While feeling the shortcomings of a window system, I never felt like I could productively work with a tiling manager, since I frequently overlap windows as a mechanism for easy access ... and there are lots of popup windows I don't want to cover the main application.
Oh yes, and I purposefully keep my Mac apps out of Full screen mode (and use a keyboard shortcut to maximize when needed, keeping out of full screen).
> I never felt like I could productively work with a tiling manager, since I frequently overlap windows as a mechanism for easy access
Part of the idea of most tiling window managers is that you use the keyboard to control them, not the mouse. As such, you no longer need to overlap windows to quickly switch to the one you want. You have keybinds to do so (which actually exist in the default Windows and OSX window manager as well.)
I personally hate the basic tile schemes, and full screen in many of my use cases. Yes, when I'm using one app hard, full screen is good.
When I'm using multiple ones, I often want to copy paste info, or just refer to it. Auto pop to foreground is toxic, it forces a change in state when there is no need for that change most of the time.
On IRIX, focus follows mouse, and middle button copy paste were awesome. Still prefer that over other schemes.
Many people get a second screen to accomplish what can very easily be done with one a lot of the time.
Tablets are fine consumption devices. Some create is there, like graphics, but most create has UX requirements that exceed the simple touch sweet spots.
Just so you know xfce's window manager (or at least the xubuntu version version of it -- there may be patches not present in the upstream) allows focus follows mouse and has overlapping windows...
EDIT I might be confused here. I'm reading that you are assuming that one has to use a tiling WM to get one of the features you want.
I think this is just a question of somebody do it right. We just dont use this right now, because what we have now is too crude. But give it the right number of iteration trials, and im pretty sure a tiling window manager can be competitive, and more so, in a more touch oriented desktop.
My hunch is that its just lacking a good amount of iterations. Our modern windowed desktop didnt came out ready either. So give this some love, and im sure something really cool and usable, can bootstrap from this.
Yes, panels follow similar ideas and have similar advantages to tiling windows. However, I don’t think that the benefit of being able to work with windows that aren't full-height outweighs their added complexity compared to using only full-height panels.
With todays technology and established interface patterns from mobile, I believe it's feasible to use the ideas of tiling window managers beyond a niche market.
First: full-height maximisation is sufficiently useful to me that I gravitate strongly toward environments which allow me to hotkey this. WindowMaker's remained my go-to largely for this reason, along with a handful of others.
Second: less-than-full-height windows can be quite useful. Being able to specify a "stack" into which, say, I place a video (or video-chat) app, various A/V controls, and possibly some monitors or other smaller windows, perhaps a shorter terminal window or three, is easily something I'd like to do.
With WindowMaker I can _arrange_ windows in a pseudo-tiled state. Unfortunately it's too easy to accidentally drag one off somewhere. Generally, though, this can be quite handy.
What I'd really like to be able to do is to specify roles for certain window locations. Say, a browser, image editor, and audio editor all occupying the same larger window space, which I can tab between.
And I think you're quite right about applicability of tiling metaphors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager
While feeling the shortcomings of a window system, I never felt like I could productively work with a tiling manager, since I frequently overlap windows as a mechanism for easy access ... and there are lots of popup windows I don't want to cover the main application.
Oh yes, and I purposefully keep my Mac apps out of Full screen mode (and use a keyboard shortcut to maximize when needed, keeping out of full screen).