the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

Dieter@be · 2009-12-06 11:43:07

So like many of us, I'm on a quest to find the WM that suits me perfectly.
I did some thinking about what the things are that I need, and I also added the pros/cons for some WM's that I tried.
here's the list i came up with:

tiling,floating,maxmized,fullscreen
tabbed mode for entire workspace or specific regions in it
optional: wmii-like stacked mode. but all titles on top
no statusbars or menu's. i choose my own
scriptable, controllable, customizable (behavior, colors of window bars, font), have all events reported
extensionable by other means then modifying the source code [ie not like dwm]
be able to pull various informations from it and send stuff to it [like wmiir] [afaik xwininfo doesn't give enough info like which windows are in which desktop/column/cell]
ewmh support where it makes sense
ability to launch new windows unfocused and/or invisible
xinerama/multihead where you can losely couple tags/workspaces to physical screens. also clone support (display same tag on 2 screens? or even a subregion of a tag on one screen)
optionally use modes (i hate modkeys). ie single key commands to trigger WM behaviors, 'i' to go in insert mode to send commands to clients
high granularity to interact with specific subregions of a workspace (ie match certain windows and send to specific subsection, retrieve lists of all windows in certain subsection)
ability to quickly toggle between some common different tiling layouts [or the ability to program such things myself easily]
works with (by default or with commandline flags) xdg basedir spec
options:
wmii: no tabbed mode, titles not together in stacked mode. spawned windows always have focus, not able to force float/tile a window by writing to it, no xdg basedir spec (but -c)
i3: no maximized, no sticky windows, no xdg basedir spec (but -c), has own inflexible bar (later: dzen or such)
still planned: events, querying, sending stuff to cell, launching new windows unfocused/invisible. not possible to send commands to unfocused window. not composoting so no clone unless using xrandr
no "layout toggling yet". maybe with saved layouts..
supports modal keybinds. you can even define your own modes and binds
qtile: tabbed mode should be easy to do ourself. has status menu but you can configure gap. should be very scriptable and such. you can retrieve much info.
to add: launch new windows unfocused/invisible. xinerama but no cloning. modal interface on it's way. granular interaction & layout switching should be easy to do
xdg compliant
xmonad&awesome: too many libraries to do all kinds of stuff, probably more minuses

As you can see, most of my wishes are about having a WM which you can query for many detailed informations about your desktop and which you can send commands to to do many things, so you can build your own tools, menu's etc.

now, I find out about qtile yesterday and even though it is very early in development I have the feeling it is becoming exactly what I'm looking for. I've been chatting with the author and he seems to share a lot of ideas/visions with me. many of the fancy things i want (such as tabbing) is possible by implementing your own layout, which should be fairly easy.
One thing i noted is that when also running xbindkeys, keybindings seem to stop working after about 20 minutes. very weird. But Aldo (qtile dev) will look into it. [edit: keybinds also sometimes stop working after a while without xbindkeys running]

So, lets discuss qtile!

Last edited by Dieter@be (2009-12-10 21:29:06)

mikesd · 2009-12-06 12:11:02

Hmmm. Don't think I would switch from XMonad just yet. Two minuses regarding XMonad for me are the size of its dependencies (ghc = +500M installed) and my less than stellar Haskell skills. I'm working on the later though. The size of the dependencies isn't a major issue I guess with disk space being so cheap these days.

I like the idea of a WM written in python. Might check it out at some point once it matures a bit. XMonad's reliability is quite ridiculous. Can't recall the last crash I had in X.

http://www.qtile.org/index.html

jelly · 2009-12-06 15:08:26

mikesd wrote:

Hmmm. Don't think I would switch from XMonad just yet. Two minuses regarding XMonad for me are the size of its dependencies (ghc = +500M installed) and my less than stellar Haskell skills. I'm working on the later though. The size of the dependencies isn't a major issue I guess with disk space being so cheap these days.
I like the idea of a WM written in python. Might check it out at some point once it matures a bit. XMonad's reliability is quite ridiculous. Can't recall the last crash I had in X.
http://www.qtile.org/index.html

One of the arguments against XMonad is the diskspace it takes, wich is silly because diskspace isn't a problem in the world of today. Another argument for XMonad is the large amount of extra libary's, but I am not posting to promote XMonad, I am just so used to XMonad that i wouldnt consider trying another tiller. ( But I said that too when i was running openbox )

Xyne · 2009-12-06 15:38:15

jelly wrote:

One of the arguments against XMonad is the diskspace it takes, wich is silly because diskspace isn't a problem in the world of today.

