4 ms·

Not to be polemic but... Another floating windows manager ? It's about time to came back to free tiling (like Emacs/EXWM where there is no rigid "tiling model"

by kkfx 2y ago

Not to be polemic but... Another floating windows manager ? It's about time to came back to free tiling (like Emacs/EXWM where there is no rigid "tiling model"), since we no not need to keep moving windows, we do not need icons covered by any windows, overlapping windows and so on. Most of the time we work on a single maximized application, otherwise we have some windows side-by-side to see both and so on. Use case for floating tend to be zero. Similar use case for most launchers and menus tend to be zero, most of the UIs have choose search&narrow over time, from "dashes" to Android preference passing though desktop quick-launchers witch are in the end a specialized CLI. The widget model, the floating windows model is failed and proved to be even if too many still use it. The DocUIs are the past (SUNWs anyone? Postscript UIs?) and the present and the foreseeable future... The DE as a tool proved to be next to useless, we use applications and need integration non desktop prove to been able to offer beyond very basic cut&paste and some protocols supported only by few apps and essentially irrelevant.

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
> Most of the time we work on a single maximized application, otherwise we have some windows side-by-side to see both and so on. Use case for floating tend to be zero. Try telling [John Siracusa](https://atp.fm/96 https://atp.fm/96) that. Seriously, I'm with you, but I think there's a significant set of users who are not.
- kkfx 2y ago
  Well, I'm listening it now (so far no anti-tiling, so I can't directly answer for now) but I can share my personal journey, as nearly all I've started with floating windows, at a certain point in time I've realize that's not a nice thing, there was a path: - first, no more icons - then a quick launcher - most of the time living in a CLI - then a first test of tiling with i3 used just in mere tab-mode and I've felt the sense of being a bit lost for a moment BUT after anything seems smooth enough - finally the enlightenment switching to Emacs/EXWM I've experienced a similar path when I ditch my decades-old hyper-curated home taxonomy to org-attaching all my files accessing them via org-mode, org-roam managed, notes. I've hesitate MUCH, I've tried for very long time with limited set of low importance files and so on. Evolution is scaring when it's a kind of revolution and you know it's not a game, it can be painful as well, but it's the reason we are not in caves anymore, so it's a thing humanity have embraced. Not all, of course, I bet a very small minority, but that minority is the one who steer the evolution, others follow. Long story short if we advertise our findings, the reasons behind a specific move, and a little bit at a time we spread the idea, things will happen. Even if today many say we are at the end of the history the history never end. Those who think the contrary can talk about themselves, meaning they count not to change themselves, and generally are wrong even at that, we do change, we like it or not anyway...
donatj 2y ago
I long for the days of early MacOS X where there was no maximize and the green button just optimized the size of the window to its contents. The days of tear-off tools where I could pull toolbars and menus out into their own windows and just build a little workspace for the exact task I was working on. The maximized single window of Windows stood in stark contrast to MacOS X’s floating windows. I came from Windows, and it took time for my brain to buy in but when it did I tell you, true productivity awaited in a way we are direly missing. Nothing makes me sadder in life than seeing someone using an ultra wide with a maximized browser where the contents take the center 8th of the screen.
- kkfx 2y ago
  Did you try just seeing Plan 9 GUIs? They do more than what you ask and better, you do not need to "pull out toolbars", you simply create them typing functions names in a relevant place. Try Pharo and you'll see and even powerful model, the UI is just an element to makes the text active and user-programmable for anyone. If you think about them you'll realize why the widget GUI model can't be an answer, it try to offer "some" flexibility, but can't be enough, trying to avoid the need of an acculturated user, well, the acculturate user is not an issue, it's a target. We MUST form them, because IT is the nervous system of our society. We should stop making Ford model workers as a kind of dumb-terminal meat-based robots, we must craft people, humans who bend their desktops to their needs. You can't create anything like that up front, you need empowered end users. The current old mac model is rubbish today since we are in the era of WebApps, and we are there because we need DocUIs, and the current WebUIs are not flexible enough on the user side, and that's why we start again NotebookUI and alike, modern 2D CLIs, trying to deny we need end user programming while we slowly push it again. Old Mac like modern Gnome SHell want just to be at the center for narcissistic business purposes.
  - ropejumper 2y ago
    > Plan 9 GUIs Mostly just Acme, though. The others are kind of mediocre and don't have this mechanism. Oberon does implement something like this system-wide, and iirc that was the inspiration for Acme.
simonbarker87 2y ago
> Most of the time we work on a single maximized application I’m not sure who the “we” is here but I don’t. I don’t go to the extent of the sibling comments ATP link (worth a listen btw, toward the end of the episode from memory) but I have half a dozen windows open at any one time and it’s very rare I will make something full screen or just two side by side. Even if constrained to my laptop screen I will usually have 3 or 4 windows open and not as just an even split of the screen. I have colleagues who work in Mac full screen mode and I get motion sick watching them move between (and forget the location of) different apps and windows.
- kkfx 2y ago
  Well, we meaning the most common kind of users, techies or newbies or luser all together: most part of humans today use a desktop like a browser bootloader, to a point someone have invented "the Chromebook" because of that, bringing also a limited kind of tab-based UI to the masses. Allow me a question: when you read your emails how many windows you use for that? Personally I use one (notmuch-emacs) or two (notmuch+a note), when you buy some stock do you use some full screen software (no matter if local or web) to see market data or you have many other windows shown at the same time? These are just two example of common activities. Of course if you are a frontend programmer you probably have much more stuff shown all your work time, but I bet none of them specially overlapping. That's is the "we" I, a bit arrogantly, use above... > I have colleagues who work in Mac full screen mode and I get motion sick watching them move between (and forget the location of) different apps and windows. I use Emacs/EXWM and well, yes, often I forgot some buffers/X11 apps open, but who care? The point is that anything is at my fingertips. I can easily create windows layout, or save-and-restore them, I can easy flip windows (mode-line-other-buffer bound to a keystroke) is MUCH more efficient than moving the mouse around.
