Tiling WM that includes tabs - something like ion?

RevAaron · 2010-12-17 16:52:43

I've been using tiling since 2000, when I started using ion. I've had a few years using Windows and Macs at work and spending very little time on a computer at home between the outdoors and my family. I've been fine with dwm, wmii, or awesome on my old Thinkpad at home, but I rarely use it for anything but downloading media and browsing the web... Now that I'm back to working with Unix at work and running Linux on my workstation, I'd like to find a WM that works better for me.

What I'm looking for is a tiling WM that looks and feels similar to ion3, with manual frame/tile layout as well as tabs. Ion itself isn't really an option for the usual reasons; if anything, it's not maintained and likely will never be.

I've tried: dwm, awesome, xmonad, and wmii. I think ratpoison, too, but not for very long. What I want, what ion had and dwm, awesome, xmonad, and wmii don't seem to have is 1) tabs and 2) the ability to manually manage the tiled layout. That is, instead of picking a layout algorithm, I'd like to manage layout like you do in a WM like ion or editor like vim or emacs. You split the screen into frames, or "windows" in the language of vim and emacs.

ion screenshot if you need a visual...

Anyone know of a current WM that has this?

TIA!
Aaron

Atsutane · 2010-12-17 17:01:07

Well I'd say you should try i3, from what I read I think it fits to what you're looking for.

dyscoria · 2010-12-17 17:06:06

Yep, be sure to check out i3...it's awesome (the adjective, not the window manager)!!

karol · 2010-12-17 17:26:00

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … w_Managers
I don't know if musca has tabs and if the layout really is manual-managed [1] and the homepage is 404 atm ... but you can try it anyway.

[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Musca says "A simple dynamic window manager for X" ...
Edit: OK, you can manually define the layout.

Last edited by karol (2010-12-17 17:27:39)

RevAaron · 2010-12-17 17:40:06

I like the tabs! Never got tabulous to work in awesome... bah.

Only thing I can't do in i3 from what I can tell is to split an i3 cell/frame into two. For instance, I couldn't duplicate the setup in that ion screenshot.

What I want:

[---][---][--][--][--]
[        ][  term    ]
[  www   ][__________]
[        ][----][----]
[        ][  term    ]
[________][__________]

What I get with i3, with the bottom left quadrant entirely empty:

[---][---][--][--][--]
[  www   ][  term    ]
[________][__________]
          [----][----]
          [  term    ]
          [__________]

Alt-tab would be nice (took a while before it showed up in awesome and xmonad, harder to implement correctly in a config script), but not the end of the world.

i3 does solve one of the biggest frustrations I have with wmii- when you unmaximize a window it doesn't pop back into where it was before you maximized it- a lot of times I an maximizing and unmaximizing my web browser or editor for brief periods. Drove me nuts!

RevAaron · 2010-12-17 17:40:56

Thanks Karol- I'll take a look at musca too!

dyscoria · 2010-12-17 17:47:40

There is a command to fill empty containers. I think it's called "snap" in the config file.

RevAaron · 2010-12-17 17:54:12

dyscoria- AHA! Thanks much for that! Worked perfectly. I think I've found my new wm.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-12-17 16:52:43

Tiling WM that includes tabs - something like ion?

#2 2010-12-17 17:01:07

Re: Tiling WM that includes tabs - something like ion?

#3 2010-12-17 17:06:06

Re: Tiling WM that includes tabs - something like ion?

#4 2010-12-17 17:26:00

Re: Tiling WM that includes tabs - something like ion?

#5 2010-12-17 17:40:06

Re: Tiling WM that includes tabs - something like ion?

#6 2010-12-17 17:40:56

Re: Tiling WM that includes tabs - something like ion?

#7 2010-12-17 17:47:40

Re: Tiling WM that includes tabs - something like ion?

#8 2010-12-17 17:54:12

Re: Tiling WM that includes tabs - something like ion?

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