2y ago

Workspaces / Virtual Desktops – do you use them on your laptop, desktop, or both?

About 4 years ago I got a 13.3" Thinkpad laptop to replace an old Chromebook for portable development, and installed Arch + i3 on it (btw). After a bit of ricing the configs, it started feeling really homey. I love using workspaces here! They feel perfectly suited for laptop screens which have minimal space, allowing me to keep my browser full-screen and my IDE full-screen while still quickly switching back and forth to reference one or the other.

On the other hand, I don't really use workspaces when I'm on my desktop PC (I use a 27" monitor). I just installed KDE to get ahead of the Windows 10 EOL, and while I looked into combining i3 and KDE, I haven't really felt the need for i3's workspaces or using KDE's virtual desktops. With a 27" monitor, I feel like there's enough space to split my browser and IDE half-and-half on screen, and I'm ok using a file browser or terminal window as floating windows. Another consideration is that I'm always using a mouse on my desktop, so switching between workspaces with the keyboard wouldn't feel as natural.

What about you? Do you use workspaces differently between devices? Does screen size affect your choices at all?

36 comments

I use a 28" inch 4K screen and I regularly use virtual desktops for various kinds of things. I don’t think monitor size and/or resolution affects me at all. I did the same on a 22" 1080p screen.
~~On extended sessions of zoning out the whole night~~ When doing some important coding late in the evening sometimes 3-4 desktops are plastered with windows – editors in different files at different positions, browsers for research, multiple terminal emulators, and at least one desktop only having one browser open on YouTube playing a random music playlist from my main page.
All seemingly random placed and resized, but to me it all makes absolute sense.
- It's so interesting the different ways people organize their windows! I have a strong preference for never overlapping windows where possible at home, but on my work computer it happens all the time and I don't mind. Each window definitely has its own "zone" on the screen though (browser in the upper left, slack in the bottom right, finder in the bottom middle, and so forth).

I use two monitors, and also KDE's virtual desktops for work. A killer feature for me is that KDE has a window manager option to "pin" specific windows so that they are present on every desktop. This means I can have my terminal and slack client split across one screen and pinned, and then the other screen can contain my "main focus" on each of the virtual desktops - browser, editor, or email. I always can see the chat/terminal but can easily swap the desktop to get to a different focus.
I know that I could just have everything on one desktop and use the alt-tab to change that main window. But the alt tab is slow and non-deterministic. I may have to cycle between five things before I get to the browser, for example. With virtual desktops, I know where each focus is geometrically, and I can always swap over quickly with my key shortcuts.
- Wanting to pin a floating window was always something I wanted on Windows, so I was excited to see that being natively supported by KDE.
  Agree on disliking alt-tab because it’s non-deterministic! Cycling through a whole list of apps has always felt clunky to me so I never use it.

Workspaces might be a bit overkill if you're only switching between two-ish windows. For more you might find a benefit to using workspaces, especially if you group windows related to specific tasks, or if your brain likes having windows "stored" spatially.

Yes. I love them. For laptops that are not currently connected to more screens invaluable, for other usecases with more monitors, very useful

I don't like workspaces. It may be due to my asymmetric vision, but I need to have two or more screens with the data I'm going back and forth with. With hobbyist embedded stuff like Arduino, I need the datasheet and IDE side by side to be effective and laptop screens are too small for tiling IMO, even my 17's (1080p) don't cut it. Maybe my next with a higher resolution will be better.
- Makes sense! I agree laptops tend to be too small for tiling; I don't really use the tiling part of i3 on my laptop very much - usually only to pop open a terminal window on the side that I close after a few minutes.

I use them on both. I use more of them (6) on my desktop, and I use them more often, but only because I'm usually doing several tasks on my desktop while my laptop is for more casual use and I only require two or three. I mostly use Gnome and bind Win Key+Num for each workspace.
- I also use them on both, KDE has default bindings.

Im trying to make myself use it but i usually forget it exists. I grew up using Windows XP and i still use every OS/DE like its XP.

I use them constantly on laptop with GNOME. It makes it easier to switch windows with touchpad. On desktop I don't use them so often, because I forget about them.

I use them like browser tabs so I've had like 20-30 going at once before on sway.

