Edit History

Going by your tenets of GUI design, I would rather say that having your hands on the keyboard all (or at least most) of the time is the ideal. For one, I use Vim (Neovim actually) as my text editor (even using it to edit this) and try to use the keyboard for everything I can get away with (see qutebrowser for a great browser with Vim keybinds). There is a learning curve to it, but it can make you look like a wizard when you’ve mastered it, so it evens out.

To that end, I think that tiling window managers (WM) are the way to go. As the name says, they tile windows, usually doing so based on keyboard shortcuts and the concept of workspaces. There are some great workflows ([1], [2]) using tiling WMs, but their userbase is mostly people who are comfortable with CLIs, so not your kind. (Both of these examples are on r/unixporn, a good place to look for nice-looking Linux setups—EDIT #1: Though looking at the recent posts, it does get samey.)

Where tiling WMs do succeed is in getting out of the way, and that’s where I think GNOME 3's shell also succeeds. Now, you might get the impression that it’s meant for touchscreens, but it really is keyboard-driven—so much so that it’s actually pretty inefficient to use the mouse! Like tiling WMs, it also relies on workspaces (of which you can have an unlimited amount). One very important key is ‘Meta’ (or ‘Windows’, if you’re on Windows), which opens up an overview with windows, apps, and a search bar for launching them (though you could bind that to a mouse key, which could make things more efficient). EDIT #2: I also forgot to mention that they also forego the icons on desktops and buttons for minimising and maximising (because you have dynamic workspaces, all you'd need to do is to close them, you can double-click anywhere to maximise them too).

The workflow is unorthodox (it goes away from the traditional desktop metaphor to a sort of ‘canvas’ for the programs) and does have a learning curve, but I think it’s very much worth it. The video linked above explains it better than I could. Now, the customisation isn’t that great (use KDE if you want to go to town with the settings), and some basic features aren’t included by default (they only recently added application categories and Gnome Tweak Tool is still quite necessary), but I really like an opinionated shell with innovations beyond the Windows 95 model of user interfaces.

As for what I use, currently that’s three different interfaces: the default shell on Windows 8.1 (with Classic Shell, a custom theme, Everything, and Cygwin for my own sanity), the aforementioned GNOME 3 and bspwm (both running on NixOS and also on test drive until I have to courage to entirely migrate to Linux); all of them having a Quake-style drop-down terminal which is pretty essential for my workflow. Also, regarding fonts, I do like Fira Sans (after all, I chose it for this very website!) and Inconsolata.

Lastly, I do appreciate you fighting the fight against entropy on this; don’t let chaos win out!

Going by your tenets of GUI design, I would rather say that having your hands on the keyboard all (or at least most) of the time is the ideal. For one, I use Vim (Neovim actually) as my text editor (even using it to edit this) and try to use the keyboard for everything I can get away with (see qutebrowser for a great browser with Vim keybinds). There is a learning curve to it, but it can make you look like a wizard when you’ve mastered it, so it evens out.

To that end, I think that tiling window managers (WM) are the way to go. As the name says, they tile windows, usually doing so based on keyboard shortcuts and the concept of workspaces. There are some great workflows ([1], [2]) using tiling WMs, but their userbase is mostly people who are comfortable with CLIs, so not your kind. (Both of these examples are on r/unixporn, a good place to look for nice-looking Linux setups—EDIT #1: Though looking at the recent posts, it does get samey.)

Where tiling WMs do succeed is in getting out of the way, and that’s where I think GNOME 3's shell also succeeds. Now, you might get the impression that it’s meant for touchscreens, but it really is keyboard-driven—so much so that it’s actually pretty inefficient to use the mouse! Like tiling WMs, it also relies on workspaces (of which you can have an unlimited amount). One very important key is ‘Meta’ (or ‘Windows’, if you’re on Windows), which opens up an overview with windows, apps, and a search bar for launching them (though you could bind that to a mouse key, which could make things more efficient). EDIT #2: I also forgot to mention that like you want, they forgoed the icons on desktops and buttons for minimising and maximising (because you have dynamic workspaces, all you'd need to do is to close them, you can double-click anywhere to maximise them too).

