Re: [dwm] GNU screen-like workflow suggestion for dwm.

The problem with remembered states is something applicable to clients, tags, the
status bar, the maximize, the floating, ... the concept is used in several places,
and not all of them works always in all modes or layouts.

This breaks my concept of orthogonal usability.

When I started to use dwm I was a addict to icewm and I was having some missconceptions
of workpath. I have been thinking about it and I can say that I tend to open more
windows on non-tiled window managers (because I lost most of them because they are not
enought visible). This doesn't happens on dwm, and this makes it more productive, less
resources used and better visibility of the applications.

Icewm, uses by default a client-switching algorithm similar to the w32 or OSX one. This is:

- You press alt-tab
  - swap order of client list
  - go next
- You press alt-tab twice without dropping 'alt'
  - go next

This model looks simple and enought eficient because if you press alt-tab
you will always go to the previous app you were working, and you it recycles
the same key for cycling between clients.

The previous algo is probably innecesary on dwm, because clients are sorted and all of them
are visible, and you can easily switch between them without the need of useless
complexity.

I tend to usually relacionate the toggling problematic with the alt-tab concepts.

IMHO having a toggle for everything would be cool, but maybe innecesary. What I
do in the clients-per-tag patch is that you can switch between the number you
say or 'normal'. So you have to store another variable to define the toggling
value.

The layout per tag discussion is pretty similar to the same.

Having toggles implies to make the code more conditional and complex. It shouldn't.

Maybe we can join all these toggles on a single array and index it with a string
like: "b^1" (toggle bar to zero to 1)
      "f^1" (toggle floating mode)
      "w^1" (toggle previous client focus)

I vote for Control+Tab and Control+Shift+Tab (if anybody writes this patch O:)

--pancake

On Thu, 23 Aug 2007 22:35:05 +0200
Antoni Grzymala <antoni_AT_chopin.edu.pl> wrote:

> Dear gals and lads;
>
> I have a little suggestion (for someone to turn into live code) that
> would in my opinion ease working with tags greatly.
>
> Let's say I'm viewing clients tagged 1 and 4 and I want to quickly
> glance at tag 3. Then I want to get back to what I was doing with a
> single keystroke. Say this would be mod-` in my case. So dwm should
> remember last viewed tags before change and have a function (with a key
> bound to it) to return. This way by pressing the key again I could
> quickly swap between 1, 4 and 3 without remembering where I actually was
> last.
>
> I use a similar workflow in GNU screen, where you swap between current
> and last seen screen by double-pressing the screen escape key, instead
> of searching or cycling. Quick and convenient.
>
> Hope my explanation is clear. What do you think?
>
> [a]
>
> --
> . Antoni Grzymala - antoni (at) chopin.edu.pl -------------------.
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  --pancake
Received on Thu Aug 23 2007 - 23:55:07 UTC