I’ve been suggested to use a tiling window manager like Sway since it allows for controlling windows with hotkeys, but I’m having trouble getting started. I installed it in Fedora and tried logging back in with SwayFX (since it has features like blurring) but after I’m just shown a wallpaper with a top bar, the top left shows a 1 and the top right shows the time. I don’t know what to do there. I tried looking up guides but didn’t find anything, can you link me some if you know of any?

  • GhoelianEnglish
    3•6 hours ago

    Here’s some useful defaults for Sway: (the default mod key is meta, aka the windows key)

    • Mod+d: open application menu
    • Mod+arrows: switch active windows
    • Mod+shift+arrows: move window (rearrange within a screen, or move between screens)
    • Mod+1-9: switches workspaces
    • Mod+shift+1-9: moves active window to that workspace (does not activate that workspace)
    • Mod+space: make the window a regular floating window. Using Mod+arrows on a window that’s floating will move that window (I think) 10 pixels at a time. You can also drag this window around with the mouse.

    Lay-out:

    • Mod+w: tabbed lay-out
    • Mod+e: split lay-out (default)
    • Mod+s: stacking lay-out

    When using split lay-out (these take a little getting used to):

    • Mod+b: split the current “container” horizontally
    • Mod+v: split vertically

    Placing windows next to each other will put them in a “group” together, which you can see by them sharing the same blue title bar thing. Using these shortcuts changes how the windows in the group are represented.

    I found getting windows in/out of the group I want, and especially splitting and re-arranging groups within groups, to be a little unpredictable, but after using Sway for a while you do get used to it.

    • Ghoelian
      2•6 hours ago

      Forgot one thing: that top bar is also entirely configurable. It’s called waybar, and you can find the docs here: https://github.com/Alexays/Waybar/wiki/Configuration

      Pretty much everything in Sway is configurable, as most of it is just written in a config file. You can use different application launchers (fuzzel, for example), you can add a notification centre like swaync, or just customise waybar with whatever modules you want. I think you can even switch out waybar for something else, but I haven’t tried that myself.