Binary trees?

[Thorsten Wißmann]

Hi Donald,

On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 11:27:12AM -0400, Donald Allen wrote:
> Why does the man page for the window manager say "The basic tiling
> concept is that the layout is represented by a binary tree."

The layout is represented by a binary tree of frames, i.e. only the
frames form the binary tree. Or more specifically: a binary tree of
frames with lists of windows (and other properties stored) in the
leaves.

Furthermore, the layout is rigid in the sense that it is only modified
by user-interaction and not by appearing or disappearing windows.

Btw: e.g. i3 is different here: their layout of containers (their word
for frames) is not binary but n-ary, i.e. you can have a frame with
three subframes in it.

Hope, that helps. :-)

Cheers,
Thorsten

P.S.: the current (and long-term) address of the mailing list is

    hlwm at lists.herbstluftwm.org

> If I start three xterms in an empty frame, they get stacked
> vertically. If it then do a layout command, I get
>
> dca at franz:~$ herbstclient layout
> ╾─╼ vertical: 0x800022 0xc00022 0x1e00022 [FOCUS]
>
> The vertical frame has three children, not possible in a binary tree.
> Using n-ary trees makes sense, and that appears to be what you are
> doing. But the man page says otherwise. Please explain.
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