Ion, the efficient window manager (Linux.com) [LWN.net]

Ion, the efficient window manager (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 27, 2006 20:25 UTC (Tue) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link]

> The philosophy behind Ion is that window managers aren't meant to be seen,
> but to manage windows; anything more is dross.

Hmm, I think this misrepresents Ion. The problem with other window managers, which Ion solves for me, is that other window managers aren't managing the windows at all. Because of how windows overlap and can be dragged around, I have to waste a lot of time dragging windows out of the way or having to position them correctly to have an easy working environment. Ion's approach of splitting up the screen into frames that I can then stack tabbed windows into works better for me. When you start managing windows that way, window (or frame) borders are just wasted space so they don't need to be wide or fancy, or have drag handles and so forth.

Ion, the efficient window manager (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 28, 2006 7:57 UTC (Wed) by pheldens (guest, #19366) [Link]

yeah exactly, it's great how all windows stick together, like with html frames. 1 movement resizes all collumns and rows. This is an arm saver. Unfortunately the ion3 method is a little unforgiving for apps with design faults in their parent child window focus behaviour or other related quirks and shape extension. But even with this it's my wm of choice since a year.

(I'd also would like to comment that desktop usage differs greatly per desktop pixel space. (resolution) i.e. someone on 800x600 will be using most apps full screen and has less use for this ion resize behaviour.)

Ion, the efficient window manager (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 30, 2006 18:40 UTC (Fri) by droundy (subscriber, #4559) [Link]

I'd add that someone with an 800x600 screen will still greatly benefit from ion, since they can use its tabs feature to have all their windows full-screen with tabs. That's how I run my firefox workspace, and it beats firefox tabbed browsing hands-down, since I can then intermingle firefox windows with xpdf, gv and aterm windows all on the same workspace without wasting any more screen space than is needed for the tabs.

Ion, the efficient window manager (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 28, 2006 4:51 UTC (Wed) by b7j0c (subscriber, #27559) [Link]

for apps like firefox, i just maximize them. for terminals, i find gnu screen to be a more efficient management technique than tiling, tabs, etc....its a portable terminal management mechanism that you can transplant to your UI of choice, and it will also save you when you are in a console.

Ion, the efficient window manager (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 28, 2006 7:47 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

I used ratpoison for my laptop for a while, still do on occasion.

The reason for it was that I have absolute hatred for that little trackpad. I realy dislike using it, so since I had lots of experiance using 'GNU screen' then ratpoison was pretty natural.

I tried Ion, but it seemed like to much work to learn how to use it since I was fairly happy with ratpoison at the time. I'll check it out some other time when I have a slow time at work or something. Seems like it's worth the effort.

The trouble with these things though is that they work find for applications like browsers or terminals were they are single windows only, but break down when you are faced with multi windowed applications like Gimp or some types of media players and whatnot. I wrote a script to contain these things in a Xnest environment which worked, but it seemed sort of hackish.

Ion, the efficient window manager (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 28, 2006 15:42 UTC (Wed) by philips (guest, #937) [Link]

> for apps like firefox, i just maximize them.

And if you have 1680x1050 screen size? There are better uses for wasted screen space. There better uses for time wasted arranging windows. I like the idea of Ion. Will try it.

P.S. BTW, recalling from older Windows v. DOS times. Many users I have known liked text mode shells a la Norton Commander (NC) much more then new toy MS Windows. The main reason was that on NC you cannot move panels. And do not need to. In Windows you have to move windows all the time. Simple users were always frustrated by amount of needed work to accomplish something simple. WYSIAYG...

Ion, the efficient window manager (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 28, 2006 17:21 UTC (Wed) by b7j0c (subscriber, #27559) [Link]

> And if you have 1680x1050 screen size?

not sure, i have dual dell 2405s with 1900x1200, not sure how people with archaic low resolution screens like yours should work :)

Ion, fighting your windows instead of doing work

Posted Jul 1, 2006 19:37 UTC (Sat) by erich (subscriber, #7127) [Link]

I don't think ion is a window manager that gets out of your way.
You actually need to LEARN how to use it, that sucks completely.

I'm using openbox, pretty much *DEFAULT* configuration. All I added was support for some nice extra keys on my Thinkpad.
I have almost all my apps full-screen. So openbox doesn't need to do any "management" (and I hate if anything resizes my windows, btw...).
Basically all I use of my window manager is the "desktop left" and "desktop right" keys. I use them blindly, they're right next to my cursor keys. That took me no time to setup or to learn, which I consider far superior to any "magic tiling" ion can supposedly do.

And the few times I've seen someone work with ion, I was NOT impressed.

For example, we were writing a mini openGL car racing game to teach people programming. They were to write the drivers, we wrote the graphics engine.
That poor ion user was fighting his window manager all the time, apparently ion really sucks when it comes to handling *NEW* windows.