GROUP TEST TILING WINDOW MANAGERS TILING WINDOW MANAGERS GROUP TEST Marco Fioretti tries a way to handle the windows on your screen that will make you forget you ever had a mouse. On Test Tiling window managers Reclaim your screen and get more done! Bluetile URL http://bluetile.org indow Managers (WMs should be able to focus on getting Version 0.6 from now on) are those things done, rather than Licence BSD Wessential components continuously having to rearrange A reduced, preconfigured of every desktop computer that windows by hand. To work even version of Xmonad, made for control, move and decorate the faster, many operations that people who want to start tiling windows in which all our programs traditional WMs attach to icons and as soon as possible. run. In a normal WM, you can spend menu entries only have keyboard a significant amount of time just shortcuts here. Add to that the Herbstluftwm moving and resizing windows. The possibility of not using the mouse URL http://herbstluftwm.org subjects of this Group Test were even on many popular programs, Version 0.6.2 invented to avoid such annoyances. websites and web services, and you Licence BSD A semi-manual tiler that’s Tiling WMs deal with the can understand why some people much easier to use than its windows you need as if they were, prefer this way of working. name would suggest. you know, tiles – simple! They The very nature of tiling WMs is automatically place and size all the also the reason why this may be the windows in order to always cover Group Test with the ugliest i3 all the available screen space, but screenshots you’ll see for a while, URL http://i3wm.org without any overlap. What really but it’s not our fault. These Version 4.7.2 makes a WM a tiling one, however, programs want to fill every available Licence BSD is the capability to automatically pixel with window content, not with A clean window manager with repeat the whole process, all by panels, menus, icons and real a few little tools that make it itself, every time you open or close window borders. That leaves very, quite powerful. a window. very little that remains visible in a Tiling WMs are made to ignore print-size screenshot. It’s not a bug, Spectrwm eye candy and save your time: you it’s a feature! URL http://spectrwm.org Version 2.5.0 Tiling WMs deal with the windows you Licence ISC “ Yes, Spectrwm tiles windows in need as if they were tiles – simple!” pure UNIX/Linux style even on Windows (and Mac OS). THE CRUCIAL CRITERIA A window manager shapes our should really be the last time you spend Xmonad interaction with the computer much working on a WM until you decide to URL http://xmonad.org more than raw processing power, or change it. That’s why we only pleasant wallpapers. A really good WM considered WMs actively maintained Version 0.11 makes you forget it exists, because it and supported WMs, which will install Licence BSD doesn’t slow down your CPU and does immediately on any distribution. The Emacs of tiling window what you need without you even This time, we deliberately focused on managers. Can do pretty much realising that you asked for it. The same providing a general feeling and an everything, if you just find the should be true for upgrades: it is overview of the possibilities of right recipe for it. unavoidable that you’ll spend some time something that is hard to define by on the initial configuration, but this comparing lists of features. 54 www.linuxvoice.com TILING WINDOW MANAGERS GROUP TEST Tiling and window management Installation How many ways are there to tile windows? At least the installation should be a point-and-click business. ost distros have binary packages of these WMs, but if yours doesn’t you Mcan build your own. Actual installation of any of these WMs should not be a problem at all – unless you happen to use a very old or niche distribution, that is. In all other cases, you should easily find a binary package ready to be installed with a few clicks. When this is not the case, it should still be possible to install at least Xmonad and Bluetile without really compiling anything. Haskell programs such as these have their own distro-independent online repository, called HackageDB (https://hackage.haskell.org). All the packages you can find there, including those for Bluetile and Xmonad, can be installed with the so-called Haskell Platform. All you need is binary packages, which really should exist for almost any Two general cases of windows tiling (here shown in Herbstluftwm) that may require special distribution, for that platform and its installer, care: multi-window programs like Gimp (bottom) and temporary, pop-up windows. called cabal. Once