The workflow is unorthodox (it goes away from the traditional desktop metaphor to a sort of ‘canvas’ for the programs) and does have a learning curve, but I think it’s very much worth it. The video linked above explains it better than I could. Now, the customisation isn’t that great (use KDE if you want to go to town with the settings), and some basic features aren’t included by default (they only recently added application categories and Gnome Tweak Tool is still quite necessary), but I really like an opinionated shell with innovations beyond the Windows 95 model of user interfaces.

As for what I use, currently that’s three different interfaces: the default shell on Windows 8.1 (with Classic Shell, a custom theme, Everything, and Cygwin for my own sanity), the aforementioned GNOME 3 and bspwm (both running on NixOS and also on test drive until I have to courage to entirely migrate to Linux); all of them having a Quake-style drop-down terminal which is pretty essential for my workflow. Also, regarding fonts, I do like Fira Sans (after all, I chose it for this very website!) and Inconsolata.

Lastly, I do appreciate you fighting the fight against entropy on this; don’t let chaos win out!

Going by your tenets of GUI design, I would rather say that having your hands on the keyboard all (or at least most) of the time is the ideal. For one, I use Vim (Neovim actually) as my text editor (even using it to edit this) and try to use the keyboard for everything I can get away with (see qutebrowser for a great browser with Vim keybinds). There is a learning curve to it, but it can make you look like a wizard when you’ve mastered it, so it evens out.

To that end, I think that tiling window managers (WM) are the way to go. As the name says, they tile windows, usually doing so based on keyboard shortcuts and the concept of workspaces. There are some great workflows ([1], [2]) using tiling WMs, but their userbase is mostly people who are comfortable with CLIs, so not your kind. (Both of these examples are on r/unixporn, a good place to look for nice-looking Linux setups—EDIT #1: Though looking at the recent posts, it does get samey.)

Where tiling WMs do succeed is in getting out of the way, and that’s where I think GNOME 3's shell also succeeds. Now, you might get the impression that it’s meant for touchscreens, but it really is keyboard-driven—so much so that it’s actually pretty inefficient to use the mouse! Like tiling WMs, it also relies on workspaces (of which you can have an unlimited amount). One very important key is ‘Meta’ (or ‘Windows’, if you’re on Windows), which opens up an overview with windows, apps, and a search bar for launching them (though you could bind that to a mouse key, which could make things more efficient). EDIT #2: I also forgot to mention that they forgoed the icons on desktops and minimise and maximise keys (because you have dynamic workspaces, all you'd need to do is to close them, you can double-click anywhere to maximise them too).

The workflow is unorthodox (it goes away from the traditional desktop metaphor to a sort of ‘canvas’ for the programs) and does have a learning curve, but I think it’s very much worth it. The video linked above explains it better than I could. Now, the customisation isn’t that great (use KDE if you want to go to town with the settings), and some basic features aren’t included by default (they only recently added application categories and Gnome Tweak Tool is still quite necessary), but I really like an opinionated shell with innovations beyond the Windows 95 model of user interfaces.

As for what I use, currently that’s three different interfaces: the default shell on Windows 8.1 (with Classic Shell, a custom theme, Everything, and Cygwin for my own sanity), the aforementioned GNOME 3 and bspwm (both running on NixOS and also on test drive until I have to courage to entirely migrate to Linux); all of them having a Quake-style drop-down terminal which is pretty essential for my workflow. Also, regarding fonts, I do like Fira Sans (after all, I chose it for this very website!) and Inconsolata.

Lastly, I do appreciate you fighting the fight against entropy on this; don’t let chaos win out!

Going by your tenets of GUI design, I would rather say that having your hands on the keyboard all (or at least most) of the time is the ideal. For one, I use Vim (Neovim actually) as my text editor (even using it to edit this) and try to use the keyboard for everything I can get away with (see qutebrowser for a great browser with Vim keybinds). There is a learning curve to it, but it can make you look like a wizard when you’ve mastered it, so it evens out.

To that end, I think that tiling window managers (WM) are the way to go. As the name says, they tile windows, usually doing so based on keyboard shortcuts and the concept of workspaces. There are some great workflows ([1], [2]) using tiling WMs, but their userbase is mostly people who are comfortable with CLIs, so not your kind. (Both of these examples are on r/unixporn, a good place to look for nice-looking Linux setups—EDIT: Though looking at the recent posts, it does get samey.)

