Products · Broad category
Window managers
Raised as a usability problem by 21 people on Hacker News over 17 years (2010–2026), in 19 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Resizing one window unexpectedly resizes nearby windowsUnreviewed
20102026- Must hunt for small title-bar or border areas to move and resize windows2026-06-15
- Resize hit area covers the whole window, even over buttons2023-10-13
- Windows must be constantly resized and positioned by hand to manage screen space2020-12-16
Default window managers make users spend too much time arranging windowsUnreviewed
20102026- Users must design their own window hierarchy, which takes a lot of mental energy2022-04-10
- Frustrating for users accustomed to non-composited window managers2022-01-18
- Floating and tiling window managers are hard to use for anyone but power users2019-06-12
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 21 complaints
- Must hunt for small title-bar or border areas to move and resize windows2026-06-15
- Resize hit area covers the whole window, even over buttons2023-10-13
- Switching focus changes visibility of the whole window stack, hiding partially covered windows2023-09-10
- Partially covered windows are hard to keep visible; focus changes reshuffle the whole stack2023-09-10
- Moving and resizing windows is a tedious chore needing manual arrangement and dragging on touchpads2023-09-05
- Steep learning curve from many keyboard controls2023-02-10
- Monitor blink scrambles carefully arranged window layout, creating a mess to recover2022-05-08
- Users must design their own window hierarchy, which takes a lot of mental energy2022-04-10
- Frustrating for users accustomed to non-composited window managers2022-01-18
- Hard to discover how to snap windows; manual resizing needs hunting a tiny 3-pixel handle2021-01-28
- Windows must be constantly resized and positioned by hand to manage screen space2020-12-16
- Resizing one window unexpectedly resizes nearby windows, which is very distracting2020-01-25
- Constant interruptions to find other windows via taskbar or alt-tab2019-06-13
- Floating and tiling window managers are hard to use for anyone but power users2019-06-12
- Default OS window managers make users spend too much time manually arranging windows2017-08-31
- Side-by-side windows are hard to keep aligned and in front when other windows open2017-05-10
- Window management across monitors is frustrating; windows pop up in unexpected places and switching is clumsy2013-01-03
- Tiling is not automatic; each window must be manually assigned a side2012-09-29
- Setting up a terminal shortcut requires writing a script and editing menus2011-08-04
- Managing lots of little windows on a medium screen is cluttered and unnecessary2011-05-26
- Menus and scrollbars get obscured, so users must mouse around the screen to do anything2010-11-10