exwm VS hydra

The developer has been missing on GitHub since 2020 [1]

[1] https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm/issues/845

There have been tiling window managers based around Emacs before. I think the most recent I tried was https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm -- in this case the window manager is itself emacs, and your windows are buffers in emacs etc.

It makes a lot of sense, since Emacs does its own tiling, and one is usually familiar with the keystrokes already, and then you don't have tiling in tiling.

So I keep meaning to go back and try this again, or something similar, but I recall it having issues with a lot of my commonly used applications back when I tried it.

When I get in the tiling mood, I use regolith, which is a nice packaging up of i3 in with the gnome environment. I'd love to have something like that, but built around emacs.

The tools I use for living inside Emacs are: - EXWM as window manager https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm - mew for e-mail https://www.mew.org/en/ - org-mode for calendar and todo-list https://orgmode.org/ - terminology as shell/terminal (before it was xterm, but wanted transparency) https://www.enlightenment.org/about-terminology.md - elfeed as rss-reader https://github.com/skeeto/elfeed - hackernews for Hackernews-reader https://github.com/clarete/hackernews.el - browser eww and Firefox - pdf-tools for viewing pdfs and in mew they are converted to text view

I do the following things in Emacs: window management, window management, file management, web browsing, mail, streaming music, chatting, shell management, version control, and life organization.

WM: EXWM Emacs X Window Manager

In the case of Arch you could take a look at https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm

EXWM is a full-blown tiling window manager for X11 that runs in Emacs. I've been using it for years. It's kind of difficult to get going, but I'd never switch back now.

Suddenly, I have that uniformity and consistent experience everywhere, and only a single configuration language to learn and use to get things how I like them.

If you like both emacs and tiling window managers, I strongly recommend it.

[0] https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm

You can also use Hydra for Emacs.[1] Once I discovered how to configure Hydra, I made it a habit to make one for every new major mode I need to use.

[1] https://github.com/abo-abo/hydra

Have you considered a hydra?

An Emacs specific example: I'm working on a few go projects at the moment and go requires recompilation after changes. Step one was finding auto-recompilers for my projects (I'm using both air and reflex in various projects). Step two was realizing that I spent a lot of time switching to the buffer where the output is printed, so I wrote a little hydra menu to make that easier. Then I found myself having to restart those processes each time I restarted Emacs, so I went digging and found detached to manage the processes. Then I got tired of having to hunt for where the detached output was displayed in my frame so dug into sidebars to manage the windows more effectively.

I think the goal of the hydra package is to provide such functionality.

I would I also encourage anyone who does not want to use modal editing to look into repeat-mode, hydras, and key-chord.

The C-c prefix is designed for you, the user, to use for your nefarious deeds. Some things that may help with both binding and knowing what key does what would be a menu such as hydras or transient menus (which apparently are part of Emacs now so that's new).

For the very same reason, I started to use hydras: https://github.com/abo-abo/hydra - see my config at https://github.com/novoid/dot-emacs/blob/master/config.org

Hydra lets you define mini-modes with limited scope.

general.el also works well with hydra.el. Here's my hydra for window operations - it activates when I press ,w: