I find it easier using my pinky to hit ctrl than taking my fingers off the home row to use the arrow keys.

I just want you to know you weren't screaming into the void. Look at my new main.py:

from pathlib import PurePath


from Layout import Layout


DEFAULT_FOLDER = PurePath("/home", "mike", "bg")
WATERMARK_DIR = Path(Path(os.getcwd()).parent, "assets", "img")


def main() -> Layout:
    return Layout()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

(I know I still need to change those folder defaults, but I am still riding the high of getting all that layout stuff into Layout.py and it working. I spent a couple hours today struggling, wondering why I was just getting a blank screen, when i realized i forgot to call .grid() on the frame that held all the widgets! So it was just rendering a blank window. )

I have a T560 and i run debian with sway. It serves the dual purpose of getting me more comfortable in the terminal (i even use power shell on my windowa desk top a lot more now), and it runs much better than KDE or gnome did. Im missing some obvious quality of life settings like easily adjusting the power settings (it never sleeps, just turns off the screen and locks). But again, im trying to get more comfortable using the terminal so for me its more of a "take the training wheels off" thing.

In case this thread turns up a google search, or anyone is keeping score, I think I more or less managed to achieve what I wanted by putting this is in my config:

assign [class="Firefox-esr"]  "2"
exec wezterm -e cmus
 exec swaymsg [app_id="org.wezfurlong.wezterm"] focus
 exec swaymsg move container to workspace "10"
 exec firefox

the only thing i don't love is that if quit cmus, it closes the window instead of bringing me back to the shell. maybe i have so chain commands or something, i don't know. i'm happy to have made it this far. Another thing is I don't know if it's possible to distinguish between the specific instance of wezterm that's running cmus, and the other one i want running on workspace 1.

I want my terminal to start on workspace one. Since this is default behavior of adding 'exec ' to my sway config, this requirement is satisfied. I also want Firefox to start up on workspace 2. And I would like another terminal to open on workspace 10, but to automatically run cmus, a terminal music player.

Is it a low code tool?

I tend to agree with you. I work in a retail pharmacy and literally have had nightmares about work. Some folks dont know how good they have it. But in their defense satisfaction is an unfortunately ephemeral beast. When i first switched from the floor to pharmacy i was happier than id been in years. I still wouldn't go backwards, but god damn some days i would love a job where i can sit down and the only customer i have to worry about is my boss.

If this ever happens to you again, you can try doing ctrl + alt + < F1 - F12>. That will bring up different screens/terminals and its so baked into linux it might have still worked even in that broken state. Still bonkers the installer didn't accept keyboars info though. Its ironic because so much of my linux experience has been about reducing mouse/touchpad use.

Ive just been booting straight into sway

Whats the learn/work program?

I started using powershell more because it comes with a lot of bash aliases out of the box. Besides a brief period of using ubuntu in like 2006 because my windows install got corrupted, its my first foray into linux. Ive been daily driving debian 12 and i love it. I feel like getting used to the lingo helped ease the transition.

But if you actually use powershell for more than simple tasks and take advantage of its object oriented nature, it might make the switch harder. If you plan to use the command line as little as possible i think the switch is trivial. Your biggest worry is going to be analysis paralysis with all the options, but i just installed debian with the defaults and trying out different desktop environments is really easy and i havent yet had a problem that wasnt simple to solve with a google search.

I was formatting my query poorly >:o

specifically, I was too clever by formatting my query like it appears in the URL of the response (ie: replacing spaces with +'s)

Also, the token was working the whole time, I think I was getting the error because I was attempting to access the search results by clicking the "href" in the response, and in doing was I was hitting the endpoint without providing the right header, which caused me to get the 401 error in my browser.