Where tiling WMs do succeed is in getting out of the way, and that’s where I think GNOME 3's shell also succeeds. Now, you might get the impression that it’s meant for touchscreens, but it really is keyboard-driven—so much so that it’s actually pretty inefficient to use the mouse! Like tiling WMs, it also relies on workspaces (of which you can have an unlimited amount). One very important key is ‘Meta’ (or ‘Windows’, if you’re on Windows), which opens up an overview with windows, apps, and a search bar for launching them (though you could bind that to a mouse key, which could make things more efficient). EDIT: I also forgot to mention that they forgoed the icons on desktops and minimise and maximise keys (because you have dynamic workspaces, all you'd need to do is to close them, you can double-click anywhere to maximise them too).

The workflow is unorthodox (it goes away from the traditional desktop metaphor to a sort of ‘canvas’ for the programs) and does have a learning curve, but I think it’s very much worth it. The video linked above explains it better than I could. Now, the customisation isn’t that great (use KDE if you want to go to town with the settings), and some basic features aren’t included by default (they only recently added application categories and Gnome Tweak Tool is still quite necessary), but I really like an opinionated shell with innovations beyond the Windows 95 model of user interfaces.

As for what I use, currently that’s three different interfaces: the default shell on Windows 8.1 (with Classic Shell, a custom theme, Everything, and Cygwin for my own sanity), the aforementioned GNOME 3 and bspwm (both running on NixOS and also on test drive until I have to courage to entirely migrate to Linux); all of them having a Quake-style drop-down terminal which is pretty essential for my workflow. Also, regarding fonts, I do like Fira Sans (after all, I chose it for this very website!) and Inconsolata.

Lastly, I do appreciate you fighting the fight against entropy on this; don’t let chaos win out!

Going by your tenets of GUI design, I would rather say that having your hands on the keyboard all (or at least most) of the time is the ideal. For one, I use Vim (Neovim actually) as my text editor (even using it to edit this) and try to use the keyboard for everything I can get away with (see qutebrowser for a great browser with Vim keybinds). There is a learning curve to it, but it can make you look like a wizard when you’ve mastered it, so it evens out.

To that end, I think that tiling window managers (WM) are the way to go. As the name says, they tile windows, usually doing so based on keyboard shortcuts and the concept of workspaces. There are some great workflows ([1], [2]) using tiling WMs, but their userbase is mostly people who are comfortable with CLIs, so not your kind. (Both of these examples are on r/unixporn, a good place to look for nice-looking Linux setups—EDIT: Though looking at the recent posts, it does get samey.)

Where tiling WMs do succeed is in getting out of the way, and that’s where I think GNOME 3's shell also succeeds. Now, you might get the impression that it’s meant for touchscreens, but it really is keyboard-driven—so much so that it’s actually pretty inefficient to use the mouse! Like tiling WMs, it also relies on workspaces (of which you can have an unlimited amount). One very important key is ‘Meta’ (or ‘Windows’, if you’re on Windows), which opens up an overview with windows, apps, and a search bar for launching them (though you could bind that to a mouse key, which could make things more efficient).

The workflow is unorthodox (it goes away from the traditional desktop metaphor to a sort of ‘canvas’ for the programs) and does have a learning curve, but I think it’s very much worth it. The video linked above explains it better than I could. Now, the customisation isn’t that great (use KDE if you want to go to town with the settings), and some basic features aren’t included by default (they only recently added application categories and Gnome Tweak Tool is still quite necessary), but I really like an opinionated shell with innovations beyond the Windows 95 model of user interfaces.

As for what I use, currently that’s three different interfaces: the default shell on Windows 8.1 (with Classic Shell, a custom theme, Everything, and Cygwin for my own sanity), the aforementioned GNOME 3 and bspwm (both running on NixOS and also on test drive until I have to courage to entirely migrate to Linux); all of them having a Quake-style drop-down terminal which is pretty essential for my workflow. Also, regarding fonts, I do like Fira Sans (after all, I chose it for this very website!) and Inconsolata.

Lastly, I do appreciate you fighting the fight against entropy on this; don’t let chaos win out!

Going by your tenets of GUI design, I would rather say that having your hands on the keyboard all (or at least most) of the time is the ideal. For one, I use Vim (Neovim actually) as my text editor (even using it to edit this) and try to use the keyboard for everything I can get away with (see qutebrowser for a great browser with Vim keybinds). There is a learning curve to it, but it can make you look like a wizard when you’ve mastered it, so it evens out.

