer along with Slack along with my code editor but don’t need my browser but maybe need my Terminal, and I’m back to the layout drawing board for the next task. With overlapping windows, every window can be the exact size and shape it needs to be. I’m open to the likelihood that I’m just doing it wrong. I would also bet this is less of an issue if I were using multiple large, unscaled 4K monitors. So I’ll try it again someday with a different setup, but for now I’m mostly happy with my 1440p monitor(s), and overlapping windows.

michaelmrose 5y ago
If your future 4K monitors are the exact same physical size having higher resolution wont make you want to have more tinier windows. The most useful arrangement for windows to be tiled into is 1-2 windows on a horizontal monitor with more windows accommodated by adding more monitors to your workspace instead of splitting a window 7 ways.
smichel17 5y ago
Psst. Try PaperWM. It allows quick resizing and tiling.

michaelmrose 5y ago

Keep in mind that to some degree workflows are inevitably a matter of taste and familiarity. That is we adjust over time to a certain way of working changing how we work to be in line with out our tools work and enjoy things whose workings are in line with our own mental models. I think you may have misunderstood how one works with a tiling wm rather than fiddling with the arrangement constantly one hardly does at all. Certain applications can be automatically routed to certain monitors and in certain arrangements. 99% of the time the primary window management operation one does is simply to switch what a given monitor is displaying or change focus between applications with none of the sizing arranging exposing or alt tabbing through lists of windows. The most useful arrangement of windows on a per monitor workspace is either a single large window or 2-3 aligned horizontally or vertically based on the orientation of the monitor and the creation of the arrangement is by no other means than simply opening an application and having it pop into the arrangement. This is increasingly evident and useful with multiple monitors and increasing number of windows. There is probably no meaningful difference in utility between any window management method that can be discerned with 3 windows on a single monitor but at some point between 3 windows and say 15 one really needs at least virtual desktops to break up the windows and switching windows is a 2-3 level operation switching virtual desktop then focusing the correct monitor and then expose. Much worse if it it would useful at the moment to have an application from Desktop 2 Monitor 2 on Desktop 1 Monitor 1 and then back again in its original location. Especially if you need it to share space with an existing window because now one most resize both windows in addition to rearranging. The cognitive overhead is in remembering which desktop one has which window however this is trivially mitigated by always using the same desktop for the same task. This ultimately microscopic amount of overhead is paid for by not constantly paying for windows arrangement amnesia by using overview and expose to find the window you were using 30 seconds ago.

WastingMyTime89 5y ago
I pretty much never use virtual desktops. I never got the point. I want my windows to always be available not be hidden somewhere else. They stack perfectly fine and now that starting things is nearly instant I just close the applications I’m not currently using (I still have between ten and twenty windows open but that’s perfectly manageable with one desktop). I can get wanting windows side by side however but most descent floating windows managers have that nowadays. Well, I guess it’s another thing I will never understand with people having trouble managing their hundreds of open tabs. It’s fascinating to me how people actually have very different way to use their tools and how it much shape the feelings they have towards them.