4 ms·

Tiling WMs are dead. Long live tiling WMs. Scrolling WMs like Niri/Paperwm are where it’s at now.

by WD-42 11mo ago

fer 11mo ago
Just moved to Niri, it's incredible how snappy it is. The animation makes what you did with the window much clearer vs. other wms where it just teleports, the scrolling just compounds to that effect. The scrolling is great because it tends to work at getting things out of the way when they're not relevant and bringing them back when they are, while not ending up with tiny windows like dwm/AwesomeWM/Sway (what I've been using for the last ~15 years).
lelandbatey 11mo ago
Looking at a video demo of Niri for an example: https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri Conceptually, it's like an infinite 2D canvas windows, divided into strips (strip is a workspace), and you then scroll through an infinite ribbon of windows in each strip. Seems interesting, but also slower and less flexible than traditional tiling WMs (least of all because of the slow scrolling animations, but also because it seems to prefer scrolling instead of jumping-towards). Like most of the 'tiling with gaps' patches I see, these feel like trying to look fancy without necessarily delivering big value. I'd be interested to hear why people want a scrolling WM. Is it merely more visually pleasing?
- Philpax 11mo ago
  I'm still a Niri newbie, but I'm enjoying the scrolling as a ways to have "subworkspaces": when I'm working on a full-stack project, for example, I can scroll between the backend and the frontend, while arranging my windows in such a way that anything useful (e.g. the browser) remains resident on screen. You can get similar functionality with tabbed windows, but I'm still trying to decide which workflow I prefer; scrolling feels a bit more "organic", while tabs are superior for density.
- WD-42 11mo ago
  It's the same thing as a tiling WM, with all the benefits. You can still tile windows vertically or horizontally. The big improvement is that if I have a view with my browser, editor, a terminal or two all tiled nicely but then all of a sudden I need to open the Gimp or a PDF for some one-off work related to what I'm working on, it just opens to the right. I can move over to it and do what I need to do without messing up the current layout and then close it when I'm done. This is opposed to a traditional tiling WM where you'd either need to open the app in another workspace, use some stacking feature or worst of all shove the new window into the current view by resizing some other window(s) which is often not ideal.
  - thesuitonym 11mo ago
    Wow. My work flow with a stacking WM is that I get my tiled windows how I like them, but then if I need a new window for some reason, I just open it and it plops on top of my tiled windows without interacting with them at all. Seems more productive to me.
  - thewebguyd 11mo ago
    Sounds interesting, but I still think I prefer using workspaces, simply because I can set window rules for predictability. I never want to / have to wonder where any particular window is. Every app will always open on the same workspace, in the same position that I define + a scratchpad workspace for random one-offs that I keep floating. I'm only ever 1 key press away from exactly what I want. I know that ctrl+b gets me my browser, ctrl+t gets me to my terminal(s), etc. I don't even think about the workspace numbers or layout beyond initial configuration. Zero animations, instant switching. In your example, if I'm on one workspace working and I need to open Gimp, I press my keybind for Gimp and it opens on the scratchpad and switches to it immediately. It takes a lot of initial config and tweaking as you go along but once settled it's the most efficient way I've found to manage windows, in that, the windows manage themselves i no longer have to think about them at all.
    - WD-42 11mo ago
      That makes sense if you use application per workspace, which never made much sense to me. I'm often working on 3+ codebases or projects at the same time, each project has a browser window with associated tabs, an instance of an editor, several terminals. So they get a workspace. "Switch to browser workspace" makes no sense if there are 3 instances of the browser open, especially when I want the browser next to my editor for live reload/API docs.
- forgotpwd16 11mo ago
  Checking the video and impressed how people remember all the programs they've running on the canvas and their location. In i3 have been using i3-renameworkspaces to know what is opened in other workspaces because kept forgetting.
  - Philpax 11mo ago
    Niri has an overview view to help with this. You can see all of your workspaces and their strips, and move applications from strip to strip.
wolttam 11mo ago
Niri has been really nice over the last week since I moved to it. It has allowed me to get down to ~2 persistent workspaces instead of the usual 5-6. Workspace 1: Browser, Email, Music Workspace 2: Running project, editor(s) On sway/i3 I always had these things split across multiple workspaces it could get tedious switching between them at times.
quantummagic 11mo ago
Totally agree. I had been using Sway for a few years and tried Niri on a whim. Expected to quickly dismiss it, but ended up being a convert. It's just easier to configure your windows in a useful way, and often the "right thing" just happens by default.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
rootnod3 11mo ago
I honestly do not understand the scrolling WMs. The last thing I want to do is move my hand to my mouse to scroll. I tried them, didn't work for me. So yes, there's still a crowd of people hanging on to old tiling WMs and therefore sticking to Xorg instead of Wayland. Because you can pry EXWM and StumpWM out of my cold dead hands.
- WD-42 11mo ago
  What makes you think you need a mouse?
  - rootnod3 11mo ago
    If I an switch left and right via keyboard, why just not switch workspaces? I honestly don't see the point in the scrolling layout. Switched workspaces I know what is on each workspace, I can switch to it, see what's there. But the Niri approach, I have to scroll through the space to see which windows are actually there.
    - hombre_fatal 11mo ago
      The question is what are you going to do if you want to launch an app relevant to the current workspace (let's say Gimp), but it's not important enough to be visible with the other windows in that workspace (editor, terminal, browser) or it doesn't fit. Overflowing Gimp onto another workspace because of this is the main cause of workspace spam that a scrolling WM solves. If you're working on more than one project (so, workspace 1 2 and 3 are fully utilized), where does this overflow workspace even live? And what if each workspace also needs its own Gimp instance? There are certainly solutions to this in every WM, but the scrolling WM solution is a really simple one that never makes you ask the question of where to put something: workspaces have an offscreen overflow area. Another way of thinking about it is: sway would be instantly improved for me if it also had a per-workspace overflow area, like maybe if every workspace had its own scratchpad that I could tile windows on, and I could reach it by moving focus into it kind like moving between monitors.
dinkleberg 11mo ago
Niri is brilliant. It just feels so natural. All of the default keybindings and behaviors work exactly as my brain assumes it would.

