Do you tile or stack? And why?

ForkTong · 2012-05-06 09:51:33

Haha, that's impossible. Cause it's a Norwich tongue

orionthehunter · 2012-05-15 00:48:16

I think you're getting a biased response to this thread because most stackers don't know they stack.

I prefer stacking because I want my already small screen to be visually dominated by my main task with only hints that others are around. When I want tiling (rarely) I run pytyle.

Most of my work is done in full-screen windows, esp chromium-browser, Inkscape, and gimp.

I also use terminator for when I need some command line power (or I just switch to TTY), and terminator offers tabs and tiles... so no real need for tiling multiple instances of it.

I've never found a marked efficiency gain in the work I do from using tiling, and the configuration and learning curve haven't proved worthwhile.

Part of it is definitely because I don't write code for a living.

Digit · 2012-05-29 11:33:09

a feature in scrotwm(/spectrwm) that i've only recently discovered, and has been in there a while it seems, is a way to effectively minimise windows.

unless i changed it, the default control for this is mod+w to minimise, and mod+shift+w to see what's there to be restored... and it uses dmenu for this! seriously cool.

i survived for years without it, just using a separate workspace to throw things to that i didnt need at the moment, and that was fine, and i still do that sometimes. but it's nice to have this feature in there too. smile

just thought i'd add this, since this seems to be a point of contention that scares away the conventional stacking peeps, not comfortable with the idea of a desktop environment paradigm without a bar to minimise windows to.

p.s.
if you want to maximise screen space usage for a small screen, use a tiling window manager. tongue you see it's full screen mode... yeah. much more space for whatever it is you're working on. ... and pytyle, yuck.

Last edited by Digit (2012-05-29 11:35:08)

mahatman2 · 2012-05-31 00:57:16

^ why pytyle yuck? ?? I'm just wondering because I installed it to allow my gf a usable (for her) system and an efficient (for me) system..

Unia · 2012-05-31 09:23:43

It's true that once you go tiling, you never go back. Last week I felt the urge to play around with Openbox, and whilst it's a perfect wm, I just couldn't get used to the workflow of having to manually resize/position the windows. Also, the titlebars seemed like a waste of screen estate, especially on maximised windows.

It did have its plusses though, such as the rootmenu and xft font support in tint2 big_smile But it's easy to translate those into DWM with pygtkmenu and the xft patch

SabreWolfy · 2012-05-31 09:29:45

^ I'm using #! with OB, but have used tiling WMs for short periods on occasion and quite liked them. On a few occasions I've noticed that supporters of tiling WMs make comment about manually resizing and positioning windows. What work-flow or usage requires this manual arrangement of windows? I run a browser, a terminal and Emacs maximized. Why do you need windows next to each other or resized?

Having said that, I'm playing with a Wheezy NetInstall and have installed XFCE 4.8 on it to check it out. It's pretty cool, but I'm planning on installing scrotwm on it. It should be nice and fast and light because I'm only installing what I want. The idea of a Wheezy NetInstall with a tiling WM only is quite exciting smile

Unia · 2012-05-31 10:27:24

Of course, browsers and word processors e.d. work fullscreen. I also set them up on their on workspace, without decorations and always maximized. It's the IM chats, editors and terminals (and occasionally image viewers) that require manual resizing and positioning. Especially when editing multiple files at one time, it's hard to keep the overview when all the editors are behind eachother.

nestor · 2012-05-31 11:16:35

...

Last edited by nestor (2012-06-22 04:08:02)

SabreWolfy · 2012-05-31 11:17:26

^ ROFL smile OB is so heavy? smile

gutterslob · 2012-05-31 13:07:32

Unia wrote:

Of course, browsers and word processors e.d. work fullscreen. I also set them up on their on workspace, without decorations and always maximized. It's the IM chats, editors and terminals (and occasionally image viewers) that require manual resizing and positioning. Especially when editing multiple files at one time, it's hard to keep the overview when all the editors are behind eachother.

It's been a while since I was on Openbox, but with regards to window resizing and placement, you only need to do it once, iirc. Then the window opens at the size you last used in the XY position you last placed it. It's been the case for me with apps like pidgin, browsers, xchat and others. Can't remember whether it was automatic or a setting I selected in OBconf. You can even "tag" them to a set workspace with some basic xml tweakery. Obviously, apps that have window size and placement dictated by their own settings (Xdefaults for terminal window size, for example) will override that.

Unia wrote:

It did have its plusses though, such as the rootmenu and xft font support in tint2

Fwiw, tint2 isn't really part of Openbox.

Last edited by gutterslob (2012-05-31 13:34:23)

gutterslob · 2012-05-31 13:10:10

SabreWolfy wrote:

^ ROFL OB is so heavy?

I don't think anyone said that.... and if they did, they're misinformed. Openbox actually has a smaller memory footprint than tilers like Awesome and wmii, in my experience. Maybe it just feels heavy for someone used to tiling, though I don't really understand that p.o.v either, to be frank.

