Re: Workspace/desktop switching
on Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 01:19:41AM -0600, Alex Malinovich ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > I've been seeing a lot of discussions about various WM's lately, and > everyone seems to be extremely concerned about easy workspace > switching. I'm just wondering what exactly everyone uses workspaces > for? Every once in a while, if I'm doing two things at once that each > require 5 windows a piece, I'll use two desktops/workspaces, but I > don't think I've ever really gone over that. That leads me to believe > that there's some unrealized benefit that I'm missing out on. So what > do you use your workspaces for, and why are they so important? Task separation. - Local system admin - Mail (multiple mutt windows) - General websurfing, chat. - Office apps. - Programming. - Multiple remote system access (half dozen systems, terminal open to each). - Programming work. - Other task-specific work. As with others: I can keep windows open, don't need to keep shutting stuff down, avoid distractions (IRC/chat is only open on a single window). I know "where" to go to do a specific task. If necessary, a specific window can be "pinned" for access from multiple desktops. Overall: keeps my workspace organized, minimizes clutter, keeps me from jumping hoops to get things done, maximizes use of real estate on a given workspace. My own desktop migration: tvm => mwm => HP VUE => Sun CDE => fvwm => WindowMaker. I've tried pretty much all the currently available GNU/Linux desktops, like to see what's available / what they offer, am happy with what I use. Peace. -- Karsten M. Self <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Information is not power after all: Old-fashioned power is power. If you aren't big industry or government, you have very little power. Once they've hacked the electronic voting system, you'll have no power at all. - Robert X. Cringely pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Workspace/desktop switching
On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 01:19:41AM -0600, Alex Malinovich wrote: > I've been seeing a lot of discussions about various WM's lately, and > everyone seems to be extremely concerned about easy workspace switching. > I'm just wondering what exactly everyone uses workspaces for? Every once > in a while, if I'm doing two things at once that each require 5 windows > a piece, I'll use two desktops/workspaces, but I don't think I've ever > really gone over that. That leads me to believe that there's some > unrealized benefit that I'm missing out on. So what do you use your > workspaces for, and why are they so important? Basically, workspaces are handy for keeping stuff open that I haven't finished with, but I don't want to work on at present. So, for example, here's a tree (grafted together from bits of pstree output) of my current desktop layout: pwm |-workspace 1 | |-konqueror --profile webbrowsing # web | |-x-terminal-emul -title bylands -name ... # mailing lists | | `-ssh... | |-x-terminal-emul -title ice -name ... # irc | | `-ssh... | `-xterm | `-mutt # email | |-workspace 2 # working on my CV | |-x-terminal-emul -name zenburn# here. | | `-screen | | |-vim cv.tex | | `-latex cv | `-advi cv.dvi | |-workspace 3 # misc. stuff: | |-amsn /usr/bin/amsn # instant messenging | `-slrn # usenet | |-workspace 4 ... Right now I'm procrastinating so I'm not working on my CV, but its there when I pull myself together :-) -- Jon Dowland http://jon.dowland.name/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Workspace/desktop switching
I've been using multiple desktops for years - in fact since I first acquired a 486-25 (!) at work, the first machine I had which had enough "welly" to run X. fvwm-2 was the window manager. My reasons are the same as most that have been quoted already: I use desktop 1 for xterms, 2 for xemacs, 4 for galeon/mozilla, 5 for openoffice, 6 for VMWare, 7 for sound apps, 11 for vnc, 12 for kmail. I usually have 12 desktops enabled (there is little extra cost after all) and use the others as spares. Oh yes, I'm using kwm under kde3.1 almost exclusively these days except for vnc session where I use icewm. -- |Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Music does not have to be understood| |Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada| It has to be listened to. | |email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | |phone: +1 250 370 4452 | Hermann Scherchen. | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Workspace/desktop switching
Alvin Oga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Alex Malinovich wrote: > >> I've been seeing a lot of discussions about various WM's lately, and >> everyone seems to be extremely concerned about easy workspace switching. >> I'm just wondering what exactly everyone uses workspaces for? Every once >> in a while, if I'm doing two things at once that each require 5 windows >> a piece, I'll use two desktops/workspaces, but I don't think I've ever >> really gone over that. That leads me to believe that there's some >> unrealized benefit that I'm missing out on. So what do you use your >> workspaces for, and why are they so important? Answering the OP: I never minimize windows, and I never have windows overlap if I can help it. But there are things I want full-screen; on my laptop, this is a single Emacs window, on desktop machines with real monitors it's an xterm running ssh next to an Emacs running on that machine. :-) It's also a Web browser or Gnucash. But using workspaces (in Openbox, for me) makes it easy to switch what I'm doing: F2 will always bring up my local IM system, F3 mail, F4 Web. To the responder: > - i'd login into 100 machines if