... and most processors are now fast enough to run horribly optimized code.

Sorry, but that's just not a valid argument. If all applications adopted that philosophy install sizes would shoot through the roof, everything would run worse than it did years ago, and the overall experience would be really bad.

Unless you're using ghc for other things, a 500+ MB dependency for a package that itself only takes about 5 MB once installed is a big deal, even if you've got TBs to spare. It jars horribly with the idea of minimalism. The "don't pay attention to install size as long as it runs" mentality should remain in the domain of Windows.

Nepherte · 2009-12-06 15:49:29

Xyne wrote:

jelly wrote:
One of the arguments against XMonad is the diskspace it takes, wich is silly because diskspace isn't a problem in the world of today.
Unless you're using ghc for other things, a 500+ MB dependency for a package that itself only takes about 5 MB once installed is a big deal, even if you've got TBs to spare. It jars horribly with the idea of minimalism. The "don't pay attention to install size as long as it runs" mentality should remain in the domain of Windows.

While I agree that ghc is a big package, and while I use ghc for other stuff besides xmonad, you don't need ghc (if you really insist) once you've compiled your xmonad config, on the condition you don't make changes to the config file.

More on topic: qtile looks promising but haven't tried it yet. I myself have settled with xmonad.

Pank · 2009-12-06 16:08:51

I tried to install it but it doesn't work. I use the example configuration-file. The error is:

qtile: error: __init__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'borderWidth'

?

Xyne · 2009-12-06 16:13:14

Nepherte wrote:

While I agree that ghc is a big package, and while I use ghc for other stuff besides xmonad, you don't need ghc (if you really insist) once you've compiled your xmonad config, on the condition you don't make changes to the config file.

You still need to keep 500 MB free to download ghc with each update, so you don't actually get that space back. Plus that would add a guaranteed 500 MB to the download size with each update.

/threadjacking

skottish · 2009-12-06 16:19:23

GHC 6.12 has removed all sorts of stuff that really doesn't belong in the main package. I haven't had time to look into how much smaller the new version will be, but it will be smaller.

skottish · 2009-12-06 17:16:03

Dieter@be wrote:

One thing i noted is that when also running xbindkeys, keybindings seem to stop working after about 20 minutes. very weird. But Aldo (qtile dev) will look into it. [edit: keybinds also sometimes stop working after a while without xbindkeys running]
So, lets discuss qtile!

xbindkeys fails with what WM? I found in xmonad having an improperly setup xmonad.hs file can do that, but I've never seen it in openbox or musca. Now that xmonad is set up better, it's stable there too.

Dieter@be · 2009-12-06 17:56:01

Pank wrote:

I tried to install it but it doesn't work. I use the example configuration-file. The error is:
qtile: error: __init__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'borderWidth'
?

try the qtile-git package from AUR.
Remember to install 'pil' (it's a missing dep in the AUR package), and then it should work fine (though maybe you need to copy the config file again)
let me know if you also have problems with your keybinds stop working after 5~40 minutes.

skottish wrote:

Dieter@be wrote:
One thing i noted is that when also running xbindkeys, keybindings seem to stop working after about 20 minutes. very weird. But Aldo (qtile dev) will look into it. [edit: keybinds also sometimes stop working after a while without xbindkeys running]
So, lets discuss qtile!
xbindkeys fails with what WM? I found in xmonad having an improperly setup xmonad.hs file can do that, but I've never seen it in openbox or musca. Now that xmonad is set up better, it's stable there too.

well, after more experimentation (see edit), it seems like xbindkeys doesn't have much to do with it. I don't know why, but even if ~/.xinitrc just contains 'qtile' and nothing else, keybinds just stop working after a while for $reason.

Pank · 2009-12-06 18:40:16

Dieter@be wrote:

Pank wrote:
qtile: error: __init__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'borderWidth'
try the qtile-git package from AUR
Remember to install 'pil' (it's a missing dep in the AUR package), and then it should work fine (though maybe you need to copy the config file again)

I get the error with both of the git-packages on AUR.
Should borderWidth be defined in the config file?

