5 ms·

Why does every window manager have panels? I don't want any. I only want tiling and have every thing traditionally handled with panels to be a separate app I ca

Why does every window manager have panels? I don't want any. I only want tiling and have every thing traditionally handled with panels to be a separate app I can launch the common way and place as an ordinary window wherever I see fit.

malicka 3y ago
This is a desktop environment, not a window-manager, so here it’s pretty expected. I’ve gotta say, though, virtually every window manager that does have a panel makes it toggleable. FVWM, Fluxbox, xmonad, i3, etc.
- qwerty456127 3y ago
  Sure, nevertheless having panels as a distinct class of entities seems a rude violation of the Occam's razor principle everyone apparently rushes to do as soon as they write their own. People love panels somehow. The more bells&whistless on them - usually the better. This is just a curious psychological phenomenon.
  - alexvoda 3y ago
    In X and X intrinsincs everything was a window including every widget.
    - qwerty456127 3y ago
      To me this seems a particularly beautiful concept. I feel sad it is abandoned (I am one of the people who always used, if not ab-used, X over SSH).
      - kaba0 3y ago
        It’s pretty much the same with Wayland, everything is just a “surface”.
    - bitwize 3y ago
      Same was true in Microsoft Windows, but -- say it with me -- Modern Apps Don't Work That Way Anymore. You can't keep the redraws of all the widgets in sync, so you can't guarantee pixel-perfect window refresh. The Wayland way of only having top-level windows and client handling of all widgets within is, objectively, better for modern development.
  - postepowanieadm 3y ago
    In kde 3.5 one could detach panels and place them side by side(if I recall correctly).
    - eMPee584 3y ago
      oOh kde 3.5 was my favorite
      - nasretdinov 3y ago
        BTW why are you saying that it was? Can't you still be using it? I am not a desktop Linux user myself but it sure should be possible?
        nineteen999 3y ago
        If you could get it to still compile on a modern Linux system, you'd still be running an obsolete DE without security patches, and you'd be on your own as far as support is concerned.
  - ruined 3y ago
    well, most users generally have a small set of operations they want readily accessible with a pointing device at all times, or status information they want to be available at a glance, without obscuring or interfering with window layout. a persistent window, aka panel, is the conventional way to provide that. it's simply a conceptual extension of the 'prompt' into a gui environment. nothing has surpassed the panel concept in the past forty years that it has been dominant. i expect the 'panel' is the primary feature vehicle of any desktop environment - they are nearly synonymous. nearly every window manager also contains support for panels, even if they are not part of a desktop environment that specifically provides them. what do you use?
    - qwerty456127 3y ago
      Okay, but why should not a panel be just an ordinary window without the "decorations" (close/minimize buttons etc) of a separate ordinary app? You know, the first time the idea of the panel disturbed me in a negative way was in Windows 98 where the panel (the taskbar) would often remain visible in some quirky way during (some rare times even after) the moment the display switches to a full-screen graphics mode when I launch the game.
      - hnlmorg 3y ago
        The Windows taskbar literally was just another window but without any decorations. There was even a bug in Windows 95 where you could close the taskbar. As for the full screen bug you experienced, I don’t recall ever seeing that but Windows 9x had a plethora of weird bugs so it wouldn’t surprise me if you had issues.
      - ruined 3y ago
        well, everything in a typical linux desktop environment runs inside a window manager, including the panel. some of them are integrated to an extent, but you're essentially describing the status quo. and microsoft does all kinds of weird shit nobody has an explanation for.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jrm4 3y ago
Yup, for me the broader question for just about every window manager is "why not EASY modularity?" Would love to see something where this was the principle? Very little philosophy or opinion on how individuals do their own desktop, emphasis on "you should be able to add and take things off easily as you want." The metaphor being, you know, an actual physical desktop. It's an EMPTY table. Put what you want on it and nothing you don't. (Like openbox perhaps, just with a little more friendliness towards well integrated panels etc. Which might be construed as "opinion" -- but seems like most WMs FORCE a lot of the things on you)
- cess11 3y ago
  To some people that's what StumpWM offers, and easy molding is what attracted me to IceWM back in the day. I'm more of a 'install i3wm, change a few things in the config, done' kind of person these days.
- from-nibly 3y ago
  Bspwm just uses bash for configuration which is about as straight forward as you can get with modularity. Easy though? I dont think modularity is ever easy is it? I think the lack of it is one of the things that makes a thing easy.
  - kaba0 3y ago
    Bash is anything but straightforward
    - qwerty456127 3y ago
      Yeah, there are just two languages more weird than BrainFuck: TeX and Bash :-)
- jwells89 3y ago
  I believe the main issue is that it’s difficult to have any kind of consistent/coherent design in a desktop where everything is optional. Building good UI for managing panels can also be challenging.
cbolton 3y ago
For me it's the opposite: why do we have a gazillion of window managers (that just manage windows), and so few desktop environments that provide a complete and coherent setup? It's especially annoying in the world of tiling window managers. There are few options for a desktop environment with a solid tiling WM. Regolith is one (based on i3 / Sway), and I thank those who develop it, but it's patching together a bunch of independently developed tools and you can tell when you try to change some things and have to deal with disparate config files.
- benrutter 3y ago
  Yeah this, there really isn't a strong coherent option for tiling window managers just yet. We'll probably see one soon with cosmic. I think its the vim effect where the userbase just has a high demand for customization and don't mind a lot more set up and configuration to get there.
- jwells89 3y ago
  Totally agree. I tinkered around with an openbox+tint2 setup several years ago and was able to get it to a usable state, but getting all the little things working is so fussy and flaky, with e.g. the need to hunt down suitable daemons to get a typical tray item loadout.
- qwerty456127 3y ago
  Imagine a perfect world where all the separate apps just were coherent, forming a complete ecosystem and their config files were not disparate? So you would just pick a window manager you somehow like better, a panel app of your choice, launcher, sound volume, WiFi management, calculator applets you prefer... Then switch to another window manager someday... keeping everything else intact. This is the way it's meant to be, every thing you dislike is just a quirk.
  - cbolton 3y ago
    Yes that sounds awesome, though I'd prefer having a single config file for the window manager, status bar, notifications, application launcher, lock screen and whatever else I forgot that are in the end part of the same experience. One particular problem is theming: I'd like to set a theme in a single place for all the elements of my desktop environment. Not sure if it's fair to expect a bunch of independent opinionated developers who like to use weird graphics toolkits (when not drawing everything by themselves) to come up with a unified solution. Another problem is the shortcuts. It's the same problem in (neo)vim when you build your awesome IDE-like setup based on 53 unrelated packages: you end up with an illogical, overlapping soup of keybindings. I think you need someone to take charge of unifying things to provide a coherent experience.