i wanted to type passwd to each > and i will never use "passwd-less login".. if the hacker cracks 1 > server than they can propagate to the rest of your boxes Maybe you should get a better login system. I think most public-key systems are designed such that the private key never actually passes over the network; even using ssh to a compromised machine, the remote machine couldn't grab your private key. Similarly, Kerberos is explicitly designed so that compromised machines can't get your password, and a single compromised service (that doesn't have root) isn't even enough to pretend to be you to other services on the same machine. -- David Maze [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://people.debian.org/~dmaze/ "Theoretical politics is interesting. Politicking should be illegal." -- Abra Mitchell -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Workspace/desktop switching
On Tuesday 18 November 2003 01:19 am, Alex Malinovich wrote: > I've been seeing a lot of discussions about various WM's lately, and > everyone seems to be extremely concerned about easy workspace switching. > I'm just wondering what exactly everyone uses workspaces for? Use #1: Efficient parallelizing Obviously it's going to depend on what you do with your machine, but I do a lot of time intensive hand-off tasks. This often has to do with download/upload times, but also sometimes with disk-access, or even CPU time on a remote machine (won't help if it's local, unless we're talking about multiple processors which I don't have). Why wait for a long download when you can be browsing the web or working on your development project at the same time? And switching desktops is usually *much* faster (2-3X) than opening/closing individual app windows in actual computer time, and even faster when you consider that it takes fewer mouse clicks. Use#2: More space to spread out in [Doing this now] Just as an example (and this incorporates some of #1) I develop Zope products (web apps). I keep a master copy on the file server, and periodically mirror it into the "Products" directory and refresh as part of the development cycle. During this time, I usually have one desktop with two gVim windows (I prefer separate windows over the internal panes, BTW), one on the main source module I'm editing and one on to browse files it depends on -- usually to read, but I sometimes need to make edits there. Then I have an xterm logged in as the Zope user which I use to mirror the results. I use a 2nd desktop to have a browser window pointed at the local Zope server, usually with several tabs addressing the Product refresh page, an object-tree browser page, and the page where I actually see the output. I use a 3rd desktop with a tabbed browser pointing at the local Python manual, Zope.org, Python.org, and google for researching questions as they come up. For testing: 1) save source files, 2) up arrow and enter to run the "cp" command that copies the sources to the Products directory, 3) swap desktops, swap tabs, click "refresh" wait for response, 4) swap to output screen, click reload and check the results. It's not quite as simple as compile, link, run, but web apps are like that. There's also a unit-testing mode which hopefully I've mostly completed before getting to this level. I use a 4th desktop to hold my email client. I may have one or two emails open at a time. Sometimes I'll start writing a question to a list and then realize I can figure out the answer for myself and stop. Of course, I also use it to take a break and answer a question myself. Like now. Sometimes I need to swap over to my reference desktop to check something about my answer or verify a URL. So that's four. Right now I have two more in use, because I also have a separate development project that I'm just collecting information for. That's three xterms logged onto remote machines at my clients site: one each on two machines (different architectures, as I have to install software for both), and one with w3m running in the window. I'm using it to download software package files. That's on desktop #5. The 6th desktop just has XMMS in it, because I'm listening to music. Occasionally, I minimize apps. But as I said, it's usually more faster to switch desktops than to go to and from the taskbar. I used to be limited by the CPU speed and RAM (2 or 3 big apps would strap the computer), but I've upgraded, so now I'm mostly limited by how much I can think about at once (which is how it ought to be ;-) ). Note this is KDE 2.2.2 that comes with "Woody". My biggest complaint is that I haven't figured out how to sweep virtual-desktop style from desktop to desktop (like I could with FVWM), but must manually click which one I want. I figure there's probably a setting somewhere that controls that (or will be in KDE 3?), but it's not really such a pain -- I've already gotten used to it. Cheers, Terry -- Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com ) Anansi Spaceworks http://www.anansispaceworks.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Workspace/desktop switching