To that end, I think that tiling window managers (WM) are the way to go. As the name says, they tile windows, usually doing so based on keyboard shortcuts and the concept of workspaces. There are some great workflows ([1], [2]) using tiling WMs, but their userbase is mostly people who are comfortable with CLIs, so not your kind. (Both of these examples are on r/unixporn, a good place to look for nice-looking Linux setups.)

Where tiling WMs do succeed is in getting out of the way, and that’s where I think GNOME 3's shell also succeeds. Now, you might get the impression that it’s meant for touchscreens, but it really is keyboard-driven—so much so that it’s actually pretty inefficient to use the mouse! Like tiling WMs, it also relies on workspaces (of which you can have an unlimited amount). One very important key is ‘Meta’ (or ‘Windows’, if you’re on Windows), which opens up an overview with windows, apps, and a search bar for launching them (though you could bind that to a mouse key, which could make things more efficient).

The workflow is unorthodox (it goes away from the traditional desktop metaphor to a sort of ‘canvas’ for the programs) and does have a learning curve, but I think it’s very much worth it. The video linked above explains it better than I could. Now, the customisation isn’t that great (use KDE if you want to go to town with the settings), and some basic features aren’t included by default (they only recently added application categories and Gnome Tweak Tool is still quite necessary), but I really like an opinionated shell with innovations beyond the Windows 95 model of user interfaces.

As for what I use, currently that’s three different interfaces: the default shell on Windows 8.1 (with Classic Shell, a custom theme, Everything, and Cygwin for my own sanity), the aforementioned GNOME 3 and bspwm (both running on NixOS and also on test drive until I have to courage to entirely migrate to Linux); all of them having a Quake-style drop-down terminal which is pretty essential for my workflow. Also, regarding fonts, I do like Fira Sans (after all, I chose it for this very website!) and Inconsolata.

Lastly, I do appreciate you fighting the fight against entropy on this; don’t let chaos win out!

Going by your tenets of GUI design, I would rather say that having your hands on the keyboard all (or at least most) of the time is the ideal. For one, I use Vim (Neovim actually) as my text editor (even using it to edit this) and try to use the keyboard for everything I can get away with (see qutebrowser for a great browser with Vim keybinds). There is a learning curve to it, but it can make you look like a wizard when you’ve mastered it, so it evens out.

To that end, I think that tiling window managers (WM) are the way to go. As the name says, they tile windows, usually doing so based on keyboard shortcuts and the concept of workspaces. There are some great workflows ([1], [2]) using tiling WMs, but their userbase is mostly people who are comfortable with CLIs, so not your kind. (Both of these examples are on r/unixporn, a good place to look for nice-looking Linux setups.)

Where tiling WMs do succeed is in getting out of the way, and that’s where I think GNOME 3's shell also succeeds. Now, you might get the impression that it’s meant for touchscreens, but it really is keyboard-driven—so much so that it’s actually pretty inefficient to use the mouse! Like tiling WMs, it also relies on workspaces (of which you can have an unlimited amount). One very important key is ‘Meta’ (or ‘Windows’, if you’re on Windows), which opens up an overview with windows, apps, and a search bar for launching them (though you could bind that to a mouse key, which could make things more efficient).

The workflow is unorthodox (it goes away from the traditional desktop metaphor to a sort of ‘canvas’ for the programs) and does have a learning curve, but I think it’s very much worth it. The video linked above explains it better than I could. Now, the customisation isn’t that great (use KDE if you want to go to town with the settings), and some basic features aren’t included by default (they only recently added application categories and Gnome Tweak Tool is still quite necessary), but I really like an opinionated shell with innovations beyond the Windows 95 model of user interfaces.

As for what I use, currently that’s three different interfaces: the default shell on Windows 8.1 (with Classic Shell, a custom theme, Everything, and Cygwin for my own sanity), the aforementioned GNOME 3 and bspwm (both running on NixOS and also on test drive until I have to courage to entirely migrate to Linux); all of them having a drop-down terminal which is pretty essential for my workflow. Also, regarding fonts, I do like Fira Sans (after all, I chose it for this very website!) and Inconsolata.

Lastly, I do appreciate you fighting the fight against entropy on this; don’t let chaos win out!

