On Sat, Sep 21, 2024 at 12:23:52PM +0200, Didier Kryn wrote:
>     Reading that thread, I find that the screen space available for
> productive work is, for many, something so critical that they have
> essentially one window and no pannel, just to use all available space.

~(see below about screen size and panels)
>
>     I'm on the other side. When developping software, I typically use one or
> two Emacs windows plus one terminal emulator on the same workspace, or only
> one Emacs, but a browser window, because I'm currently developping a web
> server. I usually dedicate a whole workspace to Thunderbird -- I have two
> email addresses and many subdirectories in each.

How do you manage to get your email to arrive in different directories?
Isthat a Thunderbird exclusive?
I still use mutt in a text-only terminal, partly to avoid malicious HTML pages.

-- hendrik

>
>     In addition to these windows, I also have the Xfce pannel on the bottom
> of the screen. I use an HP EliteBook laptop with a 14" screen and feel
> comfortable enough. I like the overall size of the machine and would be
> embarassed with something bigger.

Mine is a 15-inch Purism laptop, and it doesn't embarrass me.
I used to use an approximately 12-inch ASUS netbook (the first one that
did not need any proprietary drivers) and found it short of screen space.
The disappearing panels in IceWM were invaluable there.

> I usually put it on a table, but can also
> work with it on my lap. I have abandonned long ago the use of a mouse for
> the touchpad. I still need the mouse on my domestic desktop, but don't like
> it.

I disable the touchpa every time I boot. Othewise, when I type, I accidentally
bruah against it with my palm and wy words end up in strange places.
Touchpads aer useful, but I wish the keyboard would be between me and the pad,
so his wouldn't happen.

Of course I use a mouse when the touchpad is turned off. It means I have to
take my mouse along to coffee shops. In addition to the power supply and
having to sit near an outlet because the machine's battery is dead.

> I don't like upstanding large screens: they give me pain in the neck; a
> laptop on a table is close to the traditionnal way of intellectual work; a
> paper and a pen.

I appreciate my laptop's screen placement, too. But it would tire my arm
if it were a touch screen.

I use the laptop on the dining-room table. Unfortunately, cell-phone signals
don't reliably get to my dining room, so it's hard to talk on the phone
about what's on my screen. I wish the reinforced concrete in my building
didn't act like a Faraday cage. Moving the laptop to a chair by the window
ends up being a big operation, requiring moving several cables and rebooting.

I use emacs, lxqt, firefox-esr, Devuan daedalus, lxqt's terminal for email, xterm
for just about everything else.

I use Racket for casual programming, and edit that code using drracket.
I do not use the version of Racket that coms with Devuan daedalus. It's too
old for compatibility with sone of the online Racket program libraries.

I use emacs for most C/C++ code and large-text editing, and a document
compiler I wrote myself for large (novel-size) documents. It has exactly
an only the features I need. It would not be useful to anyone with
even slightly different tasts in document format.
I am tempted to use Racket's document compiler Scribble as a document
compiler because it has the right kind of design (the document is a
Racket program with a different syntax), but it is too slow
for interactive refinement of large documents.

-- hendrik