- a button brings up a rofi to select one of the folders in my home dir
- It automatically creates a window Group ("desktop") when one of these is selected, and chdirs into that folder.
- There are keys for a browser profile (qutebrowser!) and tmux session for the current group, which are always created or focused with the same key, so if I close one mistakenly, or power-off my machine, these keys bring me right back where I was.
- I have a key for the "main" application of a workspace - typically the IDE - but this "main" application can be configured per workspace with a little marker-file.
- I then have mod+s, which switches between all windows that are not one of the three above (what xMonad would call 'boring' windows).
- I have another rofi for showing all open apps across all groups - and switching to the selected group + focusing the selected app.
- I have one more rofi, for selecting a group (or directory name) to move the focused window into it.
- Offtopic, but I also have some rofis for workspace-specific clipboard history and a workspace todo file, the top-line of which is echoed into the bar, to keep me on track.
The layout is the smallest part of it all, although being able to have whatever my imagination can desire in terms of layout IS kind of nice. I default to single-window 'monacle' layout, and spend most of my time in a standard "columns" layout.
In qtile's column layout, we can 'maximize' windows in a particular column, instead of stacking them vertically. now, windows can be hidden ("lost" is the commonly used word), but knowing exactly which key moves to which window means it becomes more about "feeling that I need X" rather than "finding X" - it just appears when I want it.
It's one of my favorite moments, and it always comes - when someone's watching me do a merge, or i'm having a skype session - people can't really believe how fast I can move. I have to narrate with the brakes on. And watching someone use regular window managers, even with some tiling shortcuts, is inexpressibly frustrating.
I want to help them, but I can't.