malicka 3y ago

This is a desktop environment, not a window-manager, so here it’s pretty expected. I’ve gotta say, though, virtually every window manager that does have a panel makes it toggleable. FVWM, Fluxbox, xmonad, i3, etc.

qwerty456127 3y ago
Sure, nevertheless having panels as a distinct class of entities seems a rude violation of the Occam's razor principle everyone apparently rushes to do as soon as they write their own. People love panels somehow. The more bells&whistless on them - usually the better. This is just a curious psychological phenomenon.
- alexvoda 3y ago
  In X and X intrinsincs everything was a window including every widget.
  - qwerty456127 3y ago
    To me this seems a particularly beautiful concept. I feel sad it is abandoned (I am one of the people who always used, if not ab-used, X over SSH).
    - kaba0 3y ago
      It’s pretty much the same with Wayland, everything is just a “surface”.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    Same was true in Microsoft Windows, but -- say it with me -- Modern Apps Don't Work That Way Anymore. You can't keep the redraws of all the widgets in sync, so you can't guarantee pixel-perfect window refresh. The Wayland way of only having top-level windows and client handling of all widgets within is, objectively, better for modern development.
- postepowanieadm 3y ago
  In kde 3.5 one could detach panels and place them side by side(if I recall correctly).
  - eMPee584 3y ago
    oOh kde 3.5 was my favorite
    - nasretdinov 3y ago
      BTW why are you saying that it was? Can't you still be using it? I am not a desktop Linux user myself but it sure should be possible?
      - nineteen999 3y ago
        If you could get it to still compile on a modern Linux system, you'd still be running an obsolete DE without security patches, and you'd be on your own as far as support is concerned.
- ruined 3y ago
  well, most users generally have a small set of operations they want readily accessible with a pointing device at all times, or status information they want to be available at a glance, without obscuring or interfering with window layout. a persistent window, aka panel, is the conventional way to provide that. it's simply a conceptual extension of the 'prompt' into a gui environment. nothing has surpassed the panel concept in the past forty years that it has been dominant. i expect the 'panel' is the primary feature vehicle of any desktop environment - they are nearly synonymous. nearly every window manager also contains support for panels, even if they are not part of a desktop environment that specifically provides them. what do you use?
  - qwerty456127 3y ago
    Okay, but why should not a panel be just an ordinary window without the "decorations" (close/minimize buttons etc) of a separate ordinary app? You know, the first time the idea of the panel disturbed me in a negative way was in Windows 98 where the panel (the taskbar) would often remain visible in some quirky way during (some rare times even after) the moment the display switches to a full-screen graphics mode when I launch the game.
    - hnlmorg 3y ago
      The Windows taskbar literally was just another window but without any decorations. There was even a bug in Windows 95 where you could close the taskbar. As for the full screen bug you experienced, I don’t recall ever seeing that but Windows 9x had a plethora of weird bugs so it wouldn’t surprise me if you had issues.
    - ruined 3y ago
      well, everything in a typical linux desktop environment runs inside a window manager, including the panel. some of them are integrated to an extent, but you're essentially describing the status quo. and microsoft does all kinds of weird shit nobody has an explanation for.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jrm4 3y ago