dspillett 2y ago
> Most of the time we work on a single maximized application, otherwise we have some windows side-by-side to see both and so on. With a few caveats (some smaller floating windows, always on top, occasionally for reference or playing a video I'm half paying attention to) I'm with you there. Under windows FancyZones is my current tool of choice, effectively splitting my 32" screen into two (or occasionally three) by various proportions, I don't use Linux on the desktop ATM but last time I did tiling window managers were my preference. Though given how I keep lots open from various trains of thought, particularly browser tabs, spread over a few virtual desktops, I'm starting to think nested virtual desktops might be a thing to look for and try… While we are here: if anyone can recommend a good tabbed file manager for Windows I'd be happy. Dual-pane works for some things but not otherwise. I've tried a few over the years, some that wrap Explorer, some that are entirely their own thing, and they've all proven unstable, take an age to start or open new windows, or are very leggy in response to any input, or some mix of all three of those problems (yep, more buggy and unresponsive than explorer itself!).
- kkfx 2y ago
  Well, IMVHO you just look at Eclipse perspectives for desktop, meaning something to save and restore a set of apps in a relevant layout. Virtual desktops are the poor man's handcrafted solution for that. Try to visualize EXWM|a fullscreen Emacs, where you just call a function and get three windows, your code debug layout, than another for your mail reading routine and so on. Do you really need "virtual desktop visual"? You just call, search&narrow style or with some keybindings, a dedicated function. Personally I use my keyboard function keys for that, for instance F7 open my mail reading setup (notmuch + org-mode/org-capture notes), F10 open my Firefox and so on. Being in Emacs running "an app" (i.e. a window) or a set of apps is no difference, it's just a bit of elisp to be run. This allow MUCH more than simple virtual desktops with much less effort everyday. Oh, sure you have to craft and evolve your desktop, but thanks to the user-programming concept Emacs have it's damn easy. It's hard only because X11 apps are not made that way, but try looking a Pharo (Smalltalk) demo and you'll understand. About file management: I can't suggest a proper file manager but I can tell how I manage my files, as org-mode attachments accessed via search&narrow styles. I have notes about almost anything, let's say one about EDF (the utility provide me electricity) in the note I have all relevant contracts infos, invoices etc. Well, if I look at a specific invoice just hitting a key (org-roam-node-find) and typing EDF offer me the main note and many other "sub-notes", a simple title textual match. I can tab/enter to se the main note and find anything in it, or I can add some text like "november" to get results for all EDF stuff with november and add 22 to mach 22, they I get the EDF invoice for November 2022. Since it's free form text I can place it in other notes, also (limited, unfortunately) transcluding it elsewhere. For instance I have a note for my home, witch contains anything relevant, electricity contracts and bills as well. This way you made all your "views" without any GUI limit and without taking care of crafting an maintaining a file-and-folders taxonomy. File get attached, you can access then via text, you can craft org-ql queries to see different results, it's just a graph of textual nodes, fully searchable with ripgrep, files are just a backend storage stuff. Oh, and you can use it in Windows as well. It's a kind of Paperless-ngx without paperless rigid structure and limitations. Quick archiving of recurrent things, like an utility bill, can be automated via scripting.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
MadcapJake 2y ago
I'm stoked for "mosaic tiling": > a new window management mode which combines the best parts of tiling and floating https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2023/07/26/rethinking-window-management/ https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2023/07/26/rethinking-windo...
- kkfx 2y ago
  Honestly I'm not at all convinced, it seems to be another try to push childish stuff in modern systems... Yes, widgets based GUIs are designed with a specific aspect ratio and size in mind, DocUIs tend to be designed with an aspect ratio but scale well enough (think about web-apps, not just Emacs buffers). The lack of integration is only solvable with the classic model "the OS is an application, there is a single unique environment for anything", so all apps are written as part of the sole system/framework from the most lower level to the highest end-user programming. Something perfectly possible, actually done in the past, with very nice results, see just for instance https://youtu.be/RQKlgza_HgE https://youtu.be/RQKlgza_HgE to not go too much back in history toward Xerox Smalltalk workstations. but also something commercial big player do dislike, since in this model you can only pay the programmer, not the program/service so no giants only competition... Text and relative text rendering is the most flexible and integrable tool we have so far, and the web itself is a good proof and show as well the limits of trying not giving power to the end user. On "modern desktops", honestly Ubuntu Unity was a thing because the side bar was just a quick launcher with some icons, something usual on a good place since we have larger and larger monitor with less and less vertical space, and the top bar was as small as fluxbox at al. Gnome SHell tried the narcissistic way, forcing people to see animations just for common windows switching witch surely have a kind of WOW effects for the kids, but far less interesting to work all day. Ubuntu also pushed the HUD, or a way to replace the apps menu with a CLI search&narrow style, witch was essentially the same principle than dash and quicklaunchers in general AND the Emacs M-x model. However in Emacs anyone can craft a function in a snap and run it through M-x, in modern desktops it's a hard, long thing with much boilerplate. Just to create a .desktop, witch is a kind of functions skeleton in the Emacs model, you need a dedicated file only for that, put in a specific place, than the code somewhere else etc. People do like seen beautiful gardens, but do want quick things, so the path of regulate the world in advance all modern system try is a failure in advance.

