Linked by ddc_ on Tue 22nd Nov 2011 21:29 UTC
Calm window manager (mainly known for its shorthand name cwm) is a member of a once-powerful and now-declining family of minimalist X11 window managers. It is relatively unknown outside the OpenBSD community, but it deserves more notice.
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RE[3]: Mouse-less interface
by foregam on Wed 23rd Nov 2011 21:54
in reply to "RE[2]: Mouse-less interface"
Member since:2010-11-17
Member since:
2006-06-28
That's funny. I think there aren't any applications (well besides web browsers) where I enjoy shortcuts more than in these two.
I have been using i3/wmii/xmonad (and similar window managers) for a very long time. It all looks awesome when you start with, but then you launch your first applications, open an ssh connection, start tmux inside and so on and suddenly your shortcut does three actions at once. And then the problems begin. You change key bindings, but then their interfere in other situations, so you make more complicated key bindings, holding down more buttons and in the end you have real problems because of your brain has problems to keep up with all this short cuts and you somehow decouple from what your fingers do there. In the end you give up and find out that things looked faster, because you constantly hammered on the keyboard, but efficiency decreased. Then you start to learn all these nifty ideas people had for interfaces using the mouse. You regret that you didn't learn these things earlier.
My conclusion (until now) is that you have to use the right tool for the job. For example stuff like vim are nice and alt-tab is cool, because you use both of them without interrupting your thought process, but when you switch between something like programming and chatting then the mouse seems to be the right approach. The same is true for lots of other things.
One of the best approaches so for is the way Plan 9 and a lot of its applications do it, but the "modern world" sadly doesn't fit with this. I really would like to see something like acme in the real world. It also supports HTTP/basic WWW, but you can't really use it for your every day stuff.
I have also been a great fan of browsers vimperator and conky for a while. Sadly they interfere with web sites that are already developed for efficient use. Oh and using them together with an "efficient" window manager is an absolute hell. Way too many key bindings with the same meaning.
Edited 2011-11-23 14:39 UTC