> the Linux desktop and the ambition level hasn't really changed much in 25 years
I find that totally wrong. Look at niri - I can imagine MS and Apple will introduce scrollable wm features in the coming years.
> the Linux desktop and the ambition level hasn't really changed much in 25 years
I find that totally wrong. Look at niri - I can imagine MS and Apple will introduce scrollable wm features in the coming years.
I saw it, it's actually pretty cool. But I suspect it's a very niche thing, and you might see someone build a third party extension.
Most people agree that a screen should feel like a physical desk where windows can pile, overlap, and scatter naturally. Would you use a tiling "system" for your physical desk? I highly doubt it.
Niri's infinite scrolling approach makes that into a rigid filmstrip sequence. It might be interesting for some people though.
The question is whether most people use a screen like a desk. Nearly everyone I know has a window maximized all the time, and occasionally floats a window to drag or something extremely temporary (e.g. calc). Niri has a significantly lower impedance mismatch with that workflow (and it can temporarily float windows).
Where they could improve is hotkeys: they are all heavily reliant on them, which is unreasonably hostile to non tech users.
Humans aren't very good at identifying what they need from tech. The earliest example is the spreadsheet: no average user would have asked for it because there was no skeomorphism to draw from. We would have had graph paper with a single char per cell if we went with skeomorphic.
Cascading window managers are objectively terrible. Obviously we don't force better solutions onto people, but they have very few redeeming qualities.
Papers in piles on a desk, where each paper is in active read/write mode can’t be optimal in any shape, way or form?
A tiling wm, or scrolling such as niri, solves this very well It’s of course designed for people actually using a computer for work rather than leisure.
Once you are used to it it’s hard to move back to windows being scattered all over.
This is nice and all, but it doesnt fit my workflow. I have a 4k monitor so I can have 5-6 windows open at once, they are all of different sizes because they are all showing different info and they are all in different places because its physical place is determined by its usage frequency.
In this setup theres the assumption that theres only ever two things Im looking at, and they are equally important because each one is 50/50.
Even if two can be configured to 3, and the 50/50 ratio can be changed, thats not the point, the desktop arrangement is a reflection of the task I am working on, not a rigid pattern enforced by a window manager.
I find these types of wms very bizarre. They must fit some people's mental model but its so far from being useful for me, I just find it fascinating that anyone could find this useful.