Comment by wingmanjd

1 day ago

I just installed Kubuntu last week so I could get the additional shift-drag targets to split my 34" ultrawide into 3 sections, or bump to the edges for the half filled.

Install i3wm, it will change your life.

  • Something I realized after spending a few months in sway (i3) and then niri is that I only care about a few windows (code editor, terminal, browser, apps I use moment to moment).

    All the rest I'd prefer to just summon as-needed and then dismiss without navigating away from the windows I care about.

    sway/niri want me to tile every window into some top-level spot.

    Took me a while to admit it, but the usual Windows/macOS/DE "stacking" method is what I want + a few hotkeys to arrange the few windows I care about.

    • I'm surprised to hear that niri didn't work for you, I feel like it's a really good middle ground between tiling and floating window managers. It handles a lot of window resizing and arranging for me, without being too rigid. Windows can have any width they need without having to evenly divide my monitor.

    • In sway, put the lower priority windows in another workspace, or the scratchpad, or in tabs/stacks. You can bind keys to focus specific programs by their appid/class also, so even if they're on another workspace or monitor it'll jump right there.

      It sounds like the scratchpad may be especially close to what you want.