Workspaces

Some time ago, I was talking with a friend about window management. It is something I have never really ever thought about. In recent months, I am starting to appreciate the different ways windows can be managed and worked with.

I have always been a Windows user. As long as I can remember, my primary computer has been Windows. I had iMacs and eMacs in elementary school. I’ve often had a random Linux machine, be it a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian, or my laptops running Mint or Lubuntu to squeeze some extra life and performance out of them. I never really did anything to pay attention to how the windows were, or could be, managed differently. I just rolled with what I knew: click, drag, double click to maximize, snap to half the screen to organize things quickly. Honestly, I’ve never had an issue with any of this.

In February, I started a new job that provided me with a Macbook. This is my first time having to use a non-Windows machine heavily. I found it generally tolerable, but I hated (and still dislike) the maximize behavior of Mac OS. I want the maximize button to fill the screen, but not actually fullscreen the application. I have since learned that I can double click the window bar to maximize in this fashion, but I did not know that at the time. For the first time, I felt held back by how a piece of my Operating System worked. My friend who has also used a Macbook for work, and who has stronger opinions about widow management than I, mentioned that they use Aerospace to emulate tiling window management on their machine, and that tiling window managers would not have the issues that I was dealing with.

I decided to give it a try.

Honestly, the learning curve was really hard on me. Initially, I didn’t understand it at all. I thought you had to operate it via the command line. Eventually, I understood the default keyboard controls. However, there were still some barriers. The auto-maximizing windows were convenient, but everything else felt like I was fighting against it. I didn’t understand workspaces. I had an annoying time managing multiple workspaces on the same monitor. I didn’t have any custom macros to optimize things.

It still felt more convenient than dealing with the crappy maximize behavior, so I decided I would tough it out. I am glad I did. I created some macros to handle tasks I found myself frequently doing (assigning specific workspaces to specific monitors, moving windows/workspaces to specific monitors) and it has become much more comfortable. Every now and then I get a little jumbled and find myself scrambling around with a mouse, but those moments become less common with time.

I have come to appreciate tiling window managers and what they can bring to the table. As someone who implicitly associates GUI with mouse controls, it’s really interesting to interact with windows in such a keyboard-heavy way. I encourage anyone who is curious to give it a try. You may not love it, but the experience alone is good for reminding you that computers can serve you in new ways that you had never previously considered.