Last edited by gutterslob (2012-05-31 13:15:44)

Unia · 2012-05-31 14:36:59

I never said anything about resources or "heavyness" and I don't care for that, really. It's nice to use lesser resources cause we're all a minimalist at heart here, but I do not compare OB vs tiler vs tiler vs tiler.

And at least for me, OB did not spawn the windows where I last closed them. Anyway, I'm happy to have gotten some new insights from OB which I ported to DWM big_smile

EDIT:

Gutterslob wrote:

Unia wrote:
It did have its plusses though, such as the rootmenu and xft font support in tint2
Fwiw, tint2 isn't really part of Openbox.

It was part of my OB experience tongue

Last edited by Unia (2012-05-31 14:38:20)

arclance · 2012-05-31 15:08:10

Unia wrote:

Last week I felt the urge to play around with Openbox, and whilst it's a perfect wm, I just couldn't get used to the workflow of having to manually resize/position the windows.

The apps file in Fluxbox lets you set where a window opens and what size it opens.
This way things like terminal windows and toolboxes open where you want them and the size you want them every time.
It can get even more specific like controlling what workspace or x-screen a window opens in as well as auto tabbing windows together.

Digit · 2012-05-31 18:53:00

mahatman2 wrote:

^ why pytyle yuck? ?? I'm just wondering because I installed it to allow my gf a usable (for her) system and an efficient (for me) system..

dont mind me, just being elitist about which tiling window manager. pytyle to me has always seemed bloaty, clumsy, ugly.

i'd rather use openbox with a whole other tiling window manager (scrotwm, or awesome, or wmii, etc), and configure them for live switching on the fly.

each to their own preferences though. that's the cool thing about freedom and choice, we dont all have to like, nor lump the same stuff. smile

gutterslob wrote:

...you only need to do it once, iirc. Then the window opens at the size you last used in the XY position you last placed it....

and that's not at all handy if it's something you need to open many multiple instances of. i think there are ways to configure, globally, and per app, how that behaves, in openbox. it's been a whil~~

oh, except just now... lol, i'm in openbox on the crunchbang i installed for dad on his computer... which he never uses. ... i wasnt using it long before i organised the windows as if it were a tiling wm...

i rly need to stop procrastinating and suss how to get clfswm to show up in my gdm session menu again. clfswm kinda blows both paradigms outta the water. we thought tiling was the future, because it subsumed stacking within it... clfswm is the new future, since it subsumes both tiling and stacking within it. http://common-lisp.net/project/clfswm/
yipes, i see it was a while ago i meant to get that done. http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … idden-gem/ 3 weeks ago already.

ivanovnegro · 2012-05-31 18:59:41

SabreWolfy wrote:

What work-flow or usage requires this manual arrangement of windows? I run a browser, a terminal and Emacs maximized. Why do you need windows next to each other or resized?

It was explained very often here yet. Either you like it or not. You have to test it, then you will see, the 'new' workflow comes automatically. smile It is also not just because it seems more geeky or cool or even just because of the feeling about more efficiency, it makes fun to use it. big_smile

gutterslob · 2012-05-31 19:44:06

Digit wrote:

clfswm

Interesting .....

Digit wrote:

common-lisp

I take that back. Not so interesting.

Last edited by gutterslob (2012-05-31 19:44:23)

Digit · 2012-05-31 21:42:00

seeing the clfswm videos in action ended up getting me into emacs, and i might even get into lisping too... still havnt gotten around to configuring gdm to make clfswm bootable. XD

gutterslob · 2012-05-31 21:57:26

Digit wrote:

... still havnt gotten around to configuring gdm to make clfswm bootable. XD

Digit uses big ol' gdm?! ...and I thought I'd seen it all. =P

I haven't read up on clfswm yet, but shouldn't it be just a matter of creating a /usr/share/xsession/clfswm.desktop file?

Example /usr/share/xsession/clfswm.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Name=clfswm
Encoding=UTF-8
Comment=Start some convoluted Lisp WM
Exec=/home/digit/bin/clfswm.sh
TryExec=clfswm
Type=Xsession

....and thee create the script in the 'Exec' stated above and fill it like you would a xinitrc, and make it executable.

Example ~/bin/clfswm.sh

#!/bin/bash

setxkbmap us &
feh --bg-scale /path/to/wallpaper.png &
#thunar --daemon &
mpd &
#numlockx on &
urxvtd -q -o -f &
sleep .2
clfswm #or whatever the wm executable is called

You should then be able to see and select a "clfswm" session in GDM.

This works with most WMs as long as the excutables are in your $PATH. Is clsfwm any different, or has GDM changed since the last time I used it?

Edit:
If clfswm sources it's own start config, then you don't even need the start script. Just have the 'Exec' line in your /usr/share/xsession/clfswm.desktop point to the executable.

Last edited by gutterslob (2012-05-31 22:03:13)

mahatman2 · 2012-06-01 02:24:19

Digit wrote:

i'd rather use openbox with a whole other tiling window manager (scrotwm, or awesome, or wmii, etc), and configure them for live switching on the fly.

yikes WHAT?! O Digit, please show me how this is done! OMGOMG I did not know this was possible! (Now that I think about it, does it have something to do with openbox --replace and something else, maybe?)