by kkfx 2y ago

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago

> Most of the time we work on a single maximized application, otherwise we have some windows side-by-side to see both and so on. Use case for floating tend to be zero. Try telling [John Siracusa](https://atp.fm/96 https://atp.fm/96) that. Seriously, I'm with you, but I think there's a significant set of users who are not.

kkfx 2y ago
Well, I'm listening it now (so far no anti-tiling, so I can't directly answer for now) but I can share my personal journey, as nearly all I've started with floating windows, at a certain point in time I've realize that's not a nice thing, there was a path: - first, no more icons - then a quick launcher - most of the time living in a CLI - then a first test of tiling with i3 used just in mere tab-mode and I've felt the sense of being a bit lost for a moment BUT after anything seems smooth enough - finally the enlightenment switching to Emacs/EXWM I've experienced a similar path when I ditch my decades-old hyper-curated home taxonomy to org-attaching all my files accessing them via org-mode, org-roam managed, notes. I've hesitate MUCH, I've tried for very long time with limited set of low importance files and so on. Evolution is scaring when it's a kind of revolution and you know it's not a game, it can be painful as well, but it's the reason we are not in caves anymore, so it's a thing humanity have embraced. Not all, of course, I bet a very small minority, but that minority is the one who steer the evolution, others follow. Long story short if we advertise our findings, the reasons behind a specific move, and a little bit at a time we spread the idea, things will happen. Even if today many say we are at the end of the history the history never end. Those who think the contrary can talk about themselves, meaning they count not to change themselves, and generally are wrong even at that, we do change, we like it or not anyway...

