There's a curve<p>Now that I have i3/Sway configured as I like, I'm fast. Too fast, deliberately narrating what I'm doing when sharing my screen<p>It didn't start this way. I was painfully slow until building enough familiarity and tweaks (ie: this window class opens on this workspace)<p>As others have pointed out, it's easy to spend more time than you save. Spend effort on 'constants' -- <i>I always want this here</i>, and then build your workspaces on login<p>That's saved me the most effort and time
Using sway here (it's like dwm; a bit "simpler" than i3). I only use my mouse for browsing or using vscode. It's definitely easier because:<p>- windows take the whole screen by default<p>- you can easily switch by workspaces (ALT-1,2,3,...)<p>Basically, tiling WM are great IMHO
After years of i3/bspwm, I switched to Gnome. I felt I was faster and more productive with a TWM, but after having to use Gnome at work, I realized that was not the case. In fact, Gnome being a full desktop environment instead of something I threw together brought me more productivity.
Yes, i3 has inspired me to try yabai on macos. I have configured 6 workspaces and use command + <num(1..6)> to switch to different workspaces.
Most of windows stay in full screen and it's quite better than manually resizing and dragging apps on multiple screens. To move a window to another workspace, just hold on to the top menu bar and press command + workspace number and your window will get moved to that workspace.<p><a href="https://themythicalengineer.com/macos-window-management-yabai.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://themythicalengineer.com/macos-window-management-yaba...</a>
My experience is you lose any gains elsewhere - messing with config files, random apps breaking in a tiling WM, having to plan your workspaces, having to do like 5 chords to get the optimal layout, etc.. I also think i3/sway style tiling is kinda unusable on large or ultra wide screens which is what I use nowadays.<p>I feel my productivity is pretty much the same on KDE/Windows/OS X (with rectangle) style WMs after some adjustment. How often do you really need to rearrange windows anyways in your day to day? And does it need to be perfect?<p>The only tiling WM I found had substantial benefits was PaperWM. I wish that style of tiling was more popular. It’s kind of the best of both worlds between tiling and non tiling.
I never felt speed was the primary reason for me to use i3wm (or my preferred tiled WM awesomewm). It just felt more convenient. I never had to worry about placing windows, which just removes a bunch of cognitive load. I want half a dozen terminals open (hell, make it a dozen) but I want to be able to see all of them? It's automatic. I want to open a document and a browser next to it? Automatic. I want a video in the corner, some terminals in their own corner and browse the net on the other half of my screen? Automatic. Couple that with virtual desktops and it becomes second nature to create context-specific desktops, and switching between projects with minimal overhead is just how things are.<p>I think my interfacing with my computer is infinitely worse now that I currently don't use Linux on a daily basis and so don't have access to that kind of well-implemented tiling anymore. Also, while tiling WMs are overall an immense joy, none of them are desktop environments and in most distros there's a lot of fiddling to get a tiling wm to function remotely as well as a standard DE (I used to use the awesomewm flavor of Manjaro, which hasn't been maintained in years, unfortunately).
I've used quite a few different window managers (WM) in the past, and I'm mostly sticking to awesome today, which shares with i3 the benefit of being highly configurable (even scriptable), which undoubtedly makes me much faster at navigating <i>my</i> windows than any other WM…<p>The exact monitor / window / new program to run I want to look at is always exactly one keystroke away, an so are moving, resizing, bringing to top and so on.<p>This did not happen by just installing this WM, though. I've had to tailor it to my specific needs, and that's still an ongoing process, as needs change over time. The WM makes it possible, but there's still work on the user side.<p>Also, I feel like the (real) benefits can easily be dwarfed by the inefficiencies of what's in the windows you're dealing with. What's the point of being able to open an app without leaving the home row of your keyboard or instantly focus on the right app window if the first thing you need to do to use that app is to grab a mouse and click in ten difference places? You get most of the benefits of i3, awesome and other similar WMs when you combine them with keyboard-driven programs.
I am not really on i3 for speed, somehow the tiling concept just works for me. When coding and testing I think it saves a little bit of time arranging multiple console windows, editor and browser. It also might save me a bit of time when wrangling different side projects/trains of thought, I can just keep one set of windows open on a workspace and switch to another. Another thing, slightly related to getting actual work done, it removes the need to mentally keep track of the tab order of windows. I might remember what my last workspace was when switching spaces (got the option enabled to press the current workspace hotkey to go back).<p>Note I am also quite happy with using i3 for leisure, as in light browsing, gaming, watching movies and a little bit of console stuffs. In that "mode" I mostly use the mouse for scrolling the workspaces and window stacks, slow when compared to a proper hotkeying, but I have the time. Even in that mode I still have a rough "guideline" for workspace purposes (e.g. 0 is for email and other distractions, 6 for steam).
