Tiling Window Managers

Home , Awesome (window manager), Dwm, I3 (window manager), Tiling window manager, Window manager, Xmonad

Overview Window Managers Tiling Algorithms Getting Started Demos Meta

Aline Abler

April 4, 2016

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Table of Contents What will we learn today?

I What is a window manager?

I What makes it tiling?

I Why is tiling cool?

I How does it work?

I How do I put it on my system?

I Which one should I use?

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Functionality of Window Managers Well, it manages windows

You already have one

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Functionality of Window Managers Stacking Window Managers

Each window is freely draggable and resizable

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Functionality of Window Managers When do we call it tiling?

I Windows are arranged for you

I They always take up the entire screen

I You always see all of them How is that better?

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Overview Window Managers Tiling Algorithms Getting Started Demos Meta

How to tile windows Tiling approaches

List vs. Tree

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How to tile windows List based tiling

I Windows are internally represented as ordered list

I Arrangement is based on their positions in the list

I Numerous ways to do this

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How to tile windows Stack

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How to tile windows nStack

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How to tile windows hStack

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How to tile windows Max / Full / Monocle

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How to tile windows Spiral

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How to tile windows Dwindle

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How to tile windows hGrid

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How to tile windows vGrid

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How to tile windows List based tiling

I Easy to change layout

I Rather unﬂexible

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How to tile windows Tree based tiling

I Windows are internally represented as leaves of a tree

I Think of nested containers

I Each internal node can have its own layout

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How to tile windows Tree

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How to tile windows Tree

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How to tile windows Tree

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How to tile windows Tree

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How to tile windows Tree

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How to tile windows Tree

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How to tile windows Tree based tiling

I A lot more ﬂexible

I More complicated to modify layout

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The Tiling Window Manager Getting Started Kit Restrictions

A Tiling Window Manager is not a full-blown Desktop Environment

I No status bar, no workspace overview...

I You will need additional software for this

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The Tiling Window Manager Getting Started Kit What you already have

I File manager

I Terminal emulator

I Text editor

I Document viewer, Image viewer, Media player

I Login manager

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The Tiling Window Manager Getting Started Kit What you need

I Launcher: dmenu, Kupfer

I Status bar: lemonbar, dzen, Tint2

I System tray: stalonetray

I Notiﬁcation service: dunst, statnot, twmn

I Lock screen: i3lock, slock

I Something to set your wallpaper: feh, nitrogen

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The Tiling Window Manager Getting Started Kit But wait . . .

Some Window Managers already include some of these features. feature-rich vs. minimal

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The Tiling Window Manager Getting Started Kit Installation and Setup

Use your favorite package manager

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Which Window Manager to use? What distinguishes Window Managers?

I Tiling algorithm: list vs. tree

I Features: feature-rich vs. minimal

I Multihead: What happens when I connect a second monitor?

I Workspaces: Created dynamically or statically? Tags?

I Conﬁguration: What language?

I Other: scriptability, restoring layout

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Which Window Manager to use? Window Manager Demo

I bspwm

I dwm

I xmonad

I i3

I awesome

I herbstluftwm

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Which Window Manager to use? bspwm

I Tiling algorithm: Binary tree

I Features: so minimal it doesn’t even handle keyboard shortcuts by itself

I Multihead: Each monitor has a separate set of workspaces

I Workspaces: Created statically

I Conﬁguration: in Bash, easy to use

I Other: scriptable through bspc, pretty

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Which Window Manager to use? dwm

I Tiling algorithm: List

I Features: minimal

I Multihead: Each tag is used on each monitor

I Workspaces: Fixed amount of tags, windows can be assigned multiple tags

I Conﬁguration: in C, need to recompile

I Other: abundance of patches to suit any need; takes some time and skill to set up right

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Which Window Manager to use? xmonad

I Tiling algorithm: List

I Features: minimal, but ready-to-use extensions available

I Multihead: Workspaces independent of monitors

I Workspaces: created dynamically

I Conﬁguration: in Haskell, which can be confusing but is very powerful

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Which Window Manager to use? i3

I Tiling algorithm: Tree with additional ’tab’ and ’stack’ options

I Features: feature-rich

I Multihead: Workspaces belong to monitors but are still independent

I Workspaces: Created dynamically

I Conﬁguration: in custom syntax which is easy enough and well documented

I Other: scriptable through i3-msg, can save and restore layouts

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Which Window Manager to use? awesome

I Tiling algorithm: List

I Features: extremely feature-rich

I Multihead: Each tag is used on each monitor

I Workspaces: Fixed amount of tags, windows can be assigned multiple tags

I Conﬁguration: in Lua, programming experience is handy

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Which Window Manager to use? herbstluftwm

I Tiling algorithm: Tree-based frames which contain list-based layouts

I Features: minimal

I Multihead: Workspaces independent of monitors

I Workspaces: Created statically

I Conﬁguration: in Bash, easy to use

I Other: scriptable through herbstclient

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About this presentation What now?

I Q&A round in a few seconds

I Join the next “Stammtisch”: 18:00 Thu, April 7 - learning spaces above the Green Floor, ETH CHN

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About this presentation Course material

I These slides

I Conﬁguration ﬁles I’ve used for the demo

I Can all be found online: http://thealternative.ch/index.php?view=knowhow

I License: CC BY-SA 3.0

I Theme by Christian Horea, CC BY

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