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xoat/README.md
seanpringle 4b1918b626 docs
2012-09-25 01:27:39 +10:00

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xoat
====
*X Obstinate Asymmetric Tiler*
* Designed for wide screens, including multi-head support.
* Static tiling; you get just three fixed tiles and windows never move automatically.
* Bare minimum EWMH to support panels and [simpleswitcher](https://github.com/seanpringle/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.
* config.h for customization of borders and keys.
### The Layout
--------------------------------- ---------------------
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | 2 | | |
| 1 | | | 1 |
| |---------| | |
| | | | |
| | 3 | | |
--------------------------------- | |
|-------------------|
| | |
| | |
| 3 | 2 |
| | |
---------------------
* Layout can be flipped horizontally to place tile 1 on the right.
* Layout rotates along with Xrandr rotated monitors.
### 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.
* FfM means mentally keeping track of the mouse or warping the pointer around.
* CtF is harder to get wrong and makes it easy to forget about the mouse for some tasks.
* 2/3 is a nice fraction.
### config.h
All customization happens in config.h. See in-line comments there. It's tracked, so use a local git branch or a merge tool to protect any customization.