I’m not currently using i3 (restrictions on using Linux at work). So having switched to i3 and then back from it, I can’t say whether I was faster or not with it.<p>What I do know is that I could maintain a flow state significantly better with it.<p>The combination of i3 and a workflow that was almost entirely centered around terminal based tools has been unmatched so far in my experience.<p>i3 was also particular helpful when I had a single 24in monitor. In a constrained monitor environment there was no comparison. Workspaces with easy switching made i3 far superior to the alternatives.<p>For me personally i3 is fantastic when I’m using the same tools across work sessions. If your tools are constantly changing I don’t think it’s as useful because you cannot build muscle memory for which workspace to switch to, to perform a certain task or access a certain app.
I don't care about speed. I like how convenient is it to organize and move windows around compared to floating window managers. Especially when using multiple monitors.<p>My hand gets tired if I use mouse too much especially with dragging operations.
Using TWM and modal text editor helps a lot.<p>I really miss it on macos when I have lots of stuff open and have to switch between multiple windows. I haven't yet tried any tiling apps on mac because configuring is always a deep rabbit hole. I use Rectangle but having more than 1 window on a 13" screen isn't that useful and still requires manual arranging. A better control over workspaces is what I miss.
I’m so much faster that I had to artificially wait for half and whole seconds when sending key combos in Windows (like Alt+Tab) to a degree that made my colleagues laugh. It’s like I’m constantly missing the key, except it’s the operating system that is constantly missing me.<p>The amount of unnecessary waiting is painful, and the degree of unresponsiveness from the UI while it’s busy changing what the visible window, is is bizarre. How can this be commercially successful?! Mac doesn’t lag like this.<p>Compared to past tiling window managers (ratpoison, xmonad), I’m not any faster. The most common keys are the same, because I can easily remake the defaults.
I basically use i3 as a very minimal window manager. I just run all my programs full-screen on a workspace each e.g. one for chrome, one for visual studio code, one for slack, one for discord etc. I only ever use the tiling to bring up a quick terminal wherever I am or maybe to view a browser occasionally. You can def go down the rabbit hole with optimising but you don't need to. You probably rarely need to really see verything as once after all - hardly good for productivity IMHO. Otherwise I like how there are no window decorations using screen real estate or menus I never use etc
Probably, yes. I think this is probably true of any customized TWM.<p>For me that speed comes from the superior workspace management and less from the keyboard navigation. In gnome I find that the switching through alt-tab, super-tab and the dock is terribly buggy and constantly accidentally taking me over to another space, breaking my focus totally. I probably have undiagnosed ADHD and i3/sway allow me to maintain a very neat, totally distraction-free environment. I found myself coming up with scripts to keep my contexts static in gnome, but it's a losing battle.
I have considered tiling wms, but after watching few youtube guides decided that it’s not worth the learning curve and configuration. Kept using FancyZones* instead. It can snap windows to pre-user-defined areas and cycle an active window through them with win-arrows. All you need really and zero rocket science.<p>* windows-only, couldn’t find linux analog anywhere including forums.
No, but when the default video was 4:3, I did try out tiling window managers and thought it worked fine, back then I used ratpoison and ion off and on.<p>On "modern" resolutions I find tiling tough to use, but on small screens (1368x768) I use cwm, I feel it is tailor made for those screens. Larger screens I use fvwm or fluxbox, depending on what I need to do.
I felt dramatically more productive using bspwm (which is similar enough to i3) than I do on MacOS.<p>I couldn't tell you how much of it was the M1 being relatively new, having a better/different OS, and a different WM. I just know I liked it a lot, and I dislike using my Mac after that. Huge loss in morale, if not productivity.
Yes. That said, I've sadly switched away from i3wm to macOS.<p>I still have my XPS 13 Developer Edition, but dealing with quirks caused more lost time than I saved with i3wm. Dell has questionable UEFI firmware, and GPU drivers (aside from Intel) were a constant source of kernel panics every few weeks if I ever bumped my eGPU cable.
Absolutely. I use ChromeOS (Framework Chromebook) now because I prefer the stability however I very much miss i3. The overhead of managing windows and workspaces completely and seamlessly disappears (for me at least). I'm not even that big of a power user, I probably only use 3-4 workspaces at once.
No. A full graphical mouse-based user interface is what I am used to and fastest at. I am a fast typist, but I avoid typing. I drag and drop. My muscle memory is one hand on the mouse and the other hand over the modifiers and hot-keys.
No. I find PaperWM's scrolling window management much faster than i3's (or any other desktop's) limited width and height approach.<p>PaperWM is truly revolutionary, I'm never going back to traditional WMs.
I have a completely new install of archcraft with hyprland and I have to say that it's the fastest out-of-the-box productivity experience I've ever had.
I wish something like Rectangle (<a href="https://rectangleapp.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://rectangleapp.com/</a>) existed in some Linux desktop distro.<p>I tried linux desktop tiling window managers, and they work with the UX differently compared to MacOS window managers.<p>Rather than moving application windows as layers (and retain the ability to click-and-drag their window dimensions), tiling managers awkwardly force app windows into tiles (often with large gutters) and remove the ability layer windows and to click-and-drag window sizes.