Hello dear friends,

This might be an unusual "tips and tricks" post, but my main motivation for sharing this is to address one of the biggest hurdles I faced when getting started: wrestling with terminology that doesn't always translate to everyday language.

I started using herbsluftwm after watching @Jake 's video and absolutely loved its approach. While this glossary is specifically tailored to this window manager, the concepts should be also incredibility helpful when reading the documentation, watching videos, or browsing wikis for other tiling window managers.

Without further ado, here is comprehensive glossary of essential herbsluftwm terms, organized with visual ASCII diagrams for clarity:

Frame

The fundamental unit of screen division. A frame is a rectangular area that can contain:

A single window (client)
Multiple stacked windows (depending on layout)
Other nested frames (when you use split)

Analogy: Think of a frame as a box that can be divided into small boxes.

Client

Any window managed by herbsluftwm. Each client has:

A title
A class (i.e: Firefox, Alacritty)
Properties that can be controlled via rules

Split (Division)

Act of splitting a frame into two. Exist two types:

split horizontal: Creates two frames side by side ( Left | Right )
split vertical: Creates two frames stacked ( Top Bottom)

Important: The name refers to the stacking direction ,not the cut line.

Layout

How the windows are organized within a frame. The main methods are:

vertical
horizontal
max
grid

Mod

Main key used in all shortcuts: Usual convention is:

Mod4 = Super/Windows (recommended)
Mod1 = Alt key

Configuration: Mod=Mod4 at the beginning of autostart.

Rule

These are the instructions that define how windows should be managed automatically. You can created them based of:

Application class (i.e: Firefox)
Title
Instance

Usage example:

# Always send Firefox to tag "web"
hc rule class=Firefox tag=web

# Always open Alacritty in floating mode
hc rule class=Alacritty floating=on

I plan to expand this glossary with additional terms in the future. I hope you find this helpful.
Deo gratias

Frame

Tag

Client

Split (Division)

Layout

Mod

Rule