Window manager configuration

MNT Reform
1

I’m very happy with my Reform. I like the spareness of Sway, but occasionally switch to wayfire for some tasks where overlapping windows is useful.

However, configuration of either one is frankly brutal. I can rtfm but many things seem to not be written down anywhere, and frankly, I tire of hunting down seemingly basic things like how to configure a bluetooth mouse.

So I’m considering switching to xfce or something that might be configurable.

But before I do that, is there a repository of secrets somewhere? Or example configurations? Anything? sway and wayfire are just brutal to configure! I am not inexperienced with *nix environments but would rather not peruse code to do basic tasks…

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For me it’s the opposite. I really, really dislike finding the right button in a GUI that does what I want compared to writing the right thing into a configuration file. When I went on holidays with my family we took one computer that the whole family could use for accessing the internet and to make it user-friendly, I chose to install KDE on my Reform. This was with the imx8mq back then. It worked really well and the GUI elements felt really snappy and responsive. I do not know of a “repository of secrets” (other than the amazing Arch Linux Wiki page of course) so I just wanted to tell you that: KDE Plasma works fine. :smile:

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You can overlapping in sway. Just switch the app to float with pressing shift+Super(MNT)+space

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The good thing about sway is that you only need to configure it once, and then barely need to touch the config again. While it isn’t trivial to do that initial setup, it’s imho worth the time.

Regarding “repositories of secrets”, there are some:

  • The Arch Linux Wiki page on Sway has already been mentioned
  • There is an official Sway wiki on Github.
  • Sway has man pages, and those are pretty detailed. Maybe even too much so…
  • The default config file that comes with a fresh sway install is commented.
  • And last, but by far not least: Sway is also mostly compatible to i3. Of course there are differences, but most of the i3 documentation directly applies to sway too, and the parts that don’t apply can easily be adapted.
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As others have alluded to, getting familiar with the config file is the “real” answer. However, for wayfire in particular there is wayfire config manager (wcm): GitHub - WayfireWM/wcm: Wayfire Config Manager

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Lol, I won by giving up. Switched to KDE Plasma, thanks for the mention of that, all problems… solved or sidestepped. When done right GUIs encapsulate the repetitive trivia into narrower choices and KDE does that. Gnome to too bloated, KDE Plasma is fine on my A311D.

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