First bug.n tutorial

[alphaCTzo7G]

Bug.n is amazing, now that I have spent maybe 10 hours just pressing random buttons, scratching my head.. but I am guessing most people dont want to spend so much time fiddling with software. I wasnt familiar with dwm, when I came across bug.n. While it seems to be able to do a lot, its probably very confusing for beginners. I have heard all over the internet, where people find it very powerful, yet confusing..

Like why is there a -4-2x5 after the tags section. From dwm docs, I could find in the last hour or so, I that I have spent searching what that means (edit.. have figured it out now).

Instead of directing users to read dwm docs, perhaps we should have a tutorial of its own, which explains the basics of stack/master, etc..

Also perhaps where the bug.n model differs from dwm, and where it matches. Any other ideas?

I started a tutorial in this fork, if you guys want to collaborate. It would also help us understand some of the things we individually dont understand: https://github.com/alphaCTzo7G/bug.n/blob/master/tutorial/tutorial.html

Windows10 seems to be very popular wiht programmers, especially with bash on ubuntu. So something like this would be amazing to have on Windows.

[alphaCTzo7G]

The tutorial is inspired by these: https://dwm.suckless.org/tutorial

https://cannibalcandy.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/installing-and-configuring-dwm-under-ubuntu/

[alphaCTzo7G]

The use case for a lot of windows users may be much simpler. So perhaps we can create a starting video something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E15_e-f3hMg&feature=youtu.be.

Ofcourse advanced tutorials are also good..

Some possible ideas for tutorials:

1. meaning and use of stack axis
2. meaning and use of master axis
3. how to effectively use tags
4. how to change config files
5. whats the meaning of those *** numbers and characters near the tags. :)

I think, if we can get more people starting to use this, we can develop an amazing window manager as dynamic and configurable a window manager like i3 here..

[alphaCTzo7G]

http://web.archive.org/web/20150221095500/http://opensourceforu.com/2012/03/tiling-window-managers-getting-started-with-dwm/

[ptmkenny]

A tutorial is a good idea but why create an HTML document when you could build on the existing documentation here: https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n/wiki

[alphaCTzo7G]

Hi ptmkenny,

Good question. Mainly 2 reasons..

1. I think we need to reduce the barrier to entry for dwm type window managers to become more popular on windows. Windows users are not necessarily familiar with whats a layout axis, master axis etc, as I dont think there's anything comparable to dwm in Windows. Theres a dwm port, but I dont think its as popular as this one. A tutorial will basically provide a simple solution to the most common task that a new user will face when he/she starts using bug.n. Because bug.n is more like a programming language for managing windows (similar to how VIM is a programming language to editing text), users can then play around with the settings to learn more about the nitty grities. The wiki provides great details on those details. In my opinion, most new users won't go to a wiki to look for a simple tutorial, especially when there is a lot of jargon around the software. If you see most major OSS packages, have a simple tutorial packaged within the distribution itself. They don’t expect users to go to another site. Further, this has been a major complaint when discussions of bug.n has come up across the internet.
2. While the wiki provides a textual description of what a layout axis etc is, because we are dealing with windows, IMO its much better to put pictures with multiple windows or even videos, to show whats happening and why. Its much easier to visualize quickly whats going on. While I put the windows in “text” format in the tutorial, I intended to put in pictures and replace them in future. You will also see that most dwm tutorial on the internet have pictures showing how the windows are changing, and what is the meaning of the symbols. The markdown files that are included in the bug.n are good for text format, but probably can’t incorporate images. Ofcourse, we should put the tutorial (in html format or something else) on the wiki, but we need to make sure that the user can quickly get to it possibly through multiple channels (google search, github search, bug.n software etc), and not have to wade through the wiki to get there.

Also maybe we should change the name from bug.n to something that doesnt remind people of software bugs? :)

[alphaCTzo7G]

Updated the tutorial here, with images: https://github.com/alphaCTzo7G/bug.n/blob/master/tutorial/tutorial_windowsplitting.html

Mainly focused on a simple introduction to master, stack and how dynamic tiling window managers manage windows.

Github doesnt show the images properly embedded in the html document, unless you clone this repository, so I created a pdf as well here:

https://github.com/alphaCTzo7G/bug.n/blob/master/tutorial/tutorial_windowsplitting.pdf

Let me know what you guys think or any suggestions for improving this tutorial.

For the next 2 tutorials, I will focus on

1. how to manually change the size of windows
2. master, stack, layout axis

[joten]

Putting the tutorials into the main repository is a bit at odds with issue #145. I already cleansed the main repository of the exe and the usr directory with its image files, even the cheat sheet files will be created with the build script at the time of creating a release. Thats why I put the tutorial into the Wiki. It is linked from the Wiki-Home page and the documentation overview in the main repository. The Wiki will be the central repository used for all additional documentation (especially those with images). I think, linking the Wiki and its tutorial site from the documentation overview is sufficient to make users aware of the additional information, and opening the Wiki over the internet on GitHub would be the most used entry point regarding google search.