donatj 2y ago

I long for the days of early MacOS X where there was no maximize and the green button just optimized the size of the window to its contents. The days of tear-off tools where I could pull toolbars and menus out into their own windows and just build a little workspace for the exact task I was working on. The maximized single window of Windows stood in stark contrast to MacOS X’s floating windows. I came from Windows, and it took time for my brain to buy in but when it did I tell you, true productivity awaited in a way we are direly missing. Nothing makes me sadder in life than seeing someone using an ultra wide with a maximized browser where the contents take the center 8th of the screen.

kkfx 2y ago
Did you try just seeing Plan 9 GUIs? They do more than what you ask and better, you do not need to "pull out toolbars", you simply create them typing functions names in a relevant place. Try Pharo and you'll see and even powerful model, the UI is just an element to makes the text active and user-programmable for anyone. If you think about them you'll realize why the widget GUI model can't be an answer, it try to offer "some" flexibility, but can't be enough, trying to avoid the need of an acculturated user, well, the acculturate user is not an issue, it's a target. We MUST form them, because IT is the nervous system of our society. We should stop making Ford model workers as a kind of dumb-terminal meat-based robots, we must craft people, humans who bend their desktops to their needs. You can't create anything like that up front, you need empowered end users. The current old mac model is rubbish today since we are in the era of WebApps, and we are there because we need DocUIs, and the current WebUIs are not flexible enough on the user side, and that's why we start again NotebookUI and alike, modern 2D CLIs, trying to deny we need end user programming while we slowly push it again. Old Mac like modern Gnome SHell want just to be at the center for narcissistic business purposes.
- ropejumper 2y ago
  > Plan 9 GUIs Mostly just Acme, though. The others are kind of mediocre and don't have this mechanism. Oberon does implement something like this system-wide, and iirc that was the inspiration for Acme.

simonbarker87 2y ago

> Most of the time we work on a single maximized application I’m not sure who the “we” is here but I don’t. I don’t go to the extent of the sibling comments ATP link (worth a listen btw, toward the end of the episode from memory) but I have half a dozen windows open at any one time and it’s very rare I will make something full screen or just two side by side. Even if constrained to my laptop screen I will usually have 3 or 4 windows open and not as just an even split of the screen. I have colleagues who work in Mac full screen mode and I get motion sick watching them move between (and forget the location of) different apps and windows.

kkfx 2y ago
Well, we meaning the most common kind of users, techies or newbies or luser all together: most part of humans today use a desktop like a browser bootloader, to a point someone have invented "the Chromebook" because of that, bringing also a limited kind of tab-based UI to the masses. Allow me a question: when you read your emails how many windows you use for that? Personally I use one (notmuch-emacs) or two (notmuch+a note), when you buy some stock do you use some full screen software (no matter if local or web) to see market data or you have many other windows shown at the same time? These are just two example of common activities. Of course if you are a frontend programmer you probably have much more stuff shown all your work time, but I bet none of them specially overlapping. That's is the "we" I, a bit arrogantly, use above... > I have colleagues who work in Mac full screen mode and I get motion sick watching them move between (and forget the location of) different apps and windows. I use Emacs/EXWM and well, yes, often I forgot some buffers/X11 apps open, but who care? The point is that anything is at my fingertips. I can easily create windows layout, or save-and-restore them, I can easy flip windows (mode-line-other-buffer bound to a keystroke) is MUCH more efficient than moving the mouse around.

dspillett 2y ago

> Most of the time we work on a single maximized application, otherwise we have some windows side-by-side to see both and so on. With a few caveats (some smaller floating windows, always on top, occasionally for reference or playing a video I'm half paying attention to) I'm with you there. Under windows FancyZones is my current tool of choice, effectively splitting my 32" screen into two (or occasionally three) by various proportions, I don't use Linux on the desktop ATM but last time I did tiling window managers were my preference. Though given how I keep lots open from various trains of thought, particularly browser tabs, spread over a few virtual desktops, I'm starting to think nested virtual desktops might be a thing to look for and try… While we are here: if anyone can recommend a good tabbed file manager for Windows I'd be happy. Dual-pane works for some things but not otherwise. I've tried a few over the years, some that wrap Explorer, some that are entirely their own thing, and they've all proven unstable, take an age to start or open new windows, or are very leggy in response to any input, or some mix of all three of those problems (yep, more buggy and unresponsive than explorer itself!).