Going by your tenets of GUI design, I would rather say that having your hands on the keyboard all (or at least most) of the time is the ideal. For one, I use Vim (Neovim actually) as my text editor (even using it to edit this) and try to use the keyboard for everything I can get away with (see qutebrowser for a great browser with Vim keybinds). There is a learning curve to it, but it can make you look like a wizard when you’ve mastered it, so it evens out.

To that end, I think that tiling window managers (WM) are the way to go. As the name says, they tile windows, usually doing so based on keyboard shortcuts and the concept of workspaces. There are some great workflows ([1], [2]) using tiling WMs, but their userbase is mostly people who are comfortable with CLIs, so not your kind. (Both of these examples are on r/unixporn, a good place to look for nice-looking Linux setups.)

Where tiling WMs do succeed is in getting out of the way, and that’s where I think GNOME 3's shell also succeeds. Now, you might get the impression that it’s meant for touchscreens, but it really is keyboard-driven—so much so that it’s actually pretty inefficient to use the mouse! Like tiling WMs, it also relies on workspaces (of which you can have an unlimited amount). One very important key is ‘Meta’ (or ‘Windows’, if you’re on Windows), which opens up an overview with windows, apps, and a search bar for launching them (though you could bind that to a mouse key, which could make things more efficient).

The workflow is unorthodox (it goes away from the traditional desktop metaphor to a sort of ‘canvas’ for the programs) and does have a learning curve, but I think it’s very much worth it. The video linked above explains it better than I could. Now, the customisation isn’t that great (use KDE if you want to go to town with the settings), and some basic features aren’t included by default (they only recently added application categories and Gnome Tweak Tool is still quite necessary), but I really like an opinionated shell with innovations beyond the Windows 95 model of user interfaces.

As for what I use, currently that’s three different interfaces: the default shell on Windows 8.1 (with Classic Shell, a custom theme, Everything, and Cygwin for my own sanity), the aforementioned GNOME 3 and bspwm (both running on NixOS and also on test drive until I have to courage to entirely migrate to Linux); all of them having a drop-down terminal which is pretty essential for my workflow. Also, regarding fonts, I do like Fira Sans (after all, I chose it for this very website!) and Inconsolata. Lastly, I do appreciate you fighting the fight against entropy on this; don’t let chaos win out!

Going by your tenets of GUI design, I would rather say that having your hands on the keyboard all (or at least most) of the time is the ideal. For one, I use Vim (Neovim actually) as my text editor (even using it to edit this) and try to use the keyboard for everything I can get away with (see qutebrowser for a great browser with Vim keybinds). There is a learning curve to it, but it can make you look like a wizard when you’ve mastered it, so it evens out.

To that end, I think that tiling window managers (WM) are the way to go. As the name says, they tile windows, usually doing so based on keyboard shortcuts and the concept of workspaces. There are some great workflows ([1], [2]) using tiling WMs, but their userbase is mostly people who are comfortable with CLIs, so not your kind. (Both of these examples are on r/unixporn, a good place to look for nice-looking Linux setups.)

Where tiling WMs do succeed is in getting out of the way, and that’s where I think GNOME 3's shell also succeeds. Now, you might get the impression that it’s meant for touchscreens, but it really is keyboard-driven—so much so that it’s actually pretty inefficient to use the mouse! Like tiling WMs, it also relies on workspaces (of which you can have an unlimited amount). One very important key is ‘Meta’ (or ‘Windows’, if you’re on Windows), which opens up an overview with windows, apps, and a search bar for launching them (though you could bind that to a mouse key, which could make things more efficient).

The workflow is unorthodox (it goes away from the traditional desktop metaphor to a sort of ‘canvas’ for the programs) and does have a learning curve, but I think it’s very much worth it. The video linked above explains it better than I could. Now, the customisation isn’t that great (use KDE if you want to go to town with the settings), and some basic features aren’t included by default (they only recently added application categories and Gnome Tweak Tool is still quite necessary), but I really like an opinionated shell with innovations beyond the Windows 95 model of user interfaces.

As for what I use, currently that’s three different interfaces: the default shell on Windows 8.1 (with Classic Shell, a custom theme, Everything, and Cygwin for my own sanity), the aforementioned GNOME 3 and bspwm (both running on NixOS and also on test drive until I have to courage to entirely migrate to Linux). Lastly, I do appreciate you fighting the fight against entropy on this; don’t let chaos win out!