On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 01:19:41AM -0600, Alex Malinovich wrote: } I've been seeing a lot of discussions about various WM's lately, and } everyone seems to be extremely concerned about easy workspace switching. } I'm just wondering what exactly everyone uses workspaces for? Every once } in a while, if I'm doing two things at once that each require 5 windows } a piece, I'll use two desktops/workspaces, but I don't think I've ever } really gone over that. That leads me to believe that there's some } unrealized benefit that I'm missing out on. So what do you use your } workspaces for, and why are they so important? Way back when, in 1994, I had a summer job which had me in front of an X terminal (8-bit, true, but 1600x1200) hooked up to the "fast" machine (a Sparc5) where they had nothing for me to do for the first three or four weeks. They told me to "familiarize myself with the system." I tried the following window managers at that time: twm, ctwm, vtwm, tvtwm, fvwm (I'm not sure it had even reached 1.0 yet), olwm, olvwm, mwm, 4Dwm (we had an SGI around), and piewm (which is really just a variant of tvtwm with pie menus). Though I liked the look of olwm/olvwm (call me crazy, but I actually liked OpenLook), the configuration was annoying. Several were simply too short on functionality (twm, ctwm, fvwm, mwm, 4Dwm). It came down to piewm, tvtwm, and vtwm. I found that vtwm had a slower way of switching virtual workspaces, plus tvtwm has a feature I have never seen in any other window manager ever: the ability to drag a full-size window into the mini virtual desktop and be able to continue moving it to the desired desktop within the mini view. The only reason I chose tvtwm over piewm is that it seemsed that tvtwm was still being developed (though it turned out that it actually wasn't). Since 1994, I have used my first desktop for local work, my second desktop for web (yes, I was doing web work in 1994), and my third desktop for remote connections. Nowadays my fourth desktop is dedicated to VMWare or VNC (call it my "alien environments" desktop, since VMWare is used for WinXP and VNC is used for MacOS X). I actually keep 10 desktops, but generally only use the first four. The rest are there if I need them. Also, a blank desktop is a dandy "boss key" (for those of you who remember such things). } Alex Malinovich --Greg -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Workspace/desktop switching
On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 20:19, Alex Malinovich wrote: > I've been seeing a lot of discussions about various WM's lately, and > everyone seems to be extremely concerned about easy workspace switching. > I'm just wondering what exactly everyone uses workspaces for? Every once > in a while, if I'm doing two things at once that each require 5 windows > a piece, I'll use two desktops/workspaces, but I don't think I've ever > really gone over that. That leads me to believe that there's some > unrealized benefit that I'm missing out on. So what do you use your > workspaces for, and why are they so important? It's a personal thing, I think. The first Linux system I installed (Red Hat 5) gave me 4 workspaces by default, and I just got used to having each app on a different workspace - even to the extent of having the KPPP dialler on a different workspace from Kmail or Opera. I find it much easier to keep track of separate windows if, instead of overlapping, they're each on a different workspace.(It's also something Windoze can't do, which is always a plus in my opinion :) Now I've got so used to it, I'd really miss it if I couldn't do it that way. (When I have to use Windoze, I habitually minimise any apps I'm not using right at that moment, so I typically only have one window on the screen at once. This has the same effect as my Linux habit, but is slower. I just like to have an uncluttered screen). cr -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Workspace/desktop switching
Date: Today 01:35:32 >> On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 01:19:41AM -0600, Alex Malinovich wrote: >> I've been seeing a lot of discussions about various WM's lately, and >> everyone seems to be extremely concerned about easy workspace switching. >> I'm just wondering what exactly everyone uses workspaces for? Every once >> in a while, if I'm doing two things at once that each require 5 windows >> a piece, I'll use two desktops/workspaces, but I don't think I've ever >> really gone over that. That leads me to believe that there's some >> unrealized benefit that I'm missing out on. So what do you use your >> workspaces for, and why are they so important? >Tom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >wrote: >I use exactly 2 virtual desktops and Fluxbox: >Desktop 1 has 4 terminals. Desktop 2 has mozilla basically full-screen. >Flux lets me use the mouse-wheel to alternate them. More than two, and >it's not as efficient to "flip" bing-bang between them; I have to stop >and think about where I want to stop. With 2 it's just a muscle twitch, >no cerberal activity required. >Sometimes other windows will float transitively above them. If I need >an app to stay around for a while, I'll tab-dock it with one of the >terminals, or tab-dock it with Moz if it needs lots of real estate. >I love it. I keep trying fancier things but get no additional benefit. >Like I said, more than 2, and I have to expend mental energy. It took me the longest time to really start to use more than one Workspace. I was trapped into how Windows only uses one Workspace, unless you have special programs that provide the extra Workspaces. Back then I had dual monitors so I have plenty of window real estate, but a ton of minimized windows. But in Linux I started to play with workspaces, I use 3 workspaces on a dual monitor setup. I use Workspace 3 for my Kmail and email and a browser window pointing to a whois search sites for Spam. I use Workspace 2 for terminals, like xterm or lcdproc server, and I have a browser on one screen also, I might have linux sites in this with tabbed pages. Workspace 1 is dedicated for system stats, like top, and I have a RC5-72 going in one window, with a browser that points to news sites. Or a newsreader, or a vnc session of another system. I must confess I find dual monitors much, much, much more convient then many workspaces. I would rather give up my workspaces than my monitors. But then if I had to use a single monitor I would really want workspaces. Dual monitors saves you time, and is a ton easier than having to switch between workspaces, or minimize windows. If you want to know more about dual or more monitors you might want to check this site out. http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/gallery.asp This points to the gallery of people who sent in pictures of their systems, it might be slanted to windows but is has one of the best gallery's. Just point and clickity click. Rthoreau -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Workspace/desktop switching