Tiling WMs are dead. Long live tiling WMs. Scrolling WMs like Niri/Paperwm are where it’s at now.

by WD-42 11mo ago

Tiling WMs are dead. Long live tiling WMs. Scrolling WMs like Niri/Paperwm are where it’s at now.

fer 11mo ago

Just moved to Niri, it's incredible how snappy it is. The animation makes what you did with the window much clearer vs. other wms where it just teleports, the scrolling just compounds to that effect. The scrolling is great because it tends to work at getting things out of the way when they're not relevant and bringing them back when they are, while not ending up with tiny windows like dwm/AwesomeWM/Sway (what I've been using for the last ~15 years).

lelandbatey 11mo ago

Looking at a video demo of Niri for an example: https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri Conceptually, it's like an infinite 2D canvas windows, divided into strips (strip is a workspace), and you then scroll through an infinite ribbon of windows in each strip. Seems interesting, but also slower and less flexible than traditional tiling WMs (least of all because of the slow scrolling animations, but also because it seems to prefer scrolling instead of jumping-towards). Like most of the 'tiling with gaps' patches I see, these feel like trying to look fancy without necessarily delivering big value. I'd be interested to hear why people want a scrolling WM. Is it merely more visually pleasing?

Philpax 11mo ago
I'm still a Niri newbie, but I'm enjoying the scrolling as a ways to have "subworkspaces": when I'm working on a full-stack project, for example, I can scroll between the backend and the frontend, while arranging my windows in such a way that anything useful (e.g. the browser) remains resident on screen. You can get similar functionality with tabbed windows, but I'm still trying to decide which workflow I prefer; scrolling feels a bit more "organic", while tabs are superior for density.
WD-42 11mo ago
It's the same thing as a tiling WM, with all the benefits. You can still tile windows vertically or horizontally. The big improvement is that if I have a view with my browser, editor, a terminal or two all tiled nicely but then all of a sudden I need to open the Gimp or a PDF for some one-off work related to what I'm working on, it just opens to the right. I can move over to it and do what I need to do without messing up the current layout and then close it when I'm done. This is opposed to a traditional tiling WM where you'd either need to open the app in another workspace, use some stacking feature or worst of all shove the new window into the current view by resizing some other window(s) which is often not ideal.
- thesuitonym 11mo ago
  Wow. My work flow with a stacking WM is that I get my tiled windows how I like them, but then if I need a new window for some reason, I just open it and it plops on top of my tiled windows without interacting with them at all. Seems more productive to me.
- thewebguyd 11mo ago
  Sounds interesting, but I still think I prefer using workspaces, simply because I can set window rules for predictability. I never want to / have to wonder where any particular window is. Every app will always open on the same workspace, in the same position that I define + a scratchpad workspace for random one-offs that I keep floating. I'm only ever 1 key press away from exactly what I want. I know that ctrl+b gets me my browser, ctrl+t gets me to my terminal(s), etc. I don't even think about the workspace numbers or layout beyond initial configuration. Zero animations, instant switching. In your example, if I'm on one workspace working and I need to open Gimp, I press my keybind for Gimp and it opens on the scratchpad and switches to it immediately. It takes a lot of initial config and tweaking as you go along but once settled it's the most efficient way I've found to manage windows, in that, the windows manage themselves i no longer have to think about them at all.
