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by asselinpaul 2998 days ago
I've been enjoying chunkwm as a tiling WM. Hard to go back to non-tiling when you've experienced it.

https://github.com/koekeishiya/chunkwm

2 comments

I’ve tried tiling WM (well, MacOS’ Amethyst, before that used kwm for a while, used fluxbox a long time ago on arch which can be used with tiling) but still can’t get the “why”, they don’t help my process and mostly stand on my way. Anything I’m missing? What do you find so changing?
What I find valuable in a tiling window manager is what it doesn't have. Usually, I want a window full screen. Ocassionally, I want two windows side by side. I can't think of a time I want a window halfway transparent with its upper left corner at (0,32) that's partially occulding another window. It's just so much faster when all the things I don't want to do aren't possible.
My issue is that 90% of the time I just need all my windows full screen (and it's always at least 3 of them), and in the rare occasions I don't, I don't mind setting up something ad-hoc. But then, tiling gets in the way by trying to maximise or reposition everything when I open anything new, or I need to add more virtual desktops/screens
A few reasons: - I know what is going to happen when I open anything and can get things where they need to be very quickly (since it is keyboard driven).

- The wm is working with me to use the entire screen.

- You can always revert to making windows float if you need it.

- You can use supporting terminal with no title bar which saves space (see here https://www.dropbox.com/s/0f08qa0dbhhc6nv/Screen%20Shot%2020...)

It is occasionally annoying when something doesn't behave as expected but its a fun tool to use in general.

Basically I always get tripped with the fact that I always, always have emacs in full screen, as well as a terminal also maximised. Then I end up needing 5 or 6 spaces to hold all the windows I open and close during the day and starts to get hard to manage. But thanks for sharing your perspective, knowing me, I'll retry in a few months :)
Can you configure the margins between those three terminal windows? I currently use Tmux with one fullscreen terminal to achieve a similar effect, but this looks interesting too. I'd like to eliminate any margins though. A one-pixel border is all I would want.
Absolutely. You can configure everything (global padding, inter-tile padding etc...)
I have yet to use chunkwm, but I have tried a few of the precursors. They were all nice, but super glitchy, especially when it comes to multiple monitors. Does any of that seem better with chunkwm?
I've just tried it out with one external monitor (laptop + external) and chunkwm works as expected. Don't know how that scales past 1 external monitor though.