tiling WM

[scottc]

what file manager do you guys use?

Check this out. http://zshwiki.org/home/builtin/functions/zmv
Discovered it a few days ago. It's AMAZING.

[SL89]

Mu with the images lol.

I'll check it out scottc, I'm not so much of an expert so I'll probably just clone it instead of migrating.

Arch seems fun, versionless sounds nice. Maybe I'll give it a go.

[matt3o]

ok, regarding file managers.

I often have to browse dozens of images named like DCSxxxxx, sometimes preview a few, delete some, cherry pick number 1,2,6,10,11,14, copy to a temp directory, and so on... I do love the command line and I use it whenever I can, but there are certain tasks that become incredibly tedious without a GUI.

[Mal-2]

An Italian would say that…

Not Italian, Roman.

Nothing Italian lasts 2000 years.

[matt3o]

Not Italian, Roman.

Nothing Italian lasts 2000 years.

Americans have a very weird perception of geography and history.

[wlhlm]

What language are you people speaking???

I feel so dumb...

Linux on the desktop...

[ramnes]

Debian testing or unstable are both fairly up-to-date

In terms of package update frequency on unstable branches, I'd easily say that Gentoo > Arch >= Fedora > Debian.

[matt3o]

In terms of package update frequency on unstable branches, I'd easily say that Gentoo > Arch >= Fedora > Debian.

not sure about that >=

[ramnes]

Anyway, who uses Fedora nowadays?

[iAmAhab]

Anyway, who uses Fedora nowadays?

I do! But I'm gonna go back to Arch this summer, this time I'm not gonna break my system and actually try to learn some more instead of just blindly following guides. I used awesome in the past and quite liked it, even though I don't know lua it was not impossible to configure. I'm thinking of trying i3, any pros and cons compared to awesome?

[Mal-2]

Not Italian, Roman.

Nothing Italian lasts 2000 years.

Americans have a very weird perception of geography and history.

It was a joke, trying to point out the disparity between the incredible robustness of Roman construction, and the somewhat questionable reputation of modern Italian manufacturing. The aqueducts sure weren't made by Fix-It-Again-Tony.

[andrewjoy]

I can attest to that , i went to sorrento recently ( very beautiful place) and went on several day trips , among others one to Napoli and one to Pompeii.... Pompeii was in better condition.

EDIT

Fontanelle cemetery, was worth the visit , a very cool yet very strange place!

[Muirium]

Naples has a hard time. Extreme corruption and organised crime. I spent some time there as I know people who lived in town, but they ultimately had to leave. It's a wonderful place that's being destroyed by politics. Judging all of Italy by Napoli's standards is like visiting 1980 New York and deciding all of America was a terrorised, stinking shithole! True, locally, but entirely false.

You need to see Tuscany! Italy's California. The north is the whole reason Italy has as large an economy as California. The south is a great place historically, and I love the culture there, but they've been stuck in a trap for generations. The place needs a clear out from the mob and filthy politicians on a scale that's just inconceivable.

[davkol]

derp

[matt3o]

ah the internet: everyone has an opinion on anything

[fifted]

Used ion back in my Linux days. It was last updated in 2009, but still ongoing while I was in the crowd. Looks like there's still an active fork: Notion (Sidenote: "not-ion"? Oh, Linux folks, when will your project names stop sounding like bad dad humor? I only wish I didn't chuckle at them.)

Now making do with WinSplit Revolution on Windows for no-fuss keyboard-based window management that approximates tiling.

For file management: FreeCommander -- dual-panel really is nice!

[ramnes]

Anyway, who uses Fedora nowadays?

I do! But I'm gonna go back to Arch this summer, this time I'm not gonna break my system and actually try to learn some more instead of just blindly following guides. I used awesome in the past and quite liked it, even though I don't know lua it was not impossible to configure. I'm thinking of trying i3, any pros and cons compared to awesome?

i3 and awesome are very different. Awesome is much easier for beginners, but things get really interesting when you understand the manual tiling of i3.

