Re: [dwm] Purpose of Monocle Layout

I'd like second that - I didn't ask for that as a change of defaults, but I
was unaware that the feature was already instituted. Thanks!

On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 9:35 AM, Matthias-Christian Ott <ott_AT_enolink.de>wrote:

> Matthias-Christian Ott <ott_AT_enolink.de> wrote:
>
> > "Anselm R Garbe" <garbeam_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > 2008/8/2 Ian Daniher <it.daniher_AT_gmail.com>:
> > > > BTW, a friend and I came up with the idea, that it would be useful to
> > > > have some visual hint of how many windows you are actually viewing in
> > > > monocle. Say, there are five windows with currently viewed tag and
> > > > you're viewing the third window in the stack; then there could be an
> > > > indicator like: [3/5] or [..*..]. What do you guys think about that?
> > >
> > > This idea is rather old and it was implemented once in some official
> > > version of dwm. However, because it is only interesting for 1
> > > particular layout, namely monocle, it has been removed again. AFAIR
> > > the solution to the problem was a change to the Layout struct, instead
> > > of defining a simple symbol string for the layout, I used some
> > > function pointer which returned the layout symbol string.
> > >
> > > When using this indicator for some time, I concluded that it wasn't
> > > obvious enough to be useful, especially because the information "nth
> > > client of X clients" doesn't give you much -- you rarely remember the
> > > client order anyways.
> > >
> > > Because of the fact that dwm is a dynamic window manager, my
> > > recommended solution is to switch to some appropriate layout before
> > > you focus the particular client you are looking for, and then
> > > switching to monocle again.
> > >
> > > So, the way I use monocle is usually only on a client basis or on very
> > > few clients -- there is the powerful tagging concept for grouping the
> > > clients you work on.
> > >
> > > With this in mind, this idea won't go mainstream again ;)
> > >
> > > > Also, implementing the alt-tab to switch between the windows on that
> tab
> > > > would seem to make sense.
> > >
> > > The philosophy behind dwm and all other less suckish projects I'm
> > > involved in follows the idea that there should be only 1 distinct
> > > operation to perform a certain function. If any feature of some
> > > software can only and always be performed in using 1 distinct
> > > operation (which never changes), then it is easier to remember and to
> > > use. Hence one indicator of bad software design is if there are plenty
> > > ways performing the same operation (e.g. having an icon to click on, a
> > > shortcut, a menu entry, a context menu entry, another shortcut, etc).
> > > This indication applies to vim unfortunately -- there is :wq and ZZ
> > > and what not for instance -- it basically performs the same
> > > operations, polluting your command space unnecessarily and making you
> > > think a lot which is the fastest way to perform a certain operation in
> > > a certain situation, that sucks).
> > >
> > > The only exception regarding the 1 distinct operation paradigm is to
> > > allow only 1 distinct different way in performing it, if there is a
> > > different input device, like the mouse.
> > >
> > > Having two key bindings for the same thing also makes the usage less
> > > consistent, because Mod1-Tab (in default setup) has a totally
> > > different meaning. So IMHO Mod1-j/Mod1-k are the navigation shortcuts
> > > in all layouts (at least in default setup).
> > >
> > > And if you are unhappy with this, feel free to change it in config.h.
> > >
> > > Kind regards,
> > > --Anselm
> > :q!
>
> Sorry just thought that I was in vi ;). Just wanted to add that I didn't
> know about Mod1-j and Mod1-k in monocle. Thanks for the explaination -
> now it makes sense to me.
>
> Regards
> Matthias-Christian
> Regards
> Matthias-Christian
>
>

-- 
Ian Daniher