Re: [dev] [dwm] number of tag limited?

On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 7:27 PM, TJ Robotham <tj.robotham_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 05, 2010 at 10:50:13PM +0200, thuban wrote:
>> However, I'm surprised that this is not the default use of dwm. It is
>> supposed to be suckless, and on my own, I think having "opened tags"
>> that are useless (meaning with no window inside) sucks at least a
>> little.
>
> Except that open empty tags aren't really a 'thing', or at least not as much of
> one as you seem to think. Tags are bit positions of an unsigned int that can be
> set/unset on each client and on each monitor. I hope that you're not proposing
> that a bit position shouldn't exist when nothing has it set.
>
> Those labels without any boxes on them are maybe wasting a bit of status bar
> real estate (but not enough that I ever notice) and maybe arguably the space to
> store the string but little else that can be helped short of using a smaller
> datatype for your bit array if that's really bugging you.
>
> In summary: unless your primary concern is how much stuff gets printed to the
> status bar, your problem seems to have a lot more to do with perception than
> with how dwm actually works.

I think you are putting the cart before the horse. How tags are
represented internally is an implementation detail. The first concern
should be the actual behavior of dwm, because that is the software's
primary goal. How it accomplishes that behavior internally is a
consequence of design decisions about behavior, not the other way
around.

I think Simon Parent's message, particularly the second paragraph,
discusses the real issue at hand, the user-interface implications of
displaying empty tags or not.

/Don Allen

>
>
Received on Fri Aug 06 2010 - 14:35:32 CEST