[jonlorusso]

in combination with wmutils for basic window management

I gave swm a whirl recently, but I realized I was just reimplementing a bunch of stuff I get for free with bspwm. What kind of window management stuff are you doing that you don't get with openbox?

[matt3o]

okay I started playing with tiling wm. I can see the appeal but...

... they force you in a very structured work area, which is good I guess but I have a very fuzzy workflow. For web design I need a big vertical area for coding and half a dozen browsers open and some of them in a virtual machine. I couldn't find a way to arrange them in a way that was really comfortable for easy switching. Also window resizing is very important to check responsive designs, you can easily resize the windows but you end up resizing everything else on the work area which is a bit of an annoyance in some scenarios.

Configuration is also pretty exhausting, you basically never stop fixing the config files and every time you install a new software you probably have to add something (mostly for dialogs, they always open in the wrong place and you can't see half of their content). But honestly I could live with that. Actually I enjoy that.

Of all I tried maybe bspwm is the one I like the most, but honestly I don't know them enough to be able to draw an absolute winner. There are differences, some are important, but the overall concept seems more or less the same.

I'll try to spend some more time on bspwm, but for the way I work I can't see it making my life any easier.

[davkol]

derp

[matt3o]

Yeah, and that's why I use (pseudo)tiling on top of a stacking window manager.

care to elaborate?

[ramnes]

okay I started playing with tiling wm. I can see the appeal but...

... they force you in a very structured work area, which is good I guess but I have a very fuzzy workflow. For web design I need a big vertical area for coding and half a dozen browsers open and some of them in a virtual machine. I couldn't find a way to arrange them in a way that was really comfortable for easy switching.

Considering your usecase, from what I know (I don't know bspwm), I would have gone i3.

It's a bit hard to understand how it works and its bindings and stuff, but then it allows you to manually tile your windows without never touching any configuration file, and then you can switch between the windows with the arrows : if you want to go on the window on the left, it's super + left, etc.

Also window resizing is very important to check responsive designs, you can easily resize the windows but you end up resizing everything else on the work area which is a bit of an annoyance in some scenarios.

On this, you should take the windows you want to resize, make it floating, have fun resizing, and then put it back on the layout.

Configuration is also pretty exhausting, you basically never stop fixing the config files and every time you install a new software you probably have to add something (mostly for dialogs, they always open in the wrong place and you can't see half of their content). But honestly I could live with that. Actually I enjoy that.

I don't know how it's done on bspwm, but on most WM you can tell to make dialogs floating by default. Then they will open just over your current window.

[matt3o]

Switching back and forth to floating is something I could do but it would be an additional step in my workflow. There are certain things that are very nice especially if your daily work is predictable, but as I said I have a very fuzzy workflow and I never know what I will end doing (3d modeling, web design, php, nodejs, images, videos, ...)

anyway I'll keep trying another bit

[davkol]

derp

[SL89]

Alternatively, you can run something like PyTyle on top of any standard wm (e.g., Openbox or KWin).

What is this PyTyle? I'm guessing its Python related and probably allows for tiling in what would normally be a non tiling wm.

[ramnes]

Alternatively, you can run something like PyTyle on top of any standard wm (e.g., Openbox or KWin).

What is this PyTyle? I'm guessing its Python related and probably allows for tiling in what would normally be a non tiling wm.

Your guess is correct sir.

[matt3o]

you mean kwin, without KDE?

[davkol]

derp

[matt3o]

ok, the whole plasma desktop. yeah that's what I have now (5.3.1) it's really a great system and incredibly lighter than 4.x, but still quite buggy

[amospalla]

My experience with Awesome was nice, it has automatic arrangement, but once you learn it and need something more flexible a window manager like i3 comes into rescue. With i3 you don't need so many rules, you can arrange things on the fly and in ways an automatic tiling wm can not.