  - WD-42 11mo ago
    That makes sense if you use application per workspace, which never made much sense to me. I'm often working on 3+ codebases or projects at the same time, each project has a browser window with associated tabs, an instance of an editor, several terminals. So they get a workspace. "Switch to browser workspace" makes no sense if there are 3 instances of the browser open, especially when I want the browser next to my editor for live reload/API docs.
forgotpwd16 11mo ago
Checking the video and impressed how people remember all the programs they've running on the canvas and their location. In i3 have been using i3-renameworkspaces to know what is opened in other workspaces because kept forgetting.
- Philpax 11mo ago
  Niri has an overview view to help with this. You can see all of your workspaces and their strips, and move applications from strip to strip.

wolttam 11mo ago

Niri has been really nice over the last week since I moved to it. It has allowed me to get down to ~2 persistent workspaces instead of the usual 5-6. Workspace 1: Browser, Email, Music Workspace 2: Running project, editor(s) On sway/i3 I always had these things split across multiple workspaces it could get tedious switching between them at times.

quantummagic 11mo ago

Totally agree. I had been using Sway for a few years and tried Niri on a whim. Expected to quickly dismiss it, but ended up being a convert. It's just easier to configure your windows in a useful way, and often the "right thing" just happens by default.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

rootnod3 11mo ago

I honestly do not understand the scrolling WMs. The last thing I want to do is move my hand to my mouse to scroll. I tried them, didn't work for me. So yes, there's still a crowd of people hanging on to old tiling WMs and therefore sticking to Xorg instead of Wayland. Because you can pry EXWM and StumpWM out of my cold dead hands.

WD-42 11mo ago
What makes you think you need a mouse?
- rootnod3 11mo ago
  If I an switch left and right via keyboard, why just not switch workspaces? I honestly don't see the point in the scrolling layout. Switched workspaces I know what is on each workspace, I can switch to it, see what's there. But the Niri approach, I have to scroll through the space to see which windows are actually there.
  - hombre_fatal 11mo ago
    The question is what are you going to do if you want to launch an app relevant to the current workspace (let's say Gimp), but it's not important enough to be visible with the other windows in that workspace (editor, terminal, browser) or it doesn't fit. Overflowing Gimp onto another workspace because of this is the main cause of workspace spam that a scrolling WM solves. If you're working on more than one project (so, workspace 1 2 and 3 are fully utilized), where does this overflow workspace even live? And what if each workspace also needs its own Gimp instance? There are certainly solutions to this in every WM, but the scrolling WM solution is a really simple one that never makes you ask the question of where to put something: workspaces have an offscreen overflow area. Another way of thinking about it is: sway would be instantly improved for me if it also had a per-workspace overflow area, like maybe if every workspace had its own scratchpad that I could tile windows on, and I could reach it by moving focus into it kind like moving between monitors.

dinkleberg 11mo ago

Niri is brilliant. It just feels so natural. All of the default keybindings and behaviors work exactly as my brain assumes it would.