I've been trying different tiling WM's to see which one best fits my needs. Every time I try a new one, it looks good but I find other things that don't quite work the way I like. My requirements have evolved as I go. Initially, I didn't want to get into Awesome because having to learn Lua is not on my wish list but maybe I should give it a try IF it can do what I want better than the other tiling WM's out there.
I'm going to as specific as I can about what I want. I am running a 3440x1440 monitor. I want to use as much vertical space as possible (meaning, a full width, persistent but mostly empty status bar is not an option, but I do like the notification area and a date/time).
I understand it may not do everything exactly the way I want, which is oke. If it does more or less most of what I want I can weigh my options between Awesome and other tiling WM's (actually, only i3 which is what I'm using now but I'm open to better suggestions). I would very much appreciate it if people don't just say no to something it can't do, but say "no, but it can do ...". In other words, feel free to suggest alternatives that might be helpful as well.
Divide the screen in 3 columns, initially 30/45/25, with the right column split horizontally; Fully adjustable and resizable as needed during my work session;
Persistent layout; when closing the last application in a tile, I don't want that tile to disappear and the remaining tiles to resize. Just show an empty space and leave all tiles as they are.
tabbed tiles, so I see which applications are running in a tile (similar to i3).
Resizable tiles with the keyboard into 1 direction; When making the middle column/tile wider, I want that into a specific direction into another tile and leave the other side alone.
Certain applications I want to always launch into a specific tile. For instance, terminals always go into the right-most column top/bottom, browser/spotify always into the middle, atom/IDE always into the left. Some applications should always be floating. Obviously I want to be able to send them to a different tile after launch.
I don't want a 100% width status bar. It will be mostly empty which is a waste of screen estate. Preferably, I'd like a statusbar part of a tile, for example in the right-most tile, resizing with it. Otherwise I'd like it to be fixed to 30% and allow tiles which are not beneath it to use the full height of the screen. My reason for a statusbar is mute; I actually only want a notification area and a date time permanently visible. I don't need a "start menu", dmenu or similar is perfect, which I believe it has integrated.
Many thanks in advance!
The general answer is "Awesome configuration is code and it can do whatever you want". But there is a catch. Can Awesome be configured like you describe? Yes, totally. There is at least 2 distributions coming close enough (mine[1] and worron[2]) (at least for the tiling workflow, not the look).
The "catch" is that the workflow you describe isn't really the "Awesome way". Awesome is usually used as an automatic tiler. You have layouts that describe a workflow (code, web, internet) and manage the clients according to their programming. Manual tile management is rarely necessary once you have proper layouts. That doesn't mean you can't, I did, but it might be worth thinking outside the box and see if you can automate your workflow a bit further.
Also, the default layout system isn't very modern and makes it hard to implement the features you requested. My layout system (see link below) can be used as a module or as a branch and supports all features described above. Awesome is extremely configurable and it's components can be replaced by modules.
https://github.com/awesomeWM/awesome/pull/644
The layout "serialization" documentation is here:
https://elv13.github.io/libraries/awful.layout.html#awful.layout.suit.dynamic.manual
It is similar to i3 but has more layouts and containers. As for the "leaving blank space" part, it is configured using the fill_strategy:
https://awesomewm.org/doc/api/classes/wibox.layout.ratio.html#wibox.layout.ratio.inner_fill_strategy
As a word of conclusion, I would note that what you ask is "work exactly like i3". If you want such thing, well, use i3. Awesome is a window manager framework. Its goal and purpose is to create a customized desktop shell / WM. If it's what you want, then go ahead and learn it, nothing else can come close to the possibility and the level of control you can get out of it. However it takes time and effort to get to the point where you have "your own perfect desktop". Our users perfect desktops:
https://github.com/awesomeWM/awesome/issues/1395
[1] https://gfycat.com/SmallTerribleAdamsstaghornedbeetle
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yNALqST1-Y
The WM your are looking for is herbstluftwm (hlwm). Its a manual tiling window manager. The tiles which you are talking about are called frames in hlwm. Each frame can contain multiple windows. A frame can also be empty. Only if you kill a frame the other frames will automatically resize. You can add new frames vertically and horizontally and resize them. Each frame can also have a different layout to organize the windows inside. The layout you are looking for is max. This will stack the windows inside a frame on each other. It doesn't show you tabs like i3 however. hlwm allows you to create rules to open certain applications always in certain frames and workspaces. hlwm doesn't have a statusbar buildin. I personally like to use tint2. It can be used as a replacement for your requirement to see running applications as tabs.
