Optimize with Tiling Window Managers

You're using your computer wrong

Look at your computer screen. How are the windows organized? If you open your browser and a file manager and your music player, they’re probably randomly scattered across your screen. It doesn’t have to be this way!

Modern computers run on the metaphor of a “desktop”, a workspace where you would arrange physical papers and folders. It envisions you as a 1950s executive sitting in an office with a big desk. The papers and folders are freely moveable as they would be on that desktop. But you wouldn’t toss things on the desk randomly, would you? You’d organize them by task or type, making room as you pulled out more projects.

Your computer has more computing power than you’ll ever use, and you could use some of that to arrange the windows automatically. Tiling Window Managers do this for you. Open up whatever app you need and it will be shuffled into your existing desktop in an intelligent way.

Your computer can do this for you, even in Microsoft Windows. I use Linux most of the time myself. Here are a few that I’ve tried:

• xmonad: written in the absurdly delightful functional language Haskell, this one is fun, but requires the whole thing to be recompiled every time you change the configuration.

• i3wm: this is simple and works great. I use it a lot.

• sway: an implementation of i3wm in Wayland.

• hyprland: I’m currently playing with this one. Super fun and fast.

These exist in Windows too, but I haven’t tried them.

• glazewm: an i3wm clone for Windows

• Press the Windows key and the left or right arrow, and that window will snap either to the left or right half of the screen. You might find this sufficient for your needs.

Why would you use this? You want your computer to work for you, freeing you for whatever creative task you need to do. Anything that you don’t have to do, you shouldn’t do. Your time is valuable, as is your thinking! Why should you think about where to put things on a ‘desktop?’ When I play music, I don’t want to think about the instrument; I just want to make music. It should be the same with your laptop.