What's the difference in the user experience of ion3, wmii and dwm.

Question

I want to try something new, especially some new concepts, not just another wm, nor I actually 'need' something -  in the moment xfce just works for me. Of course, I have thoroughly read the (available) documentation of these WMs and tested a session, but they are all too different and I feel I need some shared experience in order to decide in which one to invest more time. I would like to ask people that have wider experience to spot some strong or weak points of each WM - but in no way it should be like 'this one is better' or sth. - especially ones that are not instantly obvious - from the descriptions on the home site or limited testing,
For example - wmii talk 9P, and this sound really cool, but I have no damn idea how this could be actually useful. Dwm is extremely minimalist, and I am not sure if it is not too minimalist to be practical.
Again, I don't need advice like what Wm to choose (which is essentially a stupid question), but just mentioning peculiar spots of each one, especially not instantly obvious ones.
Thank you in advance.
P.S. If there is already a topic, that is close to that, I'll appreciate provided link - my search found just general WM topics, as well as topics for specific WM, which was useful, but not completely enough.
P.P.S. If someone thinks ratpoison is unfairly ignored, one may provide its advantages, although I just somehow do not like it (nothing reasanoble)

Answer 1

The three (and I'll throw in Ratpoison because I love it) seem to have distinct approaches to the way you're expected to use windows.
DWM expects you to have one main window focused and a few others that you do want to see, but don't need to have focused at full size. The way it puts them along the edge is pretty nice on a widescreen monitor. Virtual desktops are provided since it would be a pain to cycle all the way through your window list whenever you wanted to change.
wmii seems (I only played with it a little) to be based largely on columns. This is very similar to Plan 9's editor Acme. Heck, when I first saw the screen shot on the wmii page I thought I was looking at Acme. You divide the screen into (usually two) columns and can arrange your windows within those as you choose. It's a fairly nice approach, marrying the simplicity of DWM's "main window" concept with the flexibility of other managers by having only a couple of "places" for windows (the columns), but multiple windows in each, whose exact positioning doesn't matter much. Tags are substituted for conventional workspaces. I haven't played with this feature.
Ion3 (which I used for a while) is based on the idea that you will divide the screen into just a couple of panes, and group your windows into those. Most of your windows will be invisible at any given time, but you can get to them all easily with the tab strip at the top of each pane, showing its associated windows. In this WM each window is in a definite place, unlike in Ratpoison, in which hidden windows are just hidden, and associated with no pane in particular. Ion also assumes that you will have some programs that don't play nice with a tiled manager, and allows the creation of virtual desktops that contain floating windows. Virtual desktops in this WM are pretty much the same as those in your standard floating WM.
The key to "getting" Ratpoison (which I have used a lot, and am using now) is that unlike the other three, you're not expected to have a complex layout of screen panes. Although you could create something of arbitrary complexity using the vertical and horizontal spit commands, it would quickly become a nightmare to work with, and there is no easy way to switch between layouts because, while you can save and load them, windows are not associated with particular panes on the screen, and will end up who-knows where. Instead, a Ratpoison user wants to switch between windows by hitting ^T (remappable, I use my Windows key) and then the number that was assigned when each window was created. As you may notice, this is how screen works as well. You quickly learn to remember these numbers, just like a screen user or Nethack player. 90% of the time I work with only one window on the screen switching between it and my alternate window, and the other 9% of the time I have two windows (mostly when I want to drag and drop things, but sometimes for reference material). 1% of the time I might hit three or [gasp!] four.
While the other three WMs seek to make it easier to manage your on screen windows, Ratpoison takes the approach that you probably don't need to have more than a couple of windows on screen at one time. Based on this logic, Ratpoison doesn't provide virtual desktops. If your windows aren't on screen, why do you need more virtual screens for them not to be on? Ratpoison does provide window groups, which serve a similar function. Unlike virtual desktops, switching groups does not change what's on your screen; it only changes the list of windows you are working with. This may sound like a pain, but keep in mind that you, as a Ratpoison user, probably have fewer than two panes on your screen. It's not hard to switch both of those to something else, and half the time you only want to change one of them (e.g. drag and drop between window groups). Ratpoison also supports multiple screens, which are treated much like panes on a single screen, except of course you can not delete them (senseless) or move windows between them (X11 limitation; not Ratpoison specific).
Another nice Ratpoison feature is that you can tell it not to manage certain windows, and you can tell it to leave some padding between windows and the edge of the screen. So I can run an unmanaged Rox sidebar to hold try icons, status monitors, a trash can, and volume control, and reserve that space for it with some padding. I can also remove that padding or change its size if I want to cover the sidebar.
Last edited by pauldonnelly (2007-04-22 19:52:16)