# Coming from another desktop

Panama is Hyprland with a shell built to replace a GNOME session, so most of
what you know still applies. The differences worth knowing on day one are
below. Nothing here is a preference you have to accept: every one of them is
adjustable in Settings.

## Windows arrange themselves

The biggest change. You do not drag windows into position. Open a second
window and the screen splits; open a third and it splits again. This is
called tiling, and after a day of it, dragging windows feels like making
your own bed in a hotel.

Two things follow from it:

- **There is no minimise.** A minimised window is a window you have hidden
  from a layout that was managing it for you. Use `Super + Shift + X` to
  push a window to the scratchpad and `Super + X` to bring it back, which is
  the same idea without the layout losing track of it.
- **Floating still exists.** `Super + Ctrl + C` makes a window float above
  the layout, for the dialog that was never meant to be tiled.

## Workspaces replace the taskbar

Instead of many windows on one screen, use many screens. `Alt + 1` through
`Alt + 0` jump straight to a workspace; `Alt + Shift + 1` sends the window
you are looking at to workspace one. `Super + backtick` shows all of them at
once.

If you came from macOS, this is Spaces with the friction removed. If you came
from Windows, it is virtual desktops that are actually worth using because
switching is one key rather than three.

## The launcher is the menu

There is no applications menu to browse. `Super + Space` opens a search box
that finds applications, files, clipboard history, emoji, and does
arithmetic. Type three letters of what you want.

This replaces the Start menu, Spotlight, the GNOME overview's app grid, and
the run dialog, and it is faster than all of them because it never asks you
to aim at anything.

## What stayed the same

`Super + Tab` still switches windows. The bar is still along the top with a
clock in the middle and status on the right. There is still a dock. Volume
and brightness keys still work, and still work on the lock screen. Copy and
paste are unchanged. Your files are where you left them.

GNOME Settings is still installed for the few panels Panama deliberately does
not own, and Panama's own Settings hands off to it where that applies.