Experimental Mir-based tiling WM is winning acceptance outside Ubuntopia

The Miracle-WM tiling window manager for Canonical's Mir display server has hit 0.3 – and also reaches places you may not expect to find Canonical code. The new version is 0.3.0 and as Miracle-WM's core functionality settles down somewhat, it's starting to get prettier as well. Although it's still new, there are several things …

[robinsonb5]

*Borders?!*

> Windows can now have borders, and that of the active window can be a different color, to make it more obvious which one you're typing into.

Steady on, people - I'm not sure the world's ready for that kind of innovation.

Seriously, though, now I'm getting older and less eagle-eyed I really appreciate those kinds of visual cues, and find their disappearance elsewhere extremely annoying.

[Gene Cash]

Re: *Borders?!*

Eh, FVWM can do it with

TitleStyle Inactive Solid blue

TitleStyle ActiveUp Solid yellow

The active window gets yellow borders, the others go blue. Even better if you do "Style * SloppyFocus" for an intelligent version of "focus follows mouse"

"Style * TitleAtLeft" puts the titlebar on the left, instead of the top. Gains a bit of valuable vertical real estate, and everybody loses their shit when they see it "because I didn't think it was even possible to put the titlebar on the LEFT" or anywhere other than the top like Windows. If Windows doesn't do it, lord knows it's not possible.

[druck]

Re: *Borders?!*

I wrote a mirror app to help in drawing symmetrical objects (on RISC OS which doesn't force the window with the focus to the top). It could reflect on any direction, but for above it had to move the title bar to the bottom, which no one had ever seen before.

[Anonymous Coward]

> One of the more unusual things about Miracle-WM is that it runs on top of Canonical's Mir display server, which is very much still around and in active development. In the wider Linux community, it's common to find anti-Canonical and anti-Ubuntu sentiment, particularly against some Canonical technology such as Snap packaging. Mir, however, seems to be winning friends and influencing people.

Fantastic journalism as always. No, it is not running on the Mir display server, that's dead as a doornail. Miracle-WM runs on the Mir Wayland compositor, which Canonical rebranded to save face after having to abandon the Mir display server.

[Androgynous Cupboard]

"Since version 2.0, Mir has been a pure Wayland compositor". A prominent quote form the article linked to by the "Mir display server" text, it's actually quite hard to miss.

[Joe W]

As you wrote: a quote from the linked article. Don't you think this should have been in this article as well? It is no longer a display server (X11 or Xorg replacement), but rather something sitting on top of Wayland. There is a difference, don't you think? And just maybe using "Wayland compositor Mir" instead of "Mir display server" would have cleared things up. At least for me. I was sort of excited, because I don't follow the Mir development (apart from what I read here), and here was another display server.

[Mage]

Baffled

Window resize and move operations can now include animation effects, as well as switching between workspaces. Lest ye mock, this sort of thing has been attracting folks to Linux for at least a decade and a half. Windows can now have borders, and that of the active window can be a different color, to make it more obvious which one you're typing into.

I used to have that on Windows up till Win7. I think I might even have had Workspaces as an add-on on NT 4.0 in 1999, or maybe on XP in 2002.

I've had all of that on Linux for over 25 years. Have these folk looked at Mate desktop, which has a choice of WMs, lately?

Or is this something to hide how rubbish Wayland is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Old single CPU brain

Maybe I'm simple minded, but having the background opaquely transmitted through a text window would cause my brain to overload and hang.

[Joe W]

Re: Old single CPU brain

It does! I was upset that somebody had scratched my screen, but it was just the default background picture that had two white lines across it...

[Anonymous Coward]

HIDEOUS

That's hideous.

One of the great innovations from Apple in 1983 with the Lisa was overlapping windows. It wasn't possible on the Xerox system that it's frequently claimed Apple copied (they didn't, but people like to lie about it). Micro$loth didn't figure out how to do it until Windoze 2 in 1987.

Tiling windows is a MASSIVE step backward.

[robinsonb5]

Re: HIDEOUS

> Tiling windows is a MASSIVE step backward.

I can see that they'd work well if all you use is a bunch of terminal windows. Overlapping windows certainly have their advantages but there are also problems with the way they're typically implemented today - and the pop-to-front-on-any-interaction model interacts badly with drag-and-drop unless you add special-case workaround (like Windows did some 25 years back) to prevent it when starting a drag-and-drop operation.

I suspect avoiding those problems is another part of the appeal of tiling window managers. Personally I sidestep the issue on Linux by just disabling raise-on-click - but I wouldn't put money on how many more years that'll even be possible.

[Joe W]

Re: HIDEOUS

I like tiling as an option. Especially with the big screens we have nowadays, and actually really wide screens - so having two terminal windows side by side automatically arranging themselves (Win 10 does that nicely) so they don't overlap makes sense (or a terminal window and some documentation). I still like to overlap windows, but to be honest I don't really use it that often. On Linux we (used to..) have a lot of choice...

[unimaginative]

Re: HIDEOUS

I agree. if people do not like tiling Window managers they do not need to use them. I find they are significantly more productive.

Do people never do tasks that involve looking at too things at once? Its nicer to to move just your eyes instead of switching, and its nice to see the whole of each Window so nothing gets obscured

On a laptop screen I use full screen windows.

I use just floating windows very little. Usually when I need drag and drop.

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

Re: HIDEOUS

> "Tiling windows is a MASSIVE step backward."

Well, this is a tiling window manager we are talking about, so for the people interested, it is possibly just what they are looking for. The number of nerds who prefer tiling over floating is not small. I myself use an auto-tiling extension that I can switch off when I want floating windows instead. It appears that you are not the target audience, so the fact that you find it hideous is irrelevant to the project.

[Cloudseer]

Missed opportunity

Should have named it the miracle maker Wizard of the word, MC Undertaker

[mili]

tmux rules

Really? Tiling window managers are a thing? Your screen is soooo big that you need management to break it up it into smaller pieces - pathetic

When it comes to multiple terminal windows tmux is the way to go and if you need to copy things from one application to another your work is unnecessary - find a more fulfilling job

SCNR it's Friday

[Anonymous Coward]

tmux drools

Believe it or not, people aren't in the terminal constantly.

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

Re: tmux rules

Really? Ignorant people who can't imagine anyone doing anything differently than they do are a thing? - pathetic