You have to place your windows, and set them all up the way you want them. You have to use the mouse for this.
With Ion, you just focus onto the right frame, and launch an xterm (all with key bindings). You can create as many as you like in the same frame, and cycle through the frame, or cycle through to different frames.
It cut's the mouse out, unless you wanna browse the web or use some other fully GUI app.
Overlapping windows are a product of that UI design. They are in reality very ineficient. Once you cycle to a window that is not on the top, you are covering the information that is higher than that window. you can easily set Ion up to display
logs (while always viewing the last few lines over every one) and never covering the content of some, just to view one (unless you want to).
It just takes a different approach
I view log files daily as part of my job, and in my personal time. And Ion is the best tool I've ever used for doing this.
The only place ion lacks right now is how it handles lare scale graphical applications (like mozilla). Though you'd have to use Ion and run it to understand what I mean. It's very useable, but theres some wierdisms in the way popup windows & dialogs are handled.
Man, I think alot of people posting here have no idea what Ion is really like. You *can* overlap windows in Ion. You just design the frameset for them. For example:
I have a left frame that is the height of two xterms stacked, this is god for programming, on the right, I have two seperate frames each the size of an xterm (one long frame on left, two regular sized frames on right).
in each of these frames I can have as many xterms as I want (or any other type of program). To move between frames, I use Alt-, to cycle through the xterms in that frame I use Alt-tab.
On the bottom, I have a very short frame that is as wide as the entire screen, this is great for log files, and I can easily switch between them.
If I want a small clock visible in one corner of the screen, why should I be forced to divide the desktop into multiple frames when "always on top" allows the underlying application to run full screen?
 
It's called osd-clock, why don't you give
it a shot and ask some questions on the ion list
before you assume too much.
 
Besides, this paradigm is still being fleshed out.
I have used Ion ever since I tried it out (almost
6 months) on my laptop. It's perfect because I
hate using the mouse, especially on my laptop, and
it's such a light weight WM that my 64mb of RAM
doesn't seem so bad.
 
It also kicks ass when I'm coding.
 
I seriously think that I am MUCH more
productive when using Ion.
 
Actually, these smaller keyboards can be done very well. If you've ever used one of skytel's email-pagers, their keyboard layout is very small yet after getting used to it, i could "thumb type" pretty fast.
If this keyboard had been a little bit larger, (like the size of a Psion 5mx keyboard), the thumb typing becomes a bit cumbersome because you cant easily grasp the device while still keeping your thumbs free.
From the screenshots, it looks like this keyboard could be perfect!
I bought a Compaq - Armada M300 several months back, and I absolutely love it!
I spent alot of time researching the current laptops on the market. The important factors for me were: weight, size, and functionality(i.e. serial, parallel etc).
The Armada M300 is currently the lightest Compaq to choose from, wieght is about 3.5 lbs (the same as the lightest VAIO, aside from the picturebook). Plus it has serial/parallel ports and a better video card (1024x768, but 1600x1200 if you hook it up to an external monitor). None of which the VAIO has.
This means I can use my cell phone to connect (via serial), hook up my Psion, or use it as a terminal client in the server room!:)
A couple downsides are the Windmodem (which can be used with a binary driver I believe), and I haven't been able to reliably recover from a suspend in linux (maybe kernel version?).
I highly reccomend the light, compact, and fully featured Compaq Armada M300!
Several of my friends, good programmer, have been laid off. I can think of 20+ people that I know first hand, that have been laid off.
If 1 person can name 20+ good programmers who have lost thier jobs during the past 5-6 months, Then I think thats a pretty good example of whats going on around the board.
I can't say I think Perl is a good way to program, even for other people.
You are missing the point. Perl is a syntax, not a "way to program". Programming is an art, and there are good and bad programming styles, the language has very little to do with that.
Ruby's syntax seemed to be an attempt to seduce Perlites to Ruby, when it would have been a better tactic to rally against Perl. People who would like Ruby probably weren't ever happy with Perl anyway.
I have been programming with perl for many years, and I love the language. I also, am not so biggoted that I won't expand my knowledge of other languages. Ruby seems to be a great language to learn, and I plan on doing so. Your theories smell as if they are being pulled straight from your anus.
Probably didn't help that it came out of Japan either, as Japan doesn't really seem to be in the loop when it comes to free/open source software (language barriers?)
Are you from Farm Town, USA? Your simple-mindedness is surprising, even for slashdot. Lots of great open source code comes from Japan, and regardless, it's unfair of you to say that the original author of Ruby has his cards against him simply because of the fact that he was Japanese.
There is a project in the workings called SandWeb.
It is based on the ideas from CVSWeb and CVSWebClient. The code is being re-structured and
support for multiple Version Control Systems (ie. RCS, CVS, Subversion etc.) will be implemented (CVS first though).
Basically a completed web-based Sandbox management tool. And after that also an RCS browser the CVSWeb and WebCVS.
Anyone looking to help, very welcome. Project at:
http://www.sourceforge.com/projects/sandweb/
Slashdot Mirror
You have to place your windows, and set them all up the way you want them. You have to use the mouse for this.
With Ion, you just focus onto the right frame, and launch an xterm (all with key bindings). You can create as many as you like in the same frame, and cycle through the frame, or cycle through to different frames.
It cut's the mouse out, unless you wanna browse the web or use some other fully GUI app.
Overlapping windows are a product of that UI design. They are in reality very ineficient. Once you cycle to a window that is not on the top, you are covering the information that is higher than that window. you can easily set Ion up to display
logs (while always viewing the last few lines over every one) and never covering the content of some, just to view one (unless you want to).
It just takes a different approach
I view log files daily as part of my job, and in my personal time. And Ion is the best tool I've ever used for doing this.
The only place ion lacks right now is how it handles lare scale graphical applications (like mozilla). Though you'd have to use Ion and run it to understand what I mean. It's very useable, but theres some wierdisms in the way popup windows & dialogs are handled.
Nothing is Automated, you design your layout.
Ion *does* have multiple workspaces.
Man, I think alot of people posting here have no idea what Ion is really like. You *can* overlap windows in Ion. You just design the frameset for them. For example:
I have a left frame that is the height of two xterms stacked, this is god for programming, on the right, I have two seperate frames each the size of an xterm (one long frame on left, two regular sized frames on right).
in each of these frames I can have as many xterms as I want (or any other type of program). To move between frames, I use Alt-, to cycle through the xterms in that frame I use Alt-tab.
On the bottom, I have a very short frame that is as wide as the entire screen, this is great for log files, and I can easily switch between them.
If I want a small clock visible in one corner of the screen, why should I be forced to divide the desktop into multiple frames when "always on top" allows the underlying application to run full screen?
 