I have a Label that is indicating a file size with
FormatFloat('##.## KB',BytesIn/OneKB);
and it all worked fine when the files were all under about 2MB. Now I am sometimes using files 2GB and up.
FormatFloat('##.##### MB',BytesIn/OneMB);
The Caption is being updated about every 1-KB and the flickering is fierce.
Any way to stop that or minimize it some?
The Delphi TLabel can indeed be a flickery beast. Many people will recommend double buffering, but I don't like that. It brings other problems. In particular, if you are using themes then double buffering can interfere with the themed rendering.
My trick for dealing with label flicker is to use a TStaticText instead of a TLabel. This is a windowed control, a wrapper around the Windows STATIC control, and in my experience it invariably will not flicker in the scenario where TLabel would.
As others mention, throttling update rate is a sound idea, and is wise irrespective of flickering. There's no need to spend resources updating the UI any faster than the human eye can absorb. For something like download progress you should not really need any more than 5Hz in my view. This may very well be the root cause of your problem, and if throttling update rate solves the problem then you can stick with TLabel.
My answer here has some more general anti-flicker tips: TLabel and TGroupbox Captions Flicker on Resize.
I've never done OpenGL, but I'm looking for some pointers on this particular question on an AR app I'm practicing with.
I'd like to make an app with a "flat rectangle" along with text written on the surface of the rectangle. Visually, I'm imagining something along the lines of a piece of paper with text written on it. Each time the app starts, the text would be something different (the text is pulled from a plist file).
The user would be able to view the paper from all sides, much as if there was a piece of paper hanging in front of him.
Is this trivial to do in OpenGL? How could I get started?
Sorry for the really open-ended question, but I wanted to get a feel for how this kind of thing is done.
Looking at the OpenGL template source code in the Xcode sample projects, I see that there is a big array of vertices. I presume that to create a "flat" rectangle, I'd essentally just have to remove or make the z-axis zero. And then the dynamic text that will attach to the surface of the flat rectangle...I dont have any idea how to do that......
This question is hard to answer unambiguously. In general, this is trivial, but then again it is not.
Drawing a "flat rectangle with something on it" is a couple of API calls, as simple as it can get. Drawing text in OpenGL in an efficient way, and high quality, and without big preprocessing is an entirely different story.
What I would do is render text using whatever the "normal system-supported" way is under iOS (just like you would draw in any window, I wouldn't know this specific detail), but draw into a bitmap rather than on the screen. This should be supported, pretty much every OS has supported this for at least 10-15 years. Then turn this bitmap into a texture, bind it, and draw your trivial flat quad with OpenGL (set up a vertex buffer with 4 vertices, each vertex a texture coordinate, and draw two triangles - as easy as it gets).
The huge advantage of that is that you get to use the installed system fonts (or any fonts available), you don't need to generate a bitmap font and don't need to think about really ugly things such as hinting and proper spacing, and it's much easier to mix different text styles, etc. OpenGL has built-in support for text too, of course, but it is not terribly efficient or nice either. If the text does not change every millisecond, it's really best to render it using the standard renderer that the operating system provides (yes, that probably won't be hardware accelerated, but so what... since the user must read the text, it likely won't change every millisecond).
