I’ve been the same. I came from MacOS into Linux in the last couple of years, but gave Pop_os! a try early on with its tiling wm.
I found myself constantly planning layouts and positioning things. Nothing ever ended up feeling right, and it was exhausting.
“I’ll have my browser window take the full height and half the width over here. Then I’ll put my code editor over on the right, half high, then my Terminal below it.
No wait, that’s not enough height for the code editor, so let’s shrink the Terminal down… except now the terminal’s uncomfortably short.
Well, maybe the browser can be split with the Terminal and the code editor can be full height.
Except now the code editor feels too narrow and I don’t really need it this tall, it would be really nice if I could have the browser window full height instead.”
And then I’m back where I started.
And if I finally get used to a layout and whatever shortcut keys I have for jumping around, then !!! A wild Slack message appears!
Now I need to open a PDF viewer along with Slack along with my code editor but don’t need my browser but maybe need my Terminal, and I’m back to the layout drawing board for the next task.
With overlapping windows, every window can be the exact size and shape it needs to be.
I’m open to the likelihood that I’m just doing it wrong. I would also bet this is less of an issue if I were using multiple large, unscaled 4K monitors.
So I’ll try it again someday with a different setup, but for now I’m mostly happy with my 1440p monitor(s), and overlapping windows.
If your future 4K monitors are the exact same physical size having higher resolution wont make you want to have more tinier windows.
The most useful arrangement for windows to be tiled into is 1-2 windows on a horizontal monitor with more windows accommodated by adding more monitors to your workspace instead of splitting a window 7 ways.
I found myself constantly planning layouts and positioning things. Nothing ever ended up feeling right, and it was exhausting.
“I’ll have my browser window take the full height and half the width over here. Then I’ll put my code editor over on the right, half high, then my Terminal below it.
No wait, that’s not enough height for the code editor, so let’s shrink the Terminal down… except now the terminal’s uncomfortably short.
Well, maybe the browser can be split with the Terminal and the code editor can be full height.
Except now the code editor feels too narrow and I don’t really need it this tall, it would be really nice if I could have the browser window full height instead.”
And then I’m back where I started.
And if I finally get used to a layout and whatever shortcut keys I have for jumping around, then !!! A wild Slack message appears!
Now I need to open a PDF viewer along with Slack along with my code editor but don’t need my browser but maybe need my Terminal, and I’m back to the layout drawing board for the next task.
With overlapping windows, every window can be the exact size and shape it needs to be.
I’m open to the likelihood that I’m just doing it wrong. I would also bet this is less of an issue if I were using multiple large, unscaled 4K monitors.
So I’ll try it again someday with a different setup, but for now I’m mostly happy with my 1440p monitor(s), and overlapping windows.