It's strange, I really loved them when I ran i3. But now I'm forced on Windows I practically never use them. Some combination of the shortcuts not being as intuitive to me and tiled windows not being the default takes it from useful and intuitive to useless for me. At some point I may try again.
- I've accidentally tried to switch workspaces with the i3 shortcuts when on a windows machine before! that muscle mememory, haha.
  when I'm booting Windows on my desktop, I use MS PowerToys to snap windows around which gives me the same feeling of nice organization as tiling but feels more intuitive in the Windows environment for me.
  
  I love me some windows powertoys but I haven't played around with the snapping tools much, I'll have to give it a shot.

Virtual Desktops haven't really been a thing that I've really needed in my work flow. Maybe one day I will give using one a shot. I actually prefer my current setup with dual 27" monitors.

For me it's all about focus. Screen #1 is general usage. #2 is client #1. #3 is client #2. #4 is camera from my door.
- Using it to separate work from other uses makes sense to me - I think if I worked from my desktop rather than the company laptop, I’d be more inclined to use the virtual desktops.

With a 27" monitor, I feel like there’s enough space
looks at the second monitor I bought because the 49" ultrawide "wasn't enough space"...
I might be ignoring some useful features... sips tea
- How far away from your monitor do you sit to see all of the 49”?! It must all be in your peripheral vision, haha. (Edit: oh, I overlooked the ultra wide mention and was picturing a 49” tv type thing, haha. Ultra wide makes more sense!)
  I actually went down from two monitors on my desktop to one… nothing wrong with the second monitor now sitting in my closet, but I’m liking the extra space on my desk and it feels more ergonomic to not be swiveling my neck as much.
  
  It's weird for gaming, depending on the game, because there is SO much in the periphery of your vision, but for productivity stuff its great (its basically 2 monitors stuck together with no bezel in the middle). I actually originally bought it solely for Eve Online... With one normal monitor before, you have so much stuff on your screen that you NEED to see roaming low or null space that you don't get to see your pretty space ship hardly at all. But with ultrawide, there's room for both needed UI elements as well as pretty space views.
  I still can't get used to it for first person games though, and if the game isn't well setup for ultrawide the FOV can feel pretty screwy. It looks awesome, but you run around for 10 minutes and you start to wonder why you can't see anything and then realize it is because your lunch is on the screen... (at least for me, lol)

I work with a random jumble of windows on a single desktop, it's about as effective as you'd think

Not gonna lie. I have 5 monitors and forget the workspaces exist. It would make life so much easier if I started using the.

I have a 3x3 desktop grid in plasma, it works great for me on my laptop, but I don't think I could use it without touchpad gestures. I would probably have less or none if I had a big screen.

I'm exactly the opposite. I use use virtual desktops when I have my MBP docked to multiple screens--and when I am just using the laptop, I don't. I have gestures enabled on my Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad--so the gestures are there whether I'm using the laptop or docked--but I just don't use them when I have the single monitor...

All the time on both my laptop and my 4 screen desktop. I use swaysome with sway to get awesome wm style workspaces for sway.

I use workspaces everyday as a context switcher for related apps and programs. An example would be a "main focus" workspace that includes whatever project I'm working along including any relevant documentation or browser windows. When it's time to take a break, I have a separate workspace for stuff like kbin or messaging platforms.
Another consideration is that I’m always using a mouse on my desktop, so switching between workspaces with the keyboard wouldn’t feel as natural.
I use hot corners for this reason. Dragging my mouse to one of the corners of the screen brings up the workspaces interface.

I use workspaces regularly. Typically a browser in one, terminal in one, and the third is where I put whatever else I'm currently working with which could be dolphin and maybe gimp or an IDE, whatever the other is might be in the moment but browser and full screen terminal in separate workspaces are daily standard.

I switched to sway on both my lapto (13" 1080p) and desktop (27" 1440) to force myself on using workspaces, and man i have to say I was missing out a lot, now I thinking of giving Hyprland a try to for dynamic tiling which sound fantastic especially for bigger screens.
- I really wish I could load Sway on my desktop… unfortunately I’ve got an Nvidia card and I couldn’t get the live ISO to boot with sway. :<
  Very tempting to try it on my laptop though! All the setups I’ve seen using it look really clean.

Always, because you get to assign keyboard shortcuts to each one (and then use each one for a dedicated purpose). Much faster workflow than alt-tabbing your way through an arbitary list of programs.

36 comments