Yup, for me the broader question for just about every window manager is "why not EASY modularity?" Would love to see something where this was the principle? Very little philosophy or opinion on how individuals do their own desktop, emphasis on "you should be able to add and take things off easily as you want." The metaphor being, you know, an actual physical desktop. It's an EMPTY table. Put what you want on it and nothing you don't. (Like openbox perhaps, just with a little more friendliness towards well integrated panels etc. Which might be construed as "opinion" -- but seems like most WMs FORCE a lot of the things on you)

cess11 3y ago
To some people that's what StumpWM offers, and easy molding is what attracted me to IceWM back in the day. I'm more of a 'install i3wm, change a few things in the config, done' kind of person these days.
from-nibly 3y ago
Bspwm just uses bash for configuration which is about as straight forward as you can get with modularity. Easy though? I dont think modularity is ever easy is it? I think the lack of it is one of the things that makes a thing easy.
- kaba0 3y ago
  Bash is anything but straightforward
  - qwerty456127 3y ago
    Yeah, there are just two languages more weird than BrainFuck: TeX and Bash :-)
jwells89 3y ago
I believe the main issue is that it’s difficult to have any kind of consistent/coherent design in a desktop where everything is optional. Building good UI for managing panels can also be challenging.

cbolton 3y ago

For me it's the opposite: why do we have a gazillion of window managers (that just manage windows), and so few desktop environments that provide a complete and coherent setup? It's especially annoying in the world of tiling window managers. There are few options for a desktop environment with a solid tiling WM. Regolith is one (based on i3 / Sway), and I thank those who develop it, but it's patching together a bunch of independently developed tools and you can tell when you try to change some things and have to deal with disparate config files.

benrutter 3y ago
Yeah this, there really isn't a strong coherent option for tiling window managers just yet. We'll probably see one soon with cosmic. I think its the vim effect where the userbase just has a high demand for customization and don't mind a lot more set up and configuration to get there.
jwells89 3y ago
Totally agree. I tinkered around with an openbox+tint2 setup several years ago and was able to get it to a usable state, but getting all the little things working is so fussy and flaky, with e.g. the need to hunt down suitable daemons to get a typical tray item loadout.
qwerty456127 3y ago
Imagine a perfect world where all the separate apps just were coherent, forming a complete ecosystem and their config files were not disparate? So you would just pick a window manager you somehow like better, a panel app of your choice, launcher, sound volume, WiFi management, calculator applets you prefer... Then switch to another window manager someday... keeping everything else intact. This is the way it's meant to be, every thing you dislike is just a quirk.
- cbolton 3y ago
  Yes that sounds awesome, though I'd prefer having a single config file for the window manager, status bar, notifications, application launcher, lock screen and whatever else I forgot that are in the end part of the same experience. One particular problem is theming: I'd like to set a theme in a single place for all the elements of my desktop environment. Not sure if it's fair to expect a bunch of independent opinionated developers who like to use weird graphics toolkits (when not drawing everything by themselves) to come up with a unified solution. Another problem is the shortcuts. It's the same problem in (neo)vim when you build your awesome IDE-like setup based on 53 unrelated packages: you end up with an illogical, overlapping soup of keybindings. I think you need someone to take charge of unifying things to provide a coherent experience.