Now it gets more complicated if your "piece of paper" should bend and twist too, or do a page peel effect rather than being just a flat rectangle. In that case you need to tesselate it, which can be harder than it sounds, too. Not all tesselations look optimal for all bends/twists, or they do but do not have the optimal (read as minimum) number of vertices.
There is an article on "page peel" and such tesselation in one of the GPU Gems or GPU Pro books, let me search...
There: Andreas Bizzotto: "A Shader-Based eBook Reader - Page peeling effect", GPU Pro2 pp. 278-299
Maybe you can get hold of a copy or are lucky enough to find it on Google Books or something.
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In the very near future my development setup will be upgraded and part of the deal will be dual monitors (yay!)
At least one of the monitors, possibly both, will be widescreen.
I've heard of developers using a second monitor, especially a widescreen monitor, in portrait mode. It allows for many more lines on the screen (albeit narrower) and runs a bit like having a long page of code.
Does anyone out there use this and think it's more effective?
I actually have 3 widescreen monitors in portrait mode and yes, it's a fantastic way to work. There's so much less scrolling around and you can fit all your debug / output / reference windows on screen at once.
The problem with using two monitors is that you'll generally be working on one main one and have output (or whatever on another). If you do have two, set it up so that your primary monitor is directly in front of you and the other (less frequently used) one is off to one side. I find that to be the best way to use a dual-monitor set up as it reduces RSI from being permanently twisted to look at a particular screen.
Additionally, there are some programs available to provide virtual screen splits which I've fund very useful for large/widescreen monitor setups.
[edit] ..and yes, you should write functions short enough to fit on a single page, but being able to see more functions at any one time can often make development easier in my experience :-)
[edit2] Running Visual-Studio-esque IDEs in portrait on a widescreen monitor is fantastic when it comes to debugging compile errors as you have more useable space to see code and errors at the same time. I suppose you could argue that if you compile regularly enough though, you shouldn't see that many errors at one time? ...but who codes like that? ;-)
Since you shouldn't write functions that are longer than a screen, making the screen much longer is a little bit of cheating, isn't it? ;)
Anyway, I found portrait mode not really better when coding, and only with my old 17" widescreen in portrait mode was viewing / editing documents better. With two large screens in landscape mode, You can put two pages on a screen when viewing documents, and have many tool windows open at both sides of the IDE's text editor. So no, portrait mode is not better, unless you have four of them to make up a really large screen (there was a photo of such a setup on a Microsoft blog, but I don't remember where).
There are some applications where portrait is still better, though, e.g. if you have to show a document in large resolution, or if you have some monitor (as in network monitor) running and want to see more lines at once.
I can't imagine how that would speed up productivity. In my opinion, it is always easier to scroll up/down than left/right.
It depends on which IDE you use, if any.
Microsoft Visual Studio likes to take up a lot of the width of the monitor with its “Toolbox” and “Solution Explorer”, so I find it works better on a landscape monitor. As it will not let you undock an editor window, you could not even drag a code editor to a second monitor that was in portrait mode.
Also consider how your customers are most likely to have their monitors set up. You may wish to write any UI code with the same setup, so you get a feel for what the application will be like to use.
Depends how big your monitor is. We have 1 28" monitor in landscape and 2 24" monitors in portrait which flank the big monitor.
Works great for pair-programming!
At work, I run my primary monitor (secondary is the laptop screen), in portrait mode. I really like it. I've become spoiled to seeing more code at once. I don't find that it encourages longer methods at all. Occasionally, I run across code that is a bit too wide since the IDE sidebars cramp it a bit, but I largely use Eclipse (Rational Application Developer, but Eclipse-based), so s quick double-click maximizes the code window, and it's very useful. Another double-click and I have my sidebars back.
I also find it a very useful orientation for my email.
I recommend it highly.
Portrait mode widescreen monitors work very nicely for edting code, thank you. However, some monitors have poor viewing angles on one dimension, which would usually be vertical but becomes horizontal in portrait mode. This can make the colours bad or unusable if everything isn't aligned correctly.