--Rasmus

Dieter@be · 2009-12-06 18:42:24

Pank wrote:

Dieter@be wrote:
Pank wrote:
qtile: error: __init__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'borderWidth'
try the qtile-git package from AUR
Remember to install 'pil' (it's a missing dep in the AUR package), and then it should work fine (though maybe you need to copy the config file again)
I get the error with both of the git-packages on AUR.
Should borderWidth be defined in the config file?
--Rasmus

if you're referring to the layouts section, mine looks like:

layouts = [
    layout.Max(),
    #layout.Stack(stacks=2, borderWidth=2)                                                                
    layout.Stack(stacks=2)
]

vogt · 2009-12-07 20:11:24

Xyne wrote:

You still need to keep 500 MB free to download ghc with each update, so you don't actually get that space back. Plus that would add a guaranteed 500 MB to the download size with each update./threadjacking

Once all the redundancies in the documentation and profiling libraries included in Arch's ghc package are considered, each update is only a ~80 M (compressed, on x86_64). It would be even less if we used binary diffs in pacman. If you tried, you could definitely cut down the size of ghc by manually cutting those out. Also you don't have to update ghc if you don't want to, since pacman lets you specify ignorepkg or something like that....

You could also check out xmonad-light http://braincrater.wordpress.com/2008/0 … -released/ if you don't mind going back to a limited plain text configuration.

Dieter@be · 2009-12-07 21:38:44

hmm I think the "keybindings stop working" was own fault all along.. turns out that it's a little too sensitive about modkeys. basically you canot have numlock enabled and expect your bindings to work the author has a kenesis keyboard without numlock so he didn't realise it was this bothering, and he will patch this soon

Nezmer · 2009-12-08 01:57:03

A lot of xmonad fans here. So I'm going to show my loyal fanboyism to Awesome.

C+lua, efficient and extensible.

jelly · 2009-12-08 14:46:58

Nezmer wrote:

A lot of xmonad fans here. So I'm going to show my loyal fanboyism to Awesome.
C+lua, efficient and extensible.

you don't have to show it, the topic is about qtile

Dieter@be · 2009-12-08 20:20:46

the numlock/keybinding thing is fixed. http://github.com/cortesi/qtile/commit/ … 4c8b22fd0e

i was quite suprised that dispite this WM's "controlfreak" features there is no working "match window and do something with it", but Aldo said he has a patch that needs some cleaning and then he'll merge it.

other then that it's looking quite good to me. it just makes more sense to me then wmii.

rson451 · 2009-12-08 20:50:18

Dieter@be wrote:

other then that it's looking quite good to me. it just makes more sense to me then wmii.

This is quite surprising to hear from you, you've been using wmii as long as I can remember.

Dieter@be · 2009-12-08 21:46:52

rson451 wrote:

Dieter@be wrote:
other then that it's looking quite good to me. it just makes more sense to me then wmii.
This is quite surprising to hear from you, you've been using wmii as long as I can remember.

well sure i'm using wmii already for quite a while, but i never really "got" it entirely. I got kinda stuck in the "getting to know how it works" phase. and now with the work i'm doing on uzbl, i'm noticing wmii really is missing things i need (launching new windows unfocused/invisible, tabbed layout, ability to retrieve more info through wmiir etc). when i asked the authors what they thought about implementing such features i basically hit against a brick wall. also the config file is kinda ugly and it puts stuff directly in my ~ whereas i prefer the xdg basedir spec.

i've tried/researched quite some WM's (see list above) and qtile looks the most promising. well, the author told me pretty much everything in my list is possible (some of them require me to implement my own logic though, but it shouldn't be to hard). i hope it can live up to its words, but only one way to find that out. and whether everything is already working fine or not, at least conceptually this matches my visions the most, so i wouldn't mind contributing a bit

Last edited by Dieter@be (2009-12-08 21:48:58)

dalingrin · 2009-12-08 22:32:13

I find this funny.
Without paying attention to who the OP was I decided to look at this thread because I've been looking for a simple tiling WM specifically for use with Uzbl. Then it turns out to be Dieter@be himself!

I've been looking for a simple tiling WM w/ built in tab management every since I first used Uzbl and haven't found anything I really liked.

Though it goes against the philosophy behind Uzbl, I'm really looking forward to KWin once the tab management and tiling is completed.

