xoat

X Obstinate Asymmetric Tiler

• Designed for wide screens, including multi-head support.
• Static tiling! Just configure sizes of the three fixed tiles.
• Windows never move between tiles without user input.
• Basic EWMH to support panels and simpleswitcher.
• A few keyboard controls for moving, focusing, cycling, closing, and finding windows.
• Transient windows and dialogs are centered on parent, not tiled.
• Splash screens and notification popups are displayed as requested, not tiled.
• Pointer warps appropriately when keyboard controls and EWMH affect focus.
• .xoatrc or config.h for customization.

The Layout

• Tile proportions can be adjusted.
• Layout can be flipped horizontally.
• Xrandr rotated monitor also rotates the layout (always 90 degrees, right).
• Fullscreen (no borders, above panels) windows suported normally.
• Maximized windows (with borders and panels) supported in spot 1.
• Maximized-vertically windows supportted in spot 2.
• Maximized-horizontally windows supported in spot 3.

...

---------------------------------     ---------------------------------
|                     |         |     |         |                     |
|                     |         |     |         |                     |
|                     |    2    |     |    2    |                     |
|          1          |         |     |         |           1         |
|                     |---------|     |---------|                     |
|                     |         |     |         |                     |
|                     |    3    |     |    3    |                     |
---------------------------------     ---------------------------------

---------------------     ---------------------
|                   |     |       |           |
|                   |     |   3   |     2     |
|                   |     |       |           |
|         1         |     |-------------------|
|                   |     |                   |
|                   |     |                   |
|                   |     |                   |
|                   |     |                   |
|-------------------|     |         1         |
|       |           |     |                   |
|   3   |     2     |     |                   |
|       |           |     |                   |
---------------------     ---------------------

Philosophy

• Asymmetric tiling layouts are more useful than symmetric ones.
  • A master/stack layout is fine but only if the stack is itself asymmetric.
• Static tiling is more practical than dynamic tiling or floating.
  • Windows moving and resizing without user input is bad.
  • Having a choice of tiling layouts at run time is distracting.
  • Apps that remember their size can handily be placed back in the correct tile.
• Three tiles suffice because:
  • App windows are always one of four types:
    1. Large work-being-done apps
    2. Medium monitoring-something apps
    3. Small background-chat-music apps
    4. Apps people should not use ;-)
  • Want more tiles? Buy more monitors!
• Keyboard controls generally preferred over the mouse, when practical.
  • Faster. Muscle memory.
• Click-to-focus model preferred over focus-follows-mouse.
  • CtF is harder to get wrong in all cases.
  • FfM means mentally keeping track of the mouse pointer.
  • Avoiding the mouse entirely should just work, and not unexpectedly affect focus.
• 60:40 is a nice ratio.

config.h

All customization happens in config.h or .xoatrc; see in-line comments. The former is tracked, so use a local git branch or a merge tool to protect any customization.