[SOLVED] Window Manager with "modes"?

Ubunoob001 · 01-17-2012, 04:28 PM

Ive been looking at some different tiling window managers

Ideally Id like to find one that supports with "modes" in the following fashion:
To change layouts,select a window, make commands on a menu, arrange tile sizes etc and you have one escape key to get into that mode.

You can use another (or same key,-say, esc) to get back to edit mode (much like vi(m)) do any of you all know any such tiling wm?

Thanks in advance

sycamorex · 01-17-2012, 04:35 PM

I'm not sure I know what you mean but i3 has 'modes':

tiling (default), tabbed (like tabs in Firefox), stacked (the same but vertically) and floating.
You can combine those modes on one screen (they are switched on/off with keyboard shortcuts)
You can resize the width of windows and do a lot of customised stuff in the configuration file.

There's no (dropdown) menu available there but you can program your commands and settings to perform some resizing / changing layout operations to be run vie shortcuts.

HTH

Ubunoob001 · 01-17-2012, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sycamorex

I'm not sure I know what you mean but i3 has 'modes':

tiling (default), tabbed (like tabs in Firefox), stacked (the same but vertically) and floating.
You can combine those modes on one screen (they are switched on/off with keyboard shortcuts)
You can resize the width of windows and do a lot of customised stuff in the configuration file.

There's no (dropdown) menu available there but you can program your commands and settings to perform some resizing / changing layout operations to be run vie shortcuts.

HTH

Ideally such that there is no need for a meta key held down to use the "config" mode: ie I would just type,say, "esc" and be in the config mode, then do what I need to do without a meta key then return to edit mode using a given other key etc.

TobiSGD · 01-17-2012, 10:57 PM

No tiling WM that I am aware of has that special behavior.
By the way, Escape would be a really bad choice for a key to switch modes, you would never be able to leave edit-mode of vim. I think you would have the same issues with other keys in other programs. That is why mostly a Meta-key is used, I would think.

sycamorex · 01-18-2012, 02:12 AM

You can get rid of a meta key in i3 (and probably other wm) but, as Tobi pointed out, there will be so many clashes with particular app keybindings that the system might be unusable. For that reason I use the 'windows' key as at least I know it won't conflict with any other keybindings

Ubunoob001 · 01-18-2012, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sycamorex

You can get rid of a meta key in i3 (and probably other wm) but, as Tobi pointed out, there will be so many clashes with particular app keybindings that the system might be unusable. For that reason I use the 'windows' key as at least I know it won't conflict with any other keybindings

Thanks for the help. It's interesting/informative to note that those who jump to help first are those running Slackware