It's called osd-clock, why don't you give it a shot and ask some questions on the ion list before you assume too much.
 
Besides, this paradigm is still being fleshed out. I have used Ion ever since I tried it out (almost 6 months) on my laptop. It's perfect because I hate using the mouse, especially on my laptop, and it's such a light weight WM that my 64mb of RAM doesn't seem so bad.
 
It also kicks ass when I'm coding.
 
I seriously think that I am MUCH more productive when using Ion.
 
Actually, these smaller keyboards can be done very well. If you've ever used one of skytel's email-pagers, their keyboard layout is very small yet after getting used to it, i could "thumb type" pretty fast.
If this keyboard had been a little bit larger, (like the size of a Psion 5mx keyboard), the thumb typing becomes a bit cumbersome because you cant easily grasp the device while still keeping your thumbs free.
From the screenshots, it looks like this keyboard could be perfect!
I bought a Compaq - Armada M300 several months back, and I absolutely love it!
:)
I spent alot of time researching the current laptops on the market. The important factors for me were: weight, size, and functionality (i.e. serial, parallel etc).
The Armada M300 is currently the lightest Compaq to choose from, wieght is about 3.5 lbs (the same as the lightest VAIO, aside from the picturebook). Plus it has serial/parallel ports and a better video card (1024x768, but 1600x1200 if you hook it up to an external monitor). None of which the VAIO has.
This means I can use my cell phone to connect (via serial), hook up my Psion, or use it as a terminal client in the server room!
A couple downsides are the Windmodem (which can be used with a binary driver I believe), and I haven't been able to reliably recover from a suspend in linux (maybe kernel version?).
I highly reccomend the light, compact, and fully featured Compaq Armada M300!
That's complete bull.
Several of my friends, good programmer, have been laid off. I can think of 20+ people that I know first hand, that have been laid off.
If 1 person can name 20+ good programmers who have lost thier jobs during the past 5-6 months, Then I think thats a pretty good example of whats going on around the board.
Your ignorance of the situation is impressive.
I just can't wait to get home and fire up the pollution machine I've got rigged up on my roof
What, you mean your CAR!?
I can't say I think Perl is a good way to program, even for other people.
You are missing the point. Perl is a syntax, not a "way to program". Programming is an art, and there are good and bad programming styles, the language has very little to do with that.
Ruby's syntax seemed to be an attempt to seduce Perlites to Ruby, when it would have been a better tactic to rally against Perl. People who would like Ruby probably weren't ever happy with Perl anyway.
I have been programming with perl for many years, and I love the language. I also, am not so biggoted that I won't expand my knowledge of other languages. Ruby seems to be a great language to learn, and I plan on doing so. Your theories smell as if they are being pulled straight from your anus.
Probably didn't help that it came out of Japan either, as Japan doesn't really seem to be in the loop when it comes to free/open source software (language barriers?)
Are you from Farm Town, USA? Your simple-mindedness is surprising, even for slashdot. Lots of great open source code comes from Japan, and regardless, it's unfair of you to say that the original author of Ruby has his cards against him simply because of the fact that he was Japanese.
There is a project in the workings called SandWeb. It is based on the ideas from CVSWeb and CVSWebClient. The code is being re-structured and support for multiple Version Control Systems (ie. RCS, CVS, Subversion etc.) will be implemented (CVS first though).
Basically a completed web-based Sandbox management tool. And after that also an RCS browser the CVSWeb and WebCVS.
Anyone looking to help, very welcome. Project at: http://www.sourceforge.com/projects/sandweb/
It works so fast that by the time you realize your mistake *everything* would be gone--in the blink of an eye.
Including yourself...