[benoliver999]

Yes same here but with i3, I ran it for over 10 years but niri was just an instant 'aha' moment for me.

I will say, recent builds have a 'mini map' sort of zoom-out feature that I quite like - my one critique of niri was that I would sometimes get 'lost'.

[boomskats]

I drew that once in a github issue and next thing I knew it was there! https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/discussions/352#discussioncom...

[ducktective]

One of the advantages of tilling wm are that every window that is run, is visible too. Nothing invisible exists.

But in this "endless horizontal tilling" scheme, the above principle would no longer hold, right?

[russelg]

That typically isn't true in practice right? It's fairly common to have multiple "desktops" when using a tiling WM.

[ducktective]

Yes, still on each workspace, everything is visible on i3. I wonder how scroll to the right differs from i3's tabbed panes.

[squigz]

I might give Niri a shot at some point, but yes, this is my thought too: this is more or less the same as having multiple tabbed panes, which enables the grouping GP refers to.

[cycomanic]

I was running i3 and sway foe years and tabbed tiles never really clicked for me the same way scrolling did. The first time I used a scrolling WM (I tried on of the plugins for sway or hyprland IIRC) it was an immediate revelation. However the sway/hyprland version were always a bit quirky, while niri "just works".

For those on older niri versions I have to say the "zoom out" overview feature is definitely worth the upgrade. As another poster said it really fixes the one issue on scrolling/ tiling wms, which is getting lost.

[argiopetech]

Newly started applications receive focus, so they're visible by default. They are inserted right of the current view, so recovering the previous active pane is consistent ("left pane" keybinding, or the appropriate gesture).

Things on other desktops are invisible in every WM.

The only difference with niri is the possibility for things to be left or right of the current window. Overview helps with that, but I know what I expect to be on a specific desktop (it's related to the topic) and seldom need it.

[ducktective]

Like imagine editor is on ws2, you open a terminal to /tmp/ to check something quick, it scrolls to the right, then jump to ws3 for your file manager and other stuff and go back to your editor.

Now you want to access that terminal on /tmp/ again. Where was it?

In i3, I just spam-switch workspaces in this case, but at least I can find them. With scrollable wms, every ws can potentially hold that target app.

[argiopetech]

It's right of your editor, where it started.

If you have (having had "Editor" focused, and just opened "TermT"):

  Editor | (TermT) | Term | Browser
  (FM) | Term | Browser | etc.

(where pipe delimits a pane and parens are the active pane), if you go "next desktop" from "TermT" (the terminal at /tmp), that moves you down the stack of desktops. Moving up the stack of desktops returns with focus on "TermT". You'd then go "left pane" from "TermT" to get back to the editor.

The answer (for me) is to think of desktops as topics. The terminal on /tmp is with the things that prompted its creation. If I needed to check some log output, for example, it's with the project that made that log output.

Edit: Note that there's nothing keeping you from stacking those terms if you like, i.e., the appropriate keybinding goes from the previous to

  Editor | (TermT), Term | Browser
  (FM) | Term | Browser | etc.

where the terms stack vertically in the ribbon of the desktop.

[bisby]

I think they aren't referring to "where does it go?" and more being forgetful.

If you have something that would be reasonable to open on any workspace because it's ephemeral (they used a tmp terminal as an example), and you open it, navigate away from it, and then switch workspaces a few time, and then get pulled into a meeting or go to lunch, and come back, switch workspaces a few more times...

"Where did I leave that terminal, I dont remember where I was when I opened it."

In i3wm/sway etc, you can cycle all your workspaces and eventually one of them will have it visible. On Niri, as you cycle through all your workspaces you may never see it because you don't see all the windows in a workspace, unless you scroll through the workspace panes as you cycle workspaces.

It's not a problem necessarily, but it is something to consider. It sounds like this doesn't affect your workflow, but it might affect others.

[wongogue]

It has overview. You can see all windows and workspaces in a scaled out view of your preference.

[argiopetech]

Fair enough. "Overview" [0] presumably solves this, though.

[0] https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/wiki/Overview

[atlintots]

That's true, you do end up with some windows hidden or partially visible. Niri is still tiling, though, so with proper management you can avoid making too much use of the infinite strip (though that would defeat the purpose of niri).

[argiopetech]

This seems like a good place to note the "center window" keybinding for windows that don't fit well in the screen (e.g., 2/3 wide pane next to 2/3 wide pane, or 1/3 pane on the right end of the stack next to a full-screen pane).

Vastly preferable to having to look at the edge of the screen.

[WhyNotHugo]

Tiling window managers have tabs, so not all windows are visible.

You can see window titles on the tabs on the tab bar, but you can’t even see the title of windows which are in a split container of a background tab.

[Shebanator]

Tabs, and workspaces.

[lillecarl]

No, because every tiling WM has multiple workspaces.

But yes, that wouldn't be true, though focus moves to fresh windows so it's not an issue.