Anyone here using howm? or giving it a try?
What are you experiences using it?

I am trying to use it to learn about the xcb library, and possible start contributing to open source softwares.

I did manage to run it on both Arch and ubuntu.

seems solid so far.

What are your thoughts?

Link to howm: https://github.com/HarveyHunt/howm

not manual → less power, or am I mistaken

I have only used i3, bspwm and now howm, so I cannot tell you more about that. I can just tell that it is a good modal window manager.

I've not try it already (probably won't) because I'm not into tiling. But the author managed to write a new WM that is worth existing. It's not a copy of something else, with different defaults, so congratz for that.

Also, he told me the floating windows CAN be moved using the keyboard, which is something you don't see enough in tilling WMs.

Looks like a good WM so far, but I'm not convinced the modal approach is a good approach for window managing. See ratpoison: it's an awesome manual tiling WM. But the EMACS-like keybinds make it really painfull to use in it's default state. You can hopefully make "direct" keybinds using "definekey top", and that's why ratpoison is still the BEST TILING WM out there for me :)

(03-09-2014, 06:28 AM)neo1691 Wrote: I have only used i3, bspwm and now howm, so I cannot tell you more about that. I can just tell that it is a good modal window manager.

But i3 is manual, bspwm has presel?

A vim style tiling wm sounds appealing and I should try it out, but seems as though I'm content right now.
Would you say the window management itself is better/easier for you in howm compared to i3/bspwm? If so, in what ways? Or is it just different?
What does modal window managemnt exactly mean? I fail to see the advantages by reading the readme because I'm dumb.
What sort of window management like things does modal window management allow that can't be done in i3/bspwm (apart from I'm assuming being able to map a lot more commands to keybindings.)

One advantage I see, is non intrusiveness of the WM in your other apps workflow. For example, let's say you use ALT+[0-9] to switch between channels in irssi.

With a "normal" WM, if you bind ALT+[0-9] to switch the current workspace, you'll not be able to switch channels in irssi anymore, but with a modal WM, if you're not in "Workspace management" mode, ALT+[0-9] will have no effect.

So the biggest advantage I see, is that you only have to worry about one keybind: the mode switcher (but I might be wrong... That's how I see the modal approach, though)

Sweet, does this mean there are other modal wms?

I didn't try it yet because I'm not into tiling.
However, I like how he used doxygen and travis, even though unit tests are, most of the time, useless or very hard to do right for C programs.

@rwzy: Not that I'm aware of. though there are some similar behavior, like ratpoison, which behave like GNU/screen (or emacs). You have to press an escape sequence before the actual keybind.

There was also an obscure WM coded in Lisp, that has a really weird behavior, where you created containers, windows, and nested containers, and such... Can't recall the name though. But you probably don't wanna try it, trust me :P

@venam: Yeah, he did an amazing work here, either for commenting, or writing nicely readable code.

@neo1691: howm looks pretty neat (i <3 tiling, i'm a herbstluftwm user). i have some design objections, e.g. preset layouts. that's why i moved from awesome to hlwm. but the floating stuff does look nice. i plan on giving it a try soon.

(03-09-2014, 10:24 AM)z3bra Wrote: There was also an obscure WM coded in Lisp, that has a really weird behavior, where you created containers, windows, and nested containers, and such... Can't recall the name though. But you probably don't wanna try it, trust me :P

are you talking about Common Lisp FullScreen Window Manager (CLFSWM)?

(03-09-2014, 06:59 AM)rwzy Wrote:

(03-09-2014, 06:28 AM)neo1691 Wrote: I have only used i3, bspwm and now howm, so I cannot tell you more about that. I can just tell that it is a good modal window manager.

But i3 is manual, bspwm has presel?

A vim style tiling wm sounds appealing and I should try it out, but seems as though I'm content right now.
Would you say the window management itself is better/easier for you in howm compared to i3/bspwm? If so, in what ways? Or is it just different?
What does modal window managemnt exactly mean? I fail to see the advantages by reading the readme because I'm dumb.
What sort of window management like things does modal window management allow that can't be done in i3/bspwm (apart from I'm assuming being able to map a lot more commands to keybindings.)

What you say is cent percent right, I am finding it difficult using it now, but just given the fact that I love vim very much and I am intrigued by the modal design, I thought of sharing it here and seeing what are your views.

And yes, bspwm as a wm was easier, but just like it was difficult to master vim at the beginning, howm may grow on me later.

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(03-09-2014, 06:41 AM)z3bra Wrote: Looks like a good WM so far, but I'm not convinced the modal approach is a good approach for window managing

Exactly my earlier reaction. However I am just giving it a try, helping the author and testing and learning by reading the code. Let's see how it pans out.