Last edited by dalingrin (2009-12-08 22:33:00)

Tjh_ · 2009-12-09 02:40:52

Xyne wrote:

Sorry, but that's just not a valid argument. If all applications adopted that philosophy install sizes would shoot through the roof, everything would run worse than it did years ago, and the overall experience would be really bad.
Windows.

Welcome to the world of Windows...
NO really, i think that is pretty much what is happening with a lot of software out there, people *assume* that memmory and HD space is cheap, so they don't really try to optimize much. I mean, have u seen WoW for example, the graphics ain't that good, and a normal WoW (World of Warcraft the game) installation takes up like 30 or so GB. Most people don't realise but for the few of us who have to make do with crappy laptops or an otherwise crappy technology/hard drive etc, we notice.

dalingrin wrote:

I find this funny.
Without paying attention to who the OP was I decided to look at this thread because I've been looking for a simple tiling WM specifically for use with Uzbl. Then it turns out to be Dieter@be himself!

LOL kinda the same thing happened to me too. I use dwm right now, because i did not quit like wmii (don't remember why though). However, I find the lack of window information to be a bit annoying. Sometimes I like to extend the window manager using simple bash scripts and not keep digging into the C code, even if it is small. I will give qtile a try. However I find myself kinda iffy about pure tiling mode type wm's. I tried XMonad and awesome too, but did not like the config files and stuff. But something like twm (which would be perfect for me in some ways), requires a lot of mouse and i have a crappy laptop with a broken-ish touchpad and a rather stiff nipple (That's what it is called i swear). Nevertheless qtile looks pretty good so far...

-Tj

Last edited by Tjh_ (2009-12-09 02:42:23)

crazycal00 · 2009-12-12 15:08:04

I've yet to find a good window manager,

I'd really like a cross between Awesome3 (to confusing, not simple, to slow, etc) and dwm with some features barrowed from pwm (ion3's predecessor) like tabbing, and easy configuring.

another problem with dwm is you can't make on the fly changes, you have to sit there with a terminal and type make every twenty seconds when you are editing you config.h.

any suggestions?

Calvin

Teshadael · 2009-12-12 16:37:30

crazycal00:
Might I suggest you give i3 a try. It can be configured to tab like ion3, and it's configuration file is plain text and easy to figure out.
Last but not least, you can reload it on the fly which can handle most of the changes you make to the config.
i3 is coming along nicely, I've been using it for a couple of months now.

crazycal00 · 2009-12-12 17:25:05

wow i3 reall rocks! thanks Teshadael!

descendent87 · 2010-02-01 18:01:24

Dieter@be wrote:

Pank wrote:
Dieter@be wrote:
try the qtile-git package from AUR
Remember to install 'pil' (it's a missing dep in the AUR package), and then it should work fine (though maybe you need to copy the config file again)
I get the error with both of the git-packages on AUR.
Should borderWidth be defined in the config file?
--Rasmus
if you're referring to the layouts section, mine looks like:
layouts = [
    layout.Max(),
    #layout.Stack(stacks=2, borderWidth=2)                                                                
    layout.Stack(stacks=2)
]

I'm getting the same problem, if I start qtile without a config file it wont start and gives an error about the config file missing so I copied the one from here and now I'm getting the borderWidth error

Arch Linux

#1 2009-12-06 11:43:07

the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#2 2009-12-06 12:11:02

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#3 2009-12-06 15:08:26

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#4 2009-12-06 15:38:15

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#5 2009-12-06 15:49:29

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#6 2009-12-06 16:08:51

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#7 2009-12-06 16:13:14

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#8 2009-12-06 16:19:23

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#9 2009-12-06 17:16:03

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#10 2009-12-06 17:56:01

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#11 2009-12-06 18:40:16

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#12 2009-12-06 18:42:24

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#13 2009-12-07 20:11:24

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#14 2009-12-07 21:38:44

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#15 2009-12-08 01:57:03

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#16 2009-12-08 14:46:58

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#17 2009-12-08 20:20:46

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#18 2009-12-08 20:50:18

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#19 2009-12-08 21:46:52

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#20 2009-12-08 22:32:13

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#21 2009-12-09 02:40:52

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#22 2009-12-12 15:08:04

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#23 2009-12-12 16:37:30

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#24 2009-12-12 17:25:05

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

#25 2010-02-01 18:01:24

Re: the perfect tiling WM... qtile?

Board footer