[dwm] Layers

Hi,
I can't remember if we talked about this some time ago. If so, I think
we didn't come to a satisifying consensus, so I want to revive the
discussion. But let me first of all introduce you to the problem.

Dwm has by default a floating and a tiled layer that can have a different
layout. Tiling or maximisation works fine for most clients (by the way,
is there are reason why windows are called clients in dwm jargon?), some
dialogs, popups or short-living windows require to be floating. Therefore
dwm keeps these windows on an upper layer.

While this makes sense for most applications, there are some (Gimp is
as famous example for this) that are build around this WIMP concept and
thus have to be floating in order to usable. But sometimes it makes sense
to quickly hide them to access information hidden by them (for example
I use the dictionary programme Ding when writing E-Mails in English).

A common approach would be to dedicate a tag to them and switch
via ALT+TAB back and forth. In my opinion this a bit cumbersome and
non-intuitive. I rather expect to rotate the two layers like I can do
with windows in monocle layout.

Regards,
Matthias-Christian
Received on Thu Jan 22 2009 - 21:25:18 UTC