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Timecodes:
00:00 Intro
00:44 Sponsor: Squarespace
01:45 What's a window manager?
06:02 Advantages of Tiling WMs
09:40 Why I don't like them
14:39 Sponsor: Tuxedo
15:44 Support the channel

#Linux #tiling #windowmanager #linuxdesktop

All desktop environments provide a window manager, it's in charge of displaying your windows, handling their position and state, as in maximized, minimized, the size of the window, the current focused one, and everything along those lines. On top of these baked in window managers, you have tiling window managers.

Stuff like i3, hyprland, sway, awesomeWM, BSPWM, XMonad, qtile, ratpoison and a lot more.

Some are manual tilers, some are dynamic. Dynamic tilers will open each new window following something YOU defined.

Basically, you have plenty of choice, but tiling window managers will replace your current desktop with something that is more meant to be used with a keyboard, without much user input, to maximize the use of your screen real estate. So, let's look at why you'd want to use a tiling window manager.

The first, obvious advantage is that you never get anything overlapping anything else, unless you actively choose to do so. On a regular desktop, you'll have to move windows out of the way, or minimize them, or resize them, and this is basically wasted time; it's time not spent using the computer and accomplishing something.

The second advantage is that it sort of removes the need to use the mouse or the touchpad 99% of the time. The only time you'll probably need to use it is to interact with the contents of the window itself, like clicking a link in the web browser, or clicking a button in a window.

Another advantage is resource usage. A tiling window manager generally doesn't bring with it a whole system of panels, overviews, app grid, menus, effects and more, meaning that you don't load as many things in memory as with a complete desktop.

A big advantage is also screen usage: without a big panel and a dock, tiling windows always uses the most space available on your screen.

So, with so many advantages, why wouldn't I use a tiling window manager?

Most desktops already give me enough of the tiling features to suit my use case. Using KDE, or GNOME, I can already tile my windows if I want to. I can drag them to any corner or edge and have them use that screen size. In KDE, I even have a full tiling manager that I never use because I don't need it.

Sure, this edge tiling doesn't give you as much flexibility as a full tiling window manager, but for me personally, it's more than enough. And it all comes down to my use case: I make videos.

Which means I have 2 modes: research / writing mode, and video editing mode. In the first, I need 2 windows: A browser for research, and QOwnNotes to write. Sometimes, I'll use a virtual machine as well, but tiling this on a laptop display doesn't make sense, so I open it full screen on a virtual desktop.

In editing mode, I have my video editor, Davinci Resolve, in full screen. Again, not something a tiling WM would help me with.

My panel autohides behind windows, so it doesn't take up space, and while I do have title bars, I also don't have gaps between my windows when they're tiled, or between a window and a screen edge, so I'm actually pretty sure it's the exact same screen space usage.

I also don't lose out on configuration, at least on KDE: I can change all these shortcuts, I can change how windows open by default, they remember their previous size, it works. And finally, most of the time, I work on a laptop. It's a 16 inch screen, but it's still a laptop. And tiling there is just completely inefficient and makes things way too small.

What I'm saying is that yes, a tiling window manager is really useful, and cool, but it's NOT for every use case and every user.

When it comes to free, open-source desktop publishing (DTP) there’s little as capable, as fully-featured, or as widely used in professional settings as Scribus.

Now a brand new stable release of this powerful page-making tool is available, the first since 2019.

Scribus 1.6.0 ships with “thousands of enhancements and fixes across all areas of the program”, with its development team noting it’s more featured, faster, and more stable than all versions prior.

Used to create everything from newsletters to books, Scribus provides scores of features commonly found in paid-for, proprietary DTP software, allowing users to design and create complex layouts, manipulate text, insert images, manage colours, and export documents for free.

Interestingly, Scribus is now around 23 years old, so it is a solidly mature product. Yet it can work on macOS Apple Silicon and also has a distro-independent AppImage installation available. It’s the perfect tool to design once and use across all desktop OS’s.

Scribus has many unexpected touches, such as powerful vector drawing tools, support for a huge number of file types via import/export filters, emulation of colour blindness or the rendering of markup languages like LaTeX or Lilypond inside Scribus.

The Scribus file format is XML-based and open. Unlike proprietary binary file formats, even damaged documents can be recovered with a simple text editor – sometimes a challenging problem with other page layout programs.

Reliable PDF creation is the key to a successful print run at a commercial printing house, and it has been a pillar of Scribus development since the early days of its development. Scribus was the first DTP program in the world that supported the demanding PDF/X-3 specification. Scribus also offers a wide range of options with respect to PDF export.

See omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/01/scribu…
#Blog, #DTP, #opensource, #publishing, #technology

Some canny devs have started looking elsewhere, not least the open source and free game engine Godot. In fact, on hearing the original Unity announcement, two industry veterans decided to learn the engine and build a game satirizing the situation – and they did it all in one week.

The result is Install Fee Tycoon, an idle clicker in the vein of Cookie Clicker only instead of baking cookies at exponential rates, it’s reinstalls of games built on the “Chaos3D” engine.

Granted, an idle clicker isn’t exactly the most advanced type of game, but it demonstrates the point that experienced devs can whip up something in Godot, fully formed, in no time and that Unity is not the be-all and end-all. It also neatly plays on concerns many had about how Unity’s install tracking would work and how it could potentially be open to abuse.

Yes, it is certainly not as great as Unity when it comes to that super-realism, but for many games it would really suffice quite well enough. That goodness there is some competition available so that devs do have some choices. I often feel it is better to stay a step or two behind the fanciest features, and rather retain your freedoms and not get locked into a subscription model you get held hostage to (sounds a bit like some cloud subscription services).

I remember a time when most games were not ultra-realistic, and we still got totally lost in enjoying the gameplay itself.

Godot is completely free and open source under the permissive MIT license. No strings attached, no royalties, nothing. Users’ games are theirs, down to the last line of engine code. Godot’s development is fully independent and community-driven, empowering users to help shape their engine to match their expectations. It is supported by the Godot Foundation not-for-profit. It is cross-platform for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and Web Editor.

But there are also other alternatives such as Cocos2d-x, CryEngine (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S), Armory, OpenMW, and LÖVE.

See theregister.com/2023/09/27/uni…
#Blog, #gaming, #opensource, #technology