Digit · 2012-06-02 13:14:12

mahatman2,

i'll let you websearch for it yourself. ^_^ i'd have to look it up again too, since it's been a year or two since i set that up in any wm. (might even be a couple threads about it here in crunchbang's forum)

there's a new french distro called hybryde that makes extensive use of this, allowing on-the-fly switching between many window managers.

frankly i think all distros should have had this kind of thing as standard a decade+ ago. some window managers seem to have this sort of thing in their menus by default (for some window managers). iirc, like icewm, fluxbox and others.
i've never got that working in dwm though... i'm sure it can be done. i'm no expert on compiling and configuring C tho.

gutterslob,

ooh thnx. rather more elaborate and clear. i had done a sloppy lazy copy&paste of another wm's .desktop file n changed bare minimum, but it didnt work (didnt even show up in the list). i'll try that stuff out in a little bit. hehe, i liked the "Comment=Start some convoluted Lisp WM". I'll keep that. ^_^

oh, and in my defense, i only use big ol gdm cos that's what i was given by default, n have been enjoying being lazy with that install of crunchbang. maybe i'll go back to xdm or wings or slim or my own xinit scripts now that i have been exposed and feel embarrassed for using something so non-lightweight. XD

mahatman2 · 2012-06-02 14:48:32

^ Ah yes, I somehow forgot about the internet smile
I found this within our own lands, and this from the strange Arch territory, and so far I've been able to switch to awesome with

<action="Restart"><command>awesome</command></action>

within a keybind...

I am confident that this will work well. Thanks digit! smile

Digit · 2012-06-02 16:31:12

mahatman2 wrote:

^ Ah yes, I somehow forgot about the internet
I found this within our own lands, and this from the strange Arch territory, and so far I've been able to switch to awesome with
<action="Restart"><command>awesome</command></action>
within a keybind...
I am confident that this will work well. Thanks digit!

happy to see on-the-fly wm switching spread. smile

drej · 2012-06-02 18:25:31

Well, I know, that there is another paradigm to stacking, but in fact Openbox was the connection by which I found Crunchbang in the first place, so I stick with it.

I mainly work on my "small one" (netbook) although I have a full-fledged PC standing about somewhere ... I guess smile . But I like the mobility with the li'l one and at home I usually have a bigger screen attached. Yet, on the small netbook screen, I need all space I can get, so i go the same way others already did, saying "I am mostly fullscreen and therefore need no tiling". big_smile

However my OB is "heavily"( big_smile ) tweaked (Yes, it seems I'm one of those "tinkerers".): No win decos by default and all (iconify, min/max, vertical/horizontal max, close, expanding to edges NESW and so on and so forth ...) can be done via keys (OB's key chaining feature is just too lovely! ) and moving/resizing is done via Super/Super+Alt and DnD. Like that it is pretty easy to arrange the windows, if i'm in need for it on those rare non-full-sreen occassions. And if I have a win setup, that shall not be corrupted by stacking/overlapping, I simply create a new workspace on the fly by key (Super+Ctrl+"+"). tongue

So yes, I'm fully aware of tiling WMs and still I second stacking, go stacking, GO! But actually -- although no experience -- I don't think, that tiling would be some much different from my current setup. So in the end, I guess, if you're used to one thing, have it suited to your workflow and vice versa, it is all the same and just a matter of preference.

h8uthemost · 2012-06-02 19:49:52

mahatman2 wrote:

<action="Restart"><command>awesome</command></action>

Hmmm... That's not working for me. Maybe you can see where I'm going wrong. I'm using this code:

<keybind key="W-C-a">
<action="Restart">
<command>awesome</command></action>
</keybind>
  </keyboard>

I get an error after reconfiguring OB, and the keybind doesn't work...

mahatman2 · 2012-06-02 20:06:47

^ OH sorry, it's

<action name="Restart">

. My bad! I'll change it in my previous post as well.

In a related note, I cannot find how to switch from awesome back to OB. If anyone can figure it out, please let me know smile

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#76 2012-05-06 09:51:33

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#77 2012-05-15 00:48:16

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#78 2012-05-29 11:33:09

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#79 2012-05-31 00:57:16

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#80 2012-05-31 09:23:43

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#81 2012-05-31 09:29:45

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#82 2012-05-31 10:27:24

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#83 2012-05-31 11:16:35

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#84 2012-05-31 11:17:26

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#85 2012-05-31 13:07:32

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#86 2012-05-31 13:10:10

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#87 2012-05-31 14:36:59

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#88 2012-05-31 15:08:10

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#89 2012-05-31 18:53:00

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#90 2012-05-31 18:59:41

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#91 2012-05-31 19:44:06

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#92 2012-05-31 21:42:00

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#93 2012-05-31 21:57:26

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#94 2012-06-01 02:24:19

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#95 2012-06-02 13:14:12

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#96 2012-06-02 14:48:32

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#97 2012-06-02 16:31:12

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#98 2012-06-02 18:25:31

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#99 2012-06-02 19:49:52

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

#100 2012-06-02 20:06:47

Re: Do you tile or stack? And why?

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