feel free to list other window managers you’ve used.

I have been happy with bspwm, but considering trying something else. I love its simplicity and immense customizability. I like that it is shell scriptable, but it is not a deal breaker feature for me.

I like how the binary split model makes any custom partition possible.

  • lckdscl [they/them]@whiskers.bim.boatsEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    i3 until the day I die

    Edit: Why? Because I love how easy it is to get working, it’s a nice balance between features and simplicity for me, and IPC features are great for some QoL plugins. Its configuration file format is simple enough, I like lua with wezterm and neovim but I don’t really see the point with a WM, I just need to see my windows when I want, the way I want, and to switch to others.

    • xavier666@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Can you list some QoL mods for i3? I have been using autotiling for the last few months and it’s great.

    • HotChickenFeetEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I too would be interested to know what plugins you use.

      I love i3 and have used it for years and find myself fruitlessly using the most common keybinds in windows at work.

      But my gripes over i3 are:

      • If I don’t know the name of the command, say a specific settings window, etc - then I’m hosed if I need it.
      • It doesn’t come with a lock screen by default, you need a plugin for it
      • lckdscl [they/them]@whiskers.bim.boatsEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Here’s a list of plugins that may be useful:

        • kitti3: quake style dropdown terminal
        • tdrop: the same as kitti3, but I moved to wezterm due to kitty’s design choice and tdrop fits the bill, it’s also wm agnostic.
        • i3-volume: integrates with dunst for me to pop up volume status when I change volume via keybinds.
        • autotiling: A must have in my opinion. I seldom have more than 2 windows on a monitor, since I have two monitors and utilize other workspace, but there are times when I temporarily have multiple windows open and too lazy to group them into stacks or tabs.
        • i3expo: I heard people have success with this as an alt-tabber with visualization. I just use dmenu and have scripts for window switching.
        • wmfocus: quite useful if you have multiple monitors and multiple windows on each, instead of doing Super + h a few times to move to the left most window, I just use wmfocus and hop to it immediately.
        • i3-extras: I just found this, perhaps it’s of use.

        Regarding your gripe #1, I don’t quite understand? Do you mean you don’t know the command of a program to type into your terminal to launch?

        And gripe #2, if you mean i3lock, I’m okay with that, I like that i3 follows UNIX philosophy of doing one thing and doing it well, and because of that good i3lock forks exist! If it was baked into i3 then this might not be the case.

        For i3-lock, I currently use i3lock-fancy-rapid, it’s a weird name lol, but it is still dependent on the i3lock-color binary, which itself is a fork of i3lock.

        • HotChickenFeetEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Thanks for sharing these, I will check them out! Much appreciated!

          1. Yes. It’s part of making the switch, but I often find myself having to swap back if I need to tinker on settings I don’t normally access. It is what it is.

          2. It makes me uncomfortable that one of the most common security features is based on a plugin, rather than baked into the foundation.