you have them, you will also be able to get the two Haskell WMs up and utomatic placement and sizing of In i3, programs are aligned horizontally running in ways similar to using yum or windows, so they don’t overlap or vertically, inside several semi- apt-get from the command line with: Aunless you really want them to, is independent containers. Only the focused #> cabal update the raison d’être of tiling WMs. All our WMs window in the container is displayed. You #> cabal install xmonad provide at least three different tiling get a list of windows at the top of each algorithms, as well as ways to add new container. Spectrwm has a top (or left) ones and remap all keyboard shortcuts so resizeable master area, reserved for the they don’t interfere with those of your applications that “currently need most favourite programs. attention”. All the other windows go into a Some WMs, like Herbsluftwm and i3, separate stack. You can put any window leave you more control of windows. you want in the master area, or in a Others, like Xmonad and Bluetile, are “auto floating layer, and change stacking mode tilers”: they will apply the chosen tiling on the fly. Spectrwm also acknowledges scheme automatically, while still allowing “quirks” – instructions to handle certain manual or custom placement. Spectrwm programs in special ways. For example, is somewhere in the middle. Our this configuration command: competitors can also show one window at Gimp:gimp FLOAT + ANYWHERE a time, full screen basically means “let the Gimp application Multi-window tiling layouts differ in how do as it pleases”. they partition the screen and in how they Herbstluftwm is based on “frames”, decide where the next windows goes: you which can be empty or contain many may have, for example, horizontal or windows, and be split into sub-frames. By vertical stacks, actual grids with rows and default, there are nine full-screen Binary packages for many tiling Wms are available columns, or windows being added in spiral workspaces, which you can name in the standard repositories of most distros. sequences (as happens with Xmonad and however you want. Bluetile) or in binary tree structures VERDICT (herbsluftwm and i3). VERDICT Bluetile Herbstluftwm Xmonad makes it easy to have a Bluetile i3 Herbstluftwm different tiling mode in each workspace. Spectrwm i3 Xmonad Spectrwm To place windows manually in this WM, Xmonad press Alt+Left Click and drag them. www.linuxvoice.com 55 GROUP TEST TILING WINDOW MANAGERS Customisation User interface User friendliness is a feature. Make your WM work for your. t first sight, the behaviour of all configurability of hotkeys and tiling he Xmonad community has already our tiling window managers is the schemes, and in what you can do with published thousands of lines of code Asame: they all completely cover their optional status bars. Tthat you can use to customise it, from your screen with windows, without any Whatever WM you choose, do yourself complex configuration files to third-party decoration worth mentioning, and let you a favour: before you even get started, extensions and assorted hacks. The “Manage do everything without even looking at your change the default terminal to one of Hooks” mechanism of Xmonad is widely used mouse. The big differences are in the those we recently reviewed in LV004. to define actions to perform automatically on certain windows when, for example, the corresponding programs start. Bluetile Testing changes is easy: save the new code Bluetile is not an independent WM done ancestor, Bluetile starts up with a friendly and type xmonad –recompile to check if it from scratch, but is rather a version of taskbar and window title bars with works. If it does, type xmonad --restart or Xmonad, tweaked and preconfigured unusual but effective grid menus (see press Alt+Q to load the new configuration. especially for people without much time. screenshot), and the taskbar has the only Bluetile is very closely related to Xmonad, It’s also set up to integrate well in the built-in “Quit” button you’ll see in this but this doesn’t mean that it can reuse code or traditional Gnome desktop. Group Test. Other buttons increase or tricks developed for its ancestor. Unlike This integration with a mainstream decrease the number of windows in the Xmonad, Bluetile doesn’t come with the desktop environment is enough, in our Bluetile master area. You can also move capability to compile and load new code on opinion, to make Bluetile quite different windows or maximise any of them with the spot. from Xmonad. For example, unlike its the mouse. Spectrwm partially supports the EWMH (Extended Window Manager Hints) standard.