Why you'd want a TILING WINDOW MANAGER, and why I DON'T
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Timecodes:
00:00 Intro
00:44 Sponsor: Squarespace
01:45 What's a window manager?
06:02 Advantages of Tiling WMs
09:40 Why I don't like them
14:39 Sponsor: Tuxedo
15:44 Support the channel
#Linux #tiling #windowmanager #linuxdesktop
All desktop environments provide a window manager, it's in charge of displaying your windows, handling their position and state, as in maximized, minimized, the size of the window, the current focused one, and everything along those lines. On top of these baked in window managers, you have tiling window managers.
Stuff like i3, hyprland, sway, awesomeWM, BSPWM, XMonad, qtile, ratpoison and a lot more.
Some are manual tilers, some are dynamic. Dynamic tilers will open each new window following something YOU defined.
Basically, you have plenty of choice, but tiling window managers will replace your current desktop with something that is more meant to be used with a keyboard, without much user input, to maximize the use of your screen real estate. So, let's look at why you'd want to use a tiling window manager.
The first, obvious advantage is that you never get anything overlapping anything else, unless you actively choose to do so. On a regular desktop, you'll have to move windows out of the way, or minimize them, or resize them, and this is basically wasted time; it's time not spent using the computer and accomplishing something.
The second advantage is that it sort of removes the need to use the mouse or the touchpad 99% of the time. The only time you'll probably need to use it is to interact with the contents of the window itself, like clicking a link in the web browser, or clicking a button in a window.
Another advantage is resource usage. A tiling window manager generally doesn't bring with it a whole system of panels, overviews, app grid, menus, effects and more, meaning that you don't load as many things in memory as with a complete desktop.
A big advantage is also screen usage: without a big panel and a dock, tiling windows always uses the most space available on your screen.
So, with so many advantages, why wouldn't I use a tiling window manager?
Most desktops already give me enough of the tiling features to suit my use case. Using KDE, or GNOME, I can already tile my windows if I want to. I can drag them to any corner or edge and have them use that screen size. In KDE, I even have a full tiling manager that I never use because I don't need it.
Sure, this edge tiling doesn't give you as much flexibility as a full tiling window manager, but for me personally, it's more than enough. And it all comes down to my use case: I make videos.
Which means I have 2 modes: research / writing mode, and video editing mode. In the first, I need 2 windows: A browser for research, and QOwnNotes to write. Sometimes, I'll use a virtual machine as well, but tiling this on a laptop display doesn't make sense, so I open it full screen on a virtual desktop.
In editing mode, I have my video editor, Davinci Resolve, in full screen. Again, not something a tiling WM would help me with.
My panel autohides behind windows, so it doesn't take up space, and while I do have title bars, I also don't have gaps between my windows when they're tiled, or between a window and a screen edge, so I'm actually pretty sure it's the exact same screen space usage.
I also don't lose out on configuration, at least on KDE: I can change all these shortcuts, I can change how windows open by default, they remember their previous size, it works. And finally, most of the time, I work on a laptop. It's a 16 inch screen, but it's still a laptop. And tiling there is just completely inefficient and makes things way too small.
What I'm saying is that yes, a tiling window manager is really useful, and cool, but it's NOT for every use case and every user.
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