(09-12-2020, 02:35 PM)freem Wrote: I think a comfortable setup requires at least a 2x2 grid of at least 80 columns for 30 lines. That's because I use C++ mostly, where I try hard to keep short blocks. With shell scripting or reading logs, for example, I don't split my screens vertically, but I can work with less than 10 lines shown.

That's the exact issue that drove me to rethink about the "maximize screen usage" benefit of tiling WMs. Even if one has all windows needed on screen, it is meaningless if each window has too little space. If the physical screen space is inadequate, making full use of it doesn't really solve the issue. Now that we can't put everything on screen comfortably anyway, can we cut some unnecessary content from screen then? Can we only display those windows that are *absolutely necessary* at each moment? As you have noticed, to achieve this goal, a lot of context switching is necessary, since what is "absolutely necessary" changes frequently. Hence my two questions: is it possible to make such frequent context switching affordable? And how much screen space we can squeeze if so?

(09-12-2020, 02:35 PM)freem Wrote: Well, I suppose one could just put a mark on windows to jump there, but my brain does not work like a CPU, I don't have an IP register nor a call stack in there.

You might be interested in i3-easyfocus, which provides a way to jump to windows like those VIM browser plugins: some one or two letter labels are drawn on each window, and typing the label will jump to the corresponding window.

(09-12-2020, 02:35 PM)freem Wrote: Container is the original words from i3's doc, IIRC. Its also used, for example, in wxWidgets AUI API (https://docs.wxwidgets.org/3.0/group__gr...__aui.html)

Well, I have used the word "layout" for similar things in previous replies, then. Jumping back to the origin of this quotation list, my idea is to "poolize" windows and/or layouts (containers) per workspace. Every moment exactly one layout (may contain only window as well) will be displayed on the screen, but there may be many others in the "pool". And one can call out things in the pool conveniently.

Take the use case of debugging a C/S application with one client and one server (for simplicity) for example (hopefully I am not misunderstanding the actual case). In the "pool", there are two gdb windows, two log windows, two terminals and perhaps two code windows. You may as well put layouts you may need in the "pool", for example, you can put the following stuffs in the pool:

* a "monitoring" layout, which contains the two gdb windows and the two log windows
* the "manipulate server" layout, which contains the server terminal, code window, he server gdb and log window.
* similarly a "manipulate client" layout.

Now assume you are in the monitoring layout and find something interesting from the server side, and you decide to call some commands on the server side to further investigate your findings, you can simply call out the "manipulate server" layout and perform you operations, and switch back to the "monitoring" layout afterwards.