About 4 years ago I got a 13.3" Thinkpad laptop to replace an old Chromebook for portable development, and installed Arch + i3 on it (btw). After a bit of ricing the configs, it started feeling really homey. I love using workspaces here! They feel perfectly suited for laptop screens which have minimal space, allowing me to keep my browser full-screen and my IDE full-screen while still quickly switching back and forth to reference one or the other.
On the other hand, I don’t really use workspaces when I’m on my desktop PC (I use a 27" monitor). I just installed KDE to get ahead of the Windows 10 EOL, and while I looked into combining i3 and KDE, I haven’t really felt the need for i3’s workspaces or using KDE’s virtual desktops. With a 27" monitor, I feel like there’s enough space to split my browser and IDE half-and-half on screen, and I’m ok using a file browser or terminal window as floating windows. Another consideration is that I’m always using a mouse on my desktop, so switching between workspaces with the keyboard wouldn’t feel as natural.
What about you? Do you use workspaces differently between devices? Does screen size affect your choices at all?
I use a 28" inch 4K screen and I regularly use virtual desktops for various kinds of things. I don’t think monitor size and/or resolution affects me at all. I did the same on a 22" 1080p screen.
On extended sessions of zoning out the whole nightWhen doing some important coding late in the evening sometimes 3-4 desktops are plastered with windows – editors in different files at different positions, browsers for research, multiple terminal emulators, and at least one desktop only having one browser open on YouTube playing a random music playlist from my main page.All seemingly random placed and resized, but to me it all makes absolute sense.
It’s so interesting the different ways people organize their windows! I have a strong preference for never overlapping windows where possible at home, but on my work computer it happens all the time and I don’t mind. Each window definitely has its own “zone” on the screen though (browser in the upper left, slack in the bottom right, finder in the bottom middle, and so forth).
I use two monitors, and also KDE’s virtual desktops for work. A killer feature for me is that KDE has a window manager option to “pin” specific windows so that they are present on every desktop. This means I can have my terminal and slack client split across one screen and pinned, and then the other screen can contain my “main focus” on each of the virtual desktops - browser, editor, or email. I always can see the chat/terminal but can easily swap the desktop to get to a different focus.
I know that I could just have everything on one desktop and use the alt-tab to change that main window. But the alt tab is slow and non-deterministic. I may have to cycle between five things before I get to the browser, for example. With virtual desktops, I know where each focus is geometrically, and I can always swap over quickly with my key shortcuts.
Wanting to pin a floating window was always something I wanted on Windows, so I was excited to see that being natively supported by KDE.
Agree on disliking alt-tab because it’s non-deterministic! Cycling through a whole list of apps has always felt clunky to me so I never use it.
Yes. I love them. For laptops that are not currently connected to more screens invaluable, for other usecases with more monitors, very useful
I use them like browser tabs so I’ve had like 20-30 going at once before on sway.
Workspaces might be a bit overkill if you’re only switching between two-ish windows. For more you might find a benefit to using workspaces, especially if you group windows related to specific tasks, or if your brain likes having windows “stored” spatially.
I don’t like workspaces. It may be due to my asymmetric vision, but I need to have two or more screens with the data I’m going back and forth with. With hobbyist embedded stuff like Arduino, I need the datasheet and IDE side by side to be effective and laptop screens are too small for tiling IMO, even my 17’s (1080p) don’t cut it. Maybe my next with a higher resolution will be better.
Makes sense! I agree laptops tend to be too small for tiling; I don’t really use the tiling part of i3 on my laptop very much - usually only to pop open a terminal window on the side that I close after a few minutes.
Im trying to make myself use it but i usually forget it exists. I grew up using Windows XP and i still use every OS/DE like its XP.
I use them constantly on laptop with GNOME. It makes it easier to switch windows with touchpad. On desktop I don’t use them so often, because I forget about them.
It’s strange, I really loved them when I ran i3. But now I’m forced on Windows I practically never use them. Some combination of the shortcuts not being as intuitive to me and tiled windows not being the default takes it from useful and intuitive to useless for me. At some point I may try again.
I’ve accidentally tried to switch workspaces with the i3 shortcuts when on a windows machine before! that muscle mememory, haha.
when I’m booting Windows on my desktop, I use MS PowerToys to snap windows around which gives me the same feeling of nice organization as tiling but feels more intuitive in the Windows environment for me.
I love me some windows powertoys but I haven’t played around with the snapping tools much, I’ll have to give it a shot.
Virtual Desktops haven’t really been a thing that I’ve really needed in my work flow. Maybe one day I will give using one a shot. I actually prefer my current setup with dual 27" monitors.
I use them on both. I use more of them (6) on my desktop, and I use them more often, but only because I’m usually doing several tasks on my desktop while my laptop is for more casual use and I only require two or three. I mostly use Gnome and bind Win Key+Num for each workspace.
I’m exactly the opposite. I use use virtual desktops when I have my MBP docked to multiple screens–and when I am just using the laptop, I don’t. I have gestures enabled on my Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad–so the gestures are there whether I’m using the laptop or docked–but I just don’t use them when I have the single monitor…
I have a 3x3 desktop grid in plasma, it works great for me on my laptop, but I don’t think I could use it without touchpad gestures. I would probably have less or none if I had a big screen.
Not gonna lie. I have 5 monitors and forget the workspaces exist. It would make life so much easier if I started using the.
All the time on both my laptop and my 4 screen desktop. I use swaysome with sway to get awesome wm style workspaces for sway.