I have never given it a try but I would imagine it would work pretty well. I personally like to keep my lines fairly short, and wide screens tend to give me fewer lines of code, so I would give it a try.
It all comes down to personal preference however, what ever allows you to be the most productive and works best for you is the way to go.
For me it's not effective at all. I use IDEs, so in landscape mode I have sidebars to navigate code, navigate project etc.
It's not silly but a matter of opinion. A widescreen in portrait is very nice for writing code, code width has never really been an issue, and being able to see more line of code on the screen is always nice.
The other reason to put a widescreen in portrait is so it matches the height of your other monitor, for example a 30" widescreen next to a 22" widescreen in portrait have close to the same height.
It all comes down to your preference.
I just have one big monitor at my home office.
I tried it once. I didn't like it. I usually have an IDE and IDEs are perfect for widescreen. It's faster to jump around if you can see your function list on the right, file list on the left, etc.
Also, I try to keep my functions small so this usually isn't a problem (I have dual 24"). If your functions are reasonably small, and you have widescreen, you can show two files side by side which is often more useful. Some editors allow you to split the window and scroll to two different parts of the same file. This is also very useful is far better than having 100+ lines on the screen. With my settings, I have 60 lines per screen on an editor. If I split the editor, I can see 120. If I do it again on the other monitor, I can see 240. That's quite a bit of code and generally only useful for very different parts of it.
If you're working mostly with text (as most programmers or other technical folks do), or even documents, then portait mode is much more valuable. In fact, the general trend in displays is all the wrong direction: aspect ratios are squishing landscape displays to a mail slot to better fit the format of movies. Personally, I have never watched a movie on my computers (laptop or desktop), and I'm not about to start now - that's what I have a TV for!
In reality, vertical pixels are the most valuable asset in computing - do whatever you can to get more of them - you won't be sorry you spent the money! I won't even buy a laptop with less than 1024-1080 vertical pixels, since that's the minumum required to display a full page PDF at a readable resolution, and (much) more is better. (Since PDFs make up a large portion of today's online documentation/manuals, that's a very big concern.) You should only think about width after you've got enough vertical pixels.
What I really want is a 15.4" or 16" laptop with a portrait screen - these should still be wide enough to package a full-size keyboard into the base - a FlyBook-style pivot arm would be nice, but isn't required.
I found understanding the intent of related functions are easier when you print them first on paper than understanding them directly from screen, never fails, why? Because you can easily review many lines of code at one glance, no need for incessant scrolling.
The same thing with monitor oriented in portrait mode, you can easily understand the intent of multiple related functions, re-factored or otherwise. But don't let having portrait screen be an excuse to write a function with many lines.
Writing this on stackoverflow using portrait screen :-)
I can easily see many posts at one glance :-)
If you are working with print material, yes, as for source, why not full screen your IDE and close the task panes you do not need?
I find portrait is only useful to me if I'm working on a web site, being able to see the entire page at once helps.
I would say if the monitor is large enough you don't need portrait mode (24" and higher) for writing code.
If the monitor is smaller than that, then portrait mode is preferable.
Ideally what you would have is a single 30" (2560 x 1600) as widescreen to work on your code along with utilities comfortably open nearby and a second smaller monitor nearby to preview the results (I am speaking about web coding specifically here but it would probably apply to most other coding as well - a screen the size of your target audience's screens).
The 30" screens have really come down in price now so it's probably worth the jump up. A 24" screen does have the advantage of significantly larger text at default font sizes. The text on 30" monitors can get to be a bit of grind unless you move up to 14pt.
Good luck.
I have 2 19" monitors currently. One I keep in landscape and one I keep in portrait mode. I find that working on documentation or reading long web pages is easier on the portrait screen. I have used this setup for coding also and find that it does help, however it was a learned habit. lol