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Comment on Comparison of X Window Managers

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i3 is one of my favorite pieces of software. I’m currently writing a clone of it for ChromeOS (as best as the Chrome API will allow anyway).

I think it’s a shame you can’t get something like i3 on OSX or Windows. It’s a primary reason I stick to Linux.

I’m currently writing a clone of it for ChromeOS

This is neat! Are you writing this as some sort of Chrome Extension or forking Ash?

Currently it's just a Chrome extension. The Chrome windows API is pretty decent. I think this "window manager" will have plenty of limitations, but I also think it might just be good enough. In parallel I'm also poking at ash a little bit, but I doubt I'd be able to take on such a large project and actually succeed.

This extension is a window manager that mimics Amethyst for OSX: https://github.com/brockgr/chrometile

It can give an idea of what's possible with the chrome.windows API.

I used StumpWM for a while, but switched back to i3, although I miss controlling my WM with Common Lisp. If StumpWM could implement i3-like window management, I'd be in heaven.

Stump's static window frames is what's kept me using it for so long. I hate how i3 and other dynamic tiling WMs reshuffle and resize everything as soon as you open a new window.

However I'm currently trying w9wm again; I have a slightly-hacked version that I've used on and off for about a decade and it's always fun to return to.

Yeah, i3 is awesome. Sidenote: r/unixporn is probably one of my favorite subreddits, its where I discovered the capability of i3 and always go there for inspiration.

I think it’s a shame you can’t get something like i3 on OSX or Windows.

I presume you mean more than just tiling? As Amethyst [1] gives you that on macOS.

[1] https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst

There are tiling solutions for most OSes, but unless you can get access to an API as low level as X, they tend to not be as good. Amethyst is admirable in many ways, but it's a far cry from i3. Amethyst also has to wrangle with issues such as certain windows just flat out ignoring it, which i3 -- due to how X works -- doesn't have to worry about. i3 is a rock solid tiling solution that pretty much 100% works, and Amethyst is unfortunately a patch on top of another window manager and so can often be clunky.

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