Scrolling Window Managers: An Alternative Approach to Desktop Navigation
By
todsacerdoti
An everything bagel for the brain. Substantive, layered, well-seasoned.
Summary
The article advocates for scrolling window managers as a superior alternative to tiling window managers, highlighting their intuitive navigation and mouse-friendly interface. The author discusses their experience with PaperWM and notes the growing popularity of this approach with newer systems like Niri and Dank Linux. The piece presents scrolling window managers as an innovative UX metaphor that combines the benefits of tiling with traditional window management.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledI was a pretty early adopter of perhaps the best GNOME extension, PaperWM, which displays your windows as sliding frames that move fluidly with the press of a keystroke.
When everyone was going nuts over tiling windows, I was quietly calling this scrolling style the real innovation in windowed computing.
It was the best of both worlds—easy to navigate, while remaining mousable.
My favorite UX metaphor, the scrolling window manager, is having a moment thanks to innovations like Niri and Dank Linux.
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