Re: Workspace/desktop switching

[Jonathan Dowland <jmtd@compsoc.dur.ac.uk>]

On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 01:19:41AM -0600, Alex Malinovich wrote:
> I've been seeing a lot of discussions about various WM's lately, and
> everyone seems to be extremely concerned about easy workspace switching.
> I'm just wondering what exactly everyone uses workspaces for? Every once
> in a while, if I'm doing two things at once that each require 5 windows
> a piece, I'll use two desktops/workspaces, but I don't think I've ever
> really gone over that. That leads me to believe that there's some
> unrealized benefit that I'm missing out on. So what do you use your
> workspaces for, and why are they so important?

Basically, workspaces are handy for keeping stuff open that I haven't
finished with, but I don't want to work on at present. So, for example,
here's a tree (grafted together from bits of pstree output) of my
current desktop layout:

pwm 
  |-workspace 1
  |   |-konqueror --profile webbrowsing          # web 
  |   |-x-terminal-emul -title bylands -name ... # mailing lists
  |   |  `-ssh...
  |   |-x-terminal-emul -title ice -name ...     # irc
  |   |  `-ssh...
  |   `-xterm 
  |       `-mutt                                 # email
  |
  |-workspace 2                                  # working on my CV
  |   |-x-terminal-emul -name zenburn            # here.
  |   |           `-screen 
  |   |               |-vim cv.tex 
  |   |               `-latex cv
  |   `-advi cv.dvi 
  |
  |-workspace 3                                  # misc. stuff:
  |   |-amsn /usr/bin/amsn                       # instant messenging
  |   `-slrn                                     # usenet
  |
  |-workspace 4
 ...

Right now I'm procrastinating so I'm not working on my CV, but its there
when I pull myself together :-)


-- 
Jon Dowland
http://jon.dowland.name/