For me it the epiphany was that I either want one full screen window, or several windows side by side, I never want one window to obscure another window. And with our modern wide monitors I almost always want several windows side by side. Why do I have to line them up by hand?
The downside is that there are many poorly programmed applications that are unable to adjust themselves as the window manager requires(calling you out steam, or it just may be me but steam was not happy with a tiling wm), and model dialogs, which always suck, suck even more when tiling. But most tiling wms's support a float mode for just that occasion.
Tiles were a common early metaphor, And I think tiles are generally more useful but floats looked cooler in the ad copy and so that is what ended up as the dominant desktop metaphor.
On the subject of one window partially obscuring another window the only tech that makes that halfway tolerable is "don't raise on click" and "point to focus" This lets you look at the upper window while manipulating the lower window. two features not found on the major desktop systems. X11 has it's warts, and is very weird. But it is miles ahead in actual usability over it's peers.
For me it the epiphany was that I either want one full screen window, or several windows side by side, I never want one window to obscure another window. And with our modern wide monitors I almost always want several windows side by side. Why do I have to line them up by hand?
The downside is that there are many poorly programmed applications that are unable to adjust themselves as the window manager requires(calling you out steam, or it just may be me but steam was not happy with a tiling wm), and model dialogs, which always suck, suck even more when tiling. But most tiling wms's support a float mode for just that occasion.
Tiles were a common early metaphor, And I think tiles are generally more useful but floats looked cooler in the ad copy and so that is what ended up as the dominant desktop metaphor.
On the subject of one window partially obscuring another window the only tech that makes that halfway tolerable is "don't raise on click" and "point to focus" This lets you look at the upper window while manipulating the lower window. two features not found on the major desktop systems. X11 has it's warts, and is very weird. But it is miles ahead in actual usability over it's peers.