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Comment by pserwylo | Hacker News Reader

I always loved over-the-top, somewhat impractical visual effects like this. Reminds me of growing up playing with Compiz Fusion.

For a retro Android game I maintain, I use the term "Gratuitous Eye Straining Effects" in the settings page. It needs to be toggleable, because I can only tolerate it for a short period. My naming was inspired by k9mail's settings called "Gaudy visual effects". May as well have some fun with words when implementing such effects.

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In fact, this needs to be a global Compiz effect. It should apply to the entire desktop rather than just a terminal.

But Compiz Fusion wasn’t all about impractical visual effects: wobbly windows was seriously useful, and rather popular, perhaps the one thing that people would leave enabled after playing with all the fun ridiculous stuff for a bit.

Or you could be a nerd of the 1990s and be permanently stuck on the Rotating Cube effect.

How was wobbly windows useful?

The wobble and stickyness made it easier to arrange windows side by side without overlap.

I can easily imagine how stickiness helped, but how did wobbliness?

The stickiness felt more natural with the windows changing shape/size slightly.

> How was wobbly windows useful?

It warmed my soul. It's the only thing I really miss since switching to i3.

When you have things that move or resize windows instantaneously, e.g. snapping to one side of the screen, the wobble in the windows was a transition, one that helped you keep track of elements rather than everything just… changing.

Seriously, so useful for floating window managers, it’s a simple and obvious form of transition, significantly better than what window managers have ended up at these days (if anything).

(Then I switched to i3, and more recently Sway. Not sure I’d appreciate wobbly windows in tiling window managers, though maybe with gaps (… which I’ve never understood the appeal of) it might be better.)

When you say "gaps", do you mean space between windows? I do that. Seeing a bit of the wallpaper is like seeing a bit of your desk between papers. Helps with mental context switching. Window borders probably serve the same function, but they've never worked as well for me.

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