kkfx 2y ago
Well, IMVHO you just look at Eclipse perspectives for desktop, meaning something to save and restore a set of apps in a relevant layout. Virtual desktops are the poor man's handcrafted solution for that. Try to visualize EXWM|a fullscreen Emacs, where you just call a function and get three windows, your code debug layout, than another for your mail reading routine and so on. Do you really need "virtual desktop visual"? You just call, search&narrow style or with some keybindings, a dedicated function. Personally I use my keyboard function keys for that, for instance F7 open my mail reading setup (notmuch + org-mode/org-capture notes), F10 open my Firefox and so on. Being in Emacs running "an app" (i.e. a window) or a set of apps is no difference, it's just a bit of elisp to be run. This allow MUCH more than simple virtual desktops with much less effort everyday. Oh, sure you have to craft and evolve your desktop, but thanks to the user-programming concept Emacs have it's damn easy. It's hard only because X11 apps are not made that way, but try looking a Pharo (Smalltalk) demo and you'll understand. About file management: I can't suggest a proper file manager but I can tell how I manage my files, as org-mode attachments accessed via search&narrow styles. I have notes about almost anything, let's say one about EDF (the utility provide me electricity) in the note I have all relevant contracts infos, invoices etc. Well, if I look at a specific invoice just hitting a key (org-roam-node-find) and typing EDF offer me the main note and many other "sub-notes", a simple title textual match. I can tab/enter to se the main note and find anything in it, or I can add some text like "november" to get results for all EDF stuff with november and add 22 to mach 22, they I get the EDF invoice for November 2022. Since it's free form text I can place it in other notes, also (limited, unfortunately) transcluding it elsewhere. For instance I have a note for my home, witch contains anything relevant, electricity contracts and bills as well. This way you made all your "views" without any GUI limit and without taking care of crafting an maintaining a file-and-folders taxonomy. File get attached, you can access then via text, you can craft org-ql queries to see different results, it's just a graph of textual nodes, fully searchable with ripgrep, files are just a backend storage stuff. Oh, and you can use it in Windows as well. It's a kind of Paperless-ngx without paperless rigid structure and limitations. Quick archiving of recurrent things, like an utility bill, can be automated via scripting.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

MadcapJake 2y ago

I'm stoked for "mosaic tiling": > a new window management mode which combines the best parts of tiling and floating https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2023/07/26/rethinking-window-management/ https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2023/07/26/rethinking-windo...

kkfx 2y ago
Honestly I'm not at all convinced, it seems to be another try to push childish stuff in modern systems... Yes, widgets based GUIs are designed with a specific aspect ratio and size in mind, DocUIs tend to be designed with an aspect ratio but scale well enough (think about web-apps, not just Emacs buffers). The lack of integration is only solvable with the classic model "the OS is an application, there is a single unique environment for anything", so all apps are written as part of the sole system/framework from the most lower level to the highest end-user programming. Something perfectly possible, actually done in the past, with very nice results, see just for instance https://youtu.be/RQKlgza_HgE https://youtu.be/RQKlgza_HgE to not go too much back in history toward Xerox Smalltalk workstations. but also something commercial big player do dislike, since in this model you can only pay the programmer, not the program/service so no giants only competition... Text and relative text rendering is the most flexible and integrable tool we have so far, and the web itself is a good proof and show as well the limits of trying not giving power to the end user. On "modern desktops", honestly Ubuntu Unity was a thing because the side bar was just a quick launcher with some icons, something usual on a good place since we have larger and larger monitor with less and less vertical space, and the top bar was as small as fluxbox at al. Gnome SHell tried the narcissistic way, forcing people to see animations just for common windows switching witch surely have a kind of WOW effects for the kids, but far less interesting to work all day. Ubuntu also pushed the HUD, or a way to replace the apps menu with a CLI search&narrow style, witch was essentially the same principle than dash and quicklaunchers in general AND the Emacs M-x model. However in Emacs anyone can craft a function in a snap and run it through M-x, in modern desktops it's a hard, long thing with much boilerplate. Just to create a .desktop, witch is a kind of functions skeleton in the Emacs model, you need a dedicated file only for that, put in a specific place, than the code somewhere else etc. People do like seen beautiful gardens, but do want quick things, so the path of regulate the world in advance all modern system try is a failure in advance.