I use i3wm on my work computers. I use konsole as my terminal, ranger as a file browser, and neovim with chadtree and barbar for editing. Since konsole, ranger, and nvim with barbar can have multiple tabs, everything runs like butter.

I also modified my ranger rc.conf to allow me to open specific files on specific desktops. Shift+E(1 though 9) opens a file in nvim on the corresponding desktop. Shift+S(1 through 9) opens a terminal at the directory on the corresponding desktop. Shift+O(1 through 9) opens a file using mime types on the corresponding desktop. The trick was to use nohup, otherwise everything is a child process of ranger and will disappear if ranger is killed.

When using i3wm learning to script for dmenu is a must too. I have a menu that can mount and unmount any file system on my network, or ssh to each cpu, etc.