Why I use a Tiling Window Manager on my Home Computer

I use my computer a lot. I use my computer for work, I use my computer for school, I even use my computer for leisure. I consider it basic professionalism to be as efficient and proficient with the tools of my trade as possible. I want the slowest part of the system between my brain, my fingers, and what’s on the screen to be my brain. For me, the tiling window manager is the most efficient way I have found to interact with my computer.

In this blog post I’ll explain how I use a tiling window manager and why it works so well for me. I hope that you’ll be able to read this and decide if it is right for you, or if you should stick with a regular desktop environment.

To be honest, the tiling isn’t the best part of tiling window managers. I know that’s what’s in the name, but it’s not the best feature.

The best part is the workspaces.

On a regular windows desktop, I might have to press alt-tab 8 or 10 times to get to one of the programs I had been using a while ago (or mouse through the 10 tabs on my home bar). In a workspaces environment, I simply have to press super key + 9 (for example).

The tiling is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. When I open a new program, I get to choose if it comes up fullscreen, if it comes up beside whatever program I’m already using, if it comes up in a little square, etc. I like to be able to choose where ad how big something opens up. It’s a powerful feature, and I miss it when I’m using a regular desktop environment like Windows or KDE Plasma.

The last thing that makes things work well for me is the keyboard-focused approach to computer interaction. Most of the time I’m using a computer, I’m using my laptop. I don’t carry around a mouse because the amount that I have to use a trackpad in a day is very small. If there is a mouse present, I don’t have a big issue using it, but I don’t like using a trackpad (and I don’t think I’m alone in that).

Every other time I’m using a computer, I’m using more than one monitor. A tiling window manager excels when interacting with multiple monitors. It’s effortless to bounce both content and  my focus between monitors. If slack open on a second monitor, I can move my focus to to that second monitor, respond to a message, and move back to the main task without ever moving my hands. It feels natural, and at this point, to me it flows effortlessly.

Now all of this didn’t come for free. I had to install and configure all of this. I had to read error messages about overloaded keybindings and be able to read the configuration files, some of which are implemented in programming languages. When the tiling window manager I started with didn’t work the way I wanted it to, I had to switch to a new one - one with a completely different configuration syntax. I had to re-write my whole configuration in that new language for the new manager. It took time and effort to get this to work for me. The software may have been free of monetary cost, but I did sink some time into it.

However, for me it’s worth it. The tool that I’m using to write this operates as a good tool should: not as a separate entity, but as an extension of myself.