Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!tness7!killer!mit-eddie!bu-cs!bzs
From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Tiling window managers (was RTL)
Message-ID: <22825@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 24 May 88 14:20:50 GMT
References: <8805231933.AA03049@lotus.siemens.com>
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 28
In-reply-to: jcc@LOTUS.SIEMENS.COM's message of 23 May 88 19:33:32 GMT


yeah...this is the right place...

What I honestly don't understand is what is the (user design)
attraction of tiling window managers? I tried the one that came with
Andrew and thought it was the most annoying thing I'd ever seen as my
windows flickered and resized and zipped about as if possessed. It
always seems that I have to do some small strategy to get my windows
"right" and a tiling window manager just defeats that control.

What's the big advantage of merely avoiding overlapped windows at the
cost of losing control and ending up with weird sized windows and having
them move around so you frequently have to visually scan them all to
remember where they are?

I don't think "losing" a window due to overlapping is a very good
argument since there are any number of ways to solve that, tiling
seeming to be a more intrusive approach (eg. a menu in the root window
which provides all the windows that can be brought forward, perhaps
clients could provide a manager with good descriptive strings for that
or even a user could provide it at window creation time via a dialogue
box requested by clicking the window to be identified.)

Seriously, not a flame, I just truly don't know where this goal came
from or why anyone ever decided it was worth putting any effort into,
can someone make a case, I am honestly curious, I don't get it.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University