On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 01:19:41 -0600 Alex Malinovich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hi > I've been seeing a lot of discussions about various WM's lately, and > everyone seems to be extremely concerned about easy workspace > switching. I'm just wondering what exactly everyone uses workspaces > for? Every once in a while, if I'm doing two things at once that each > require 5 windows a piece, I'll use two desktops/workspaces, but I > don't think I've ever really gone over that. That leads me to believe > that there's some unrealized benefit that I'm missing out on. So what > do you use your workspaces for, and why are they so important? I'm using waimea, which has 9 desktops by default. They can easily be switched, by moving the mouse out of the current desktop. I sometimes use up to 7-8 workspaces: one for mail client (fullscreen), one for IRC, on for XMMS and one for Mozilla. The other fill up with aterms and gvims. The idea is to basically have one workspace for one task. Waimea has a neat dockapp called wampager, which shows you on which dekstop you are. Using always the same desktop for predefined programms (mail client, irc, xmms, mozilla) makes it easy to remember where your programms are. Cheers, Serge -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Workspace/desktop switching
hi ya alex On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Alex Malinovich wrote: > I've been seeing a lot of discussions about various WM's lately, and > everyone seems to be extremely concerned about easy workspace switching. > I'm just wondering what exactly everyone uses workspaces for? Every once > in a while, if I'm doing two things at once that each require 5 windows > a piece, I'll use two desktops/workspaces, but I don't think I've ever > really gone over that. That leads me to believe that there's some > unrealized benefit that I'm missing out on. So what do you use your > workspaces for, and why are they so important? i log into about 50 systems ... at any given time ... and some per client#1 and other xterms per client#2 - switching between windoze/doors/xterms is extremely important/useful - i'd login into 100 machines if i wanted to type passwd to each and i will never use "passwd-less login".. if the hacker cracks 1 server than they can propagate to the rest of your boxes and i dont like it when kde or gnome hangs... or if konqueror hangs.. panic panic panic... how do i unhang the hung x11 processes .. which one.. -- its major pain to login as user and su - root to each machine again ( i gave up on gnome ... too unstable ) - machines been up 3 months.. 6 months.. no problem ( too long that one sometimes forget the passwds ) c ya alvin - all that w/ kde-3.1.1a w/ 256MB of memory on k6-350 ... no problem switches almost instantly -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Workspace/desktop switching
On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 01:19:41AM -0600, Alex Malinovich wrote: > I've been seeing a lot of discussions about various WM's lately, and > everyone seems to be extremely concerned about easy workspace switching. > I'm just wondering what exactly everyone uses workspaces for? Every once > in a while, if I'm doing two things at once that each require 5 windows > a piece, I'll use two desktops/workspaces, but I don't think I've ever > really gone over that. That leads me to believe that there's some > unrealized benefit that I'm missing out on. So what do you use your > workspaces for, and why are they so important? I use exactly 2 virtual desktops and Fluxbox: Desktop 1 has 4 terminals. Desktop 2 has mozilla basically full-screen. Flux lets me use the mouse-wheel to alternate them. More than two, and it's not as efficient to "flip" bing-bang between them; I have to stop and think about where I want to stop. With 2 it's just a muscle twitch, no cerberal activity required. Sometimes other windows will float transitively above them. If I need an app to stay around for a while, I'll tab-dock it with one of the terminals, or tab-dock it with Moz if it needs lots of real estate. I love it. I keep trying fancier things but get no additional benefit. Like I said, more than 2, and I have to expend mental energy. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Workspace/desktop switching
I've been seeing a lot of discussions about various WM's lately, and everyone seems to be extremely concerned about easy workspace switching. I'm just wondering what exactly everyone uses workspaces for? Every once in a while, if I'm doing two things at once that each require 5 windows a piece, I'll use two desktops/workspaces, but I don't think I've ever really gone over that. That leads me to believe that there's some unrealized benefit that I'm missing out on. So what do you use your workspaces for, and why are they so important? -- Alex Malinovich Support Free Software, delete your Windows partition TODAY! Encrypted mail preferred. You can get my public key from any of the pgp.net keyservers. Key ID: A6D24837 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
