Making the most of my netbook screen with a new Window Manager!
I recently bought a Samsung N120 netbook for programming while on the go. It has a fantastic keyboard for coding, but I still found myself fighting a bit with the 1024x600 resolution. I like to keep quite a few terminal windows open which means a lot of positioning and mousing every time I open a few of them, not to mention cases where I'd like to look at a browser and a couple terminal windows at the same time, which can cause serious crowding issues.
My solution until now had been to use around five virtual desktops bound to alt-1, alt-2, and so on, but I still found myself monkeying with the mouse for far too much of my programming time. Back, forth, move, resize, Bleh!
I set out to get my window manager to automatically tile windows. What I found is nothing short of the GUI experience I've always craved: Fast, efficient, and mouse-less. Enter: XMonad!
Perfectly tiled windows! Very little wasted space! I can hear what many of you are thinking. "What? So much buildup just for this? How the heck do I open an application with no menubar?"
Well, a simple screenshot belies the actual user experience. With dmenu installed, I just type alt-P and a few letters of the app I want to open, then press enter, and it opens. For example, to open firefox, I type: alt-P, fir, enter. It's just as easy to adjust the tiling of the windows using simple keyboard shortcuts, and you can still use the mouse to move windows around. When you're done, type alt-T and the window snaps back into the automatic tiling scheme.
Different tiling algorithms are accessed with alt-space. Vertical tiling, horizontal tiling, and single-app fullscreen are built in. You can combine these with alt-period and alt-comma to move more or fewer windows into the main pane, and you can even design your own tiling algorithms if you want. This thing is all about hacking, but I find it extremely usable out-of-the-box.
Plus, check out how much xterm I get on this thing at my lowly 1024x600 res!
Oh, and my favorite alt- scheme for switching virtual desktops is set by default in it :)
Give it a shot! I suspect VIM users (like me) will especially like it, but I can see others getting into it as well. Like VIM, a little bit of a learning curve up front goes a long way toward making a great experience. If anyone's interested, I'll do another post on my tips for getting started. It isn't difficult, and you might find that it's the best GUI experience you didn't know you were missing.
My solution until now had been to use around five virtual desktops bound to alt-1, alt-2, and so on, but I still found myself monkeying with the mouse for far too much of my programming time. Back, forth, move, resize, Bleh!
I set out to get my window manager to automatically tile windows. What I found is nothing short of the GUI experience I've always craved: Fast, efficient, and mouse-less. Enter: XMonad!
Perfectly tiled windows! Very little wasted space! I can hear what many of you are thinking. "What? So much buildup just for this? How the heck do I open an application with no menubar?"
Well, a simple screenshot belies the actual user experience. With dmenu installed, I just type alt-P and a few letters of the app I want to open, then press enter, and it opens. For example, to open firefox, I type: alt-P, fir, enter. It's just as easy to adjust the tiling of the windows using simple keyboard shortcuts, and you can still use the mouse to move windows around. When you're done, type alt-T and the window snaps back into the automatic tiling scheme.
Different tiling algorithms are accessed with alt-space. Vertical tiling, horizontal tiling, and single-app fullscreen are built in. You can combine these with alt-period and alt-comma to move more or fewer windows into the main pane, and you can even design your own tiling algorithms if you want. This thing is all about hacking, but I find it extremely usable out-of-the-box.
Plus, check out how much xterm I get on this thing at my lowly 1024x600 res!
Oh, and my favorite alt- scheme for switching virtual desktops is set by default in it :)
Give it a shot! I suspect VIM users (like me) will especially like it, but I can see others getting into it as well. Like VIM, a little bit of a learning curve up front goes a long way toward making a great experience. If anyone's interested, I'll do another post on my tips for getting started. It isn't difficult, and you might find that it's the best GUI experience you didn't know you were missing.