Musca WM
I remember using Musca wm, and I really like the idea that I could specify what part of the screen can a given app use, and it has no way of escaping it unless I say so. (Basically, to ignore EWMHs unless instructed otherwise)
Is there any other wm/maintained fork of the project with similar functionality?
Posted Mar 5, 2018, 8:46 PM UTC
24
Search for "tiling wm", "tiling window manager", and choose one of the WMs you can find. A simple one to get into is named "i3".
The usual way to deal with windows is called "stacking" which means windows can overlap and be in front or back of other windows and have random sizes. "Tiling" is what you describe where a window is forced into a certain size and position on screen without overlap.
Sorry, apperently I wasn't clear. I know what a tiling manager is, but this one is sort of special as I first divide the screen into containers and then populate it with windows (one container can hold any number of windows)
I was only ever interested in the opposite of that, where the WM automatically adds and removes tiles when a window opens or closes, so I don't know first-hand what to try.
Trying to look around a bit, I found 'herbstluftwm':
http://herbstluftwm.org/
In the screenshots on its homepage it seems to show empty, unused tiles, so maybe it's working like you want it to?
About how I found it, I remembered its name and noticed that both Musca and herbstluftwm have "manual" in the "management style" column in the following table:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Comparison_of_tiling_window_managers
Perhaps that "manual management style" is the name for what you are searching for. You could check out the other WMs in that table that also mention "manual" in that column and see if that's right.