I’ve been using tiling WMs for some years now (mostly sway, but also tested cosmic a bit). I really love them: you theme workspaces and organize everything into them, and no window is ever hidden, which makes finding them trivial. But the cost of having every window displayed in that workspace is that they start getting way too small when you have a lot of them. This is usually not a big deal, since you can create tabs or just open new generic workspaces.
But what has been bugging me are windows that need to be big, otherwise they are unusable (like gimp, kdenlive, libreoffice, sometimes firefox). Tabbing them in fullscreen messes with the workspace layout, and if you dedicate an entire generic workspace for them, you surely will lose it.
That’s where scrollable WMs enter the scene. They respect window sizes at the cost of their visibility.
niri.gif
NGL, this is not a good idea. It’s easy to lose windows that are off-screen. But what if you only use it sometimes? Think of it as a regular tiling WM, but when you need it, it creates more space off-screen.
To achieve this, I’ve been using Niri with the tilemod script. It helps make Niri behave more like a regular tiling.
tilemod.gif
It’s been a good experience over the last week. My workflow is mostly unchanged, but when I need to work with a window in fullscreen, it’s always a relief that I’m using Niri.
Has anyone else here tried scrollables? I’m in this excitement phase so I want to read more about it (even from people who tried and didn’t like them) :)
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Good on touchscreen devices. Elsewhere, not my cup of wm.
I freaking love niri
It’s easy to lose windows that are off-screen
By default. They should really change the defaults, but in config, you can make it so if there is a window to the side hidden, a piece is always visible.
It’s called struts.
layout { ... struts { left 16 right 16 } }It ensures a piece of the window is always visible
Plus with a bar like from QuickShell or WayBar you can see all open windows anyway up there.
To achieve this, I’ve been using Niri with the tilemod script. It helps make Niri behave more like a regular tiling.
The things you show in the gif are already possible with niri via Super + [ and Super + ] (default bindings) for placing into columns
It has limitations, but everything in the gif at least is already there. Niri actually has quite a bit of support for base tiling.
I can’t go back to non-scrolling ever. I even use a similar setup on my work machine (a Mac) via PaperWM.spoon, tho it isn’t as well integrated (bc it’s a mac and you’re forcing it to not be a mac)
EDIT: One tiling feature of niri I love is that with Super + W you can switch to a stacked mode like in a tiler. For KiCAD PCB editing, you have three windows - project, schematic, and pcb. It is essential that at the very least the project tab be stacked behind and out of the way imo, since there is no minimize
The things you show in the gif are already possible with niri via Super + [ and Super + ] (default bindings) for placing into columns
Yup! I know about it. The script just makes it automaticaly:
- If there are fewer than N (default 2) windows in the focused column, it adds a new one there. Otherwise, it creates a new column.
- It also auto-fullscreens a window if it’s the only one in the workspace.
One tiling feature of niri I love is that with Super + W you can switch to a stacked mode like in a tiler.
I use it for my tens of freetube windows :)
I can’t go back to non-scrolling ever.
Wow! For how long have you been using scrollers?
I use Niri. It just feels right to me, having lots of space to stick windows (scroll horizontally, switch workspaces vertically).
It takes some getting used to, but the overview is helpful, and here’s always the window switcher if you “lost” a window. But what really changed the game for me were special “focus-or-spawn” keybindings with
nirius, e.g. when I press Meta+B my browser opens, or if it is already open it is focused.If you only want to use scrolling for some workspaces, you can have a look at Umbriel. It looks really interesting, I haven’t had time to try it out.
“focus-or-spawn”
Interesting. I haven’t had trouble finding windows so far, but I set up the niri_search_window script from niri_tweaks as mod+tab just in case I need it.
Umbriel
Cool! I’ll take a look at it, thanks!
Me also a tiling guy, and since a few years I switched to KDE and use an extension called Krohnkite to tile windows automatically. I personally don’t like the idea of endless scrollable desktops. To get a taste, I tried a scrollable window manager extension for KDE, just to see if the workflow would click with me. To me it doesn’t feel different from (classic) floating style of managing windows. Why? Because I have to scroll and search for the window.
To me it doesn’t feel different from (classic) floating style of managing windows. Why? Because I have to scroll and search for the window.
This is precisely the same feeling I had when I first tested Niri. It only changed once I started treating it as a tiling that sometimes expands when needed.
I have to say, I would like to have a “layout” that expends like a scrollable type. I mean by layout the tiling logic (Quarter, Monacle, BTree and so on). I think there is a use case for having that, but I don’t want to lose the tiling worklow as it is right now. You know what, I got curious again and will try that extension again.
Edit: Sadly it was bugged for me. Had to use the TTY (Ctrl+Alt+F2) to disable that Karousel extension. I remember when it worked, not sure what happened. Seems to dislike something about my current setup. I’m not ready to switch to an entire different window manager yet, but I’m also quiet happy anyway. Maybe its because I have two screens now, and it does not support multiple screens.
Sadly it was bugged for me. Had to use the TTY (Ctrl+Alt+F2) to disable that Karousel extension.
Ouch. Sorry about that :(
I’m not ready to switch to an entire different window manager yet, but I’m also quiet happy anyway.
100% fair. I only changed because my last setup was annoying me
I’ve been trying to like them for the last year since migrating to wayland, but I really don’t. I’m about to go back to herbstluftwm.
I’ve worded it like shit before, but :
Standalone WMs are basically Gnome3 for neckbeards.
haha, not false :) I mean, in the end, I think Linux is mostly for neckbeards.
I started using window managers to reduce resource usage (I had a really shitty PC back then) and to stay organized. It worked for both. I really don’t like how much time you have to invest in configuring them (which is why I tried cosmic, it’s much easier to set up), but I think it’s worth it in the end.
What do you mean by that?
well, here’s the shitposty thread I made last time I tried to voice the opinion and got got by gotchas in terminology :
https://lemmy.world/post/51030053?scrollToComments=true
Basically, some people are making interfaces for the operating systems that only have a windows manager, and isn’t a complete desktop environment, so it’s basically one step above a terminal. Things like i3 or dwm, as opposed to more fleshed out things like KDE or Gnome.
Gnome3 basically encourages the user to launch their programs as fullscreen things and scroll between them. The WM based UIs also do this, but call it “desktops” and tile the windows you have in each desktop.
I went through a craze of shoving different ones into VMs and felt that things like i3 and dwm behave similarly to the way I dislike Gnome3.
