Smart Window Tiling for Gnome
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to use a Macbook for my internship. Although I really did enjoy it, I missed the customization of Ubuntu. However, there was one app that I really missed, called Mosaic. It was a graphical interface to window tiling, where I can drag a window over an icon and its snaps to a respective position and size. Does anyone know of an alternative for Ubuntu, preferably Gnome?
3 Answers 3
Window Shuffler
Disclaimer: I am the author.
Natively on Ubuntu Budgie, but if you don’t mind setting up manually, it should work on all window managers that support the dependencies (not wayland): WindowShuffler
It can be used both via GUI as well as via (basic) keyboard support.
I found Shell Tile to be a pretty good alternative for Gnome. However, it isn’t as clean as Mosaic.
What about gTile? It’s quite flexible to configure (supports a variety of customizable grid sizes) and supports multiple monitors. You bring the window you want to to apply tiling to focus and manage it through the dialog pop-up with keyboard shortcuts or with the mouse.
I only use Linux so I never heard of Mosaic, but it looks impressive, Shell Tile on the other hand did not look like what I wanted when I tried it. Should I give it another try?
Tile windows in gnome
PaperWM is an experimental Gnome Shell extension providing scrollable tiling of windows and per monitor workspaces. It’s inspired by paper notebooks and tiling window managers.
Supports Gnome Shell from 3.28 to 3.38 on X11 and wayland.
While technically an extension it’s to a large extent built on top of the Gnome desktop rather than merely extending it.
Clone the repo and run the install.sh script from the repository. The installer will create a link to the repo in $XDG_DATA_HOME/gnome-shell/extensions/ . It will then ask if you want to apply the recommended settings (see Recommended Settings) and lastly it will ask to enable PaperWM.
To uninstall simply run ./uninstall.sh .
You’ll by default follow the develop branch. If you want a possibly more stable experience you can follow the releases by checking out the master branch.
Cloning the repo directly into $XDG_DATA_HOME also works (you can then run install.sh to enable PaperWM):
Running the extension will automatically install a user config file as described in Development & user configuration.
Note for Ubuntu users
There’s three different gnome-desktop variants in Ubuntu:
The default ubuntu-desktop ships with desktop-icons which doesn’t work correctly with PaperWM (#145, #218). Turning the extension off in gnome-tweaks should work in 19.10, but there’s reports of this not working in 19.04, so your milage my vary.
For the easiest out of the box experience we reccommend ubuntu-gnome-desktop . vanilla-gnome-desktop adds some keybindings which plays badly with PaperWM (#233), making it unsuitable at the moment.
Most functionality is available using a mouse, eg. activating a window at the edge of the monitor by clicking on it. In wayland its possible to navigate with 3-finger swipes on the trackpad. But the primary focus is making an environment which works well with a keyboard.
All keybindings start with the Super modifier. On most keyboards it’s the Windows key, on mac keyboards it’s the Command key. It’s possible to modify the keyboard layout so that Super is switched with Alt making all the keybindings easier to reach. This can be done through Gnome Tweaks under Keybard & Mouse ⟶ Additional Layout Options ⟶ Alt/Win key behavior ⟶ Left Alt is swapped with Left Win .
Most keybindings will grab the keyboard while Super is held down, only switching focus when Super is released. Escape will abort the navigation taking you back to the previously active window.
Adding Ctrl to a keybinding will take the current window with you when navigating.
Window management and navigation is based around the three following concepts.
Scrollable window tiling
New windows are automatically tiled to the right of the active window, taking up as much height as possible. Super Return will open a new window of the same type as the active window.
Activating a window will ensure it’s fully visible, scrolling the tiling if necessary. Pressing Super . activates the window to the right. Super , activates the window to the left. On a US keyboard these keys are intuitively marked by and > , they are also ordered the same way on almost all keyboard layouts. A minimap will be shown when Super is continually being pressed, as can be seen in the above screenshot.
Pressing Super I will move the window to the right below the active window, tiling them vertically in a column. Super O will do the opposite, pushing the bottom window out of the current column.
Swiping the trackpad horizontally with three fingers will scroll the tiling (only available in Wayland).
Alt Tab is of course also available.
PaperWM doesn’t handle attached modal dialogs very well, so it’s best to turn it off in Gnome Tweaks (under Windows).
| Keybindings | |
|---|---|
| Super , or Super . | Activate the next or previous window |
| Super Left or Super Right | Activate the window to the left or right |
| Super Up or Super Down | Activate the window above or below |
| Super Home or Super End | Activate the first or last window |
| Super Ctrl , or Super Ctrl . | Move the current window to the left or right |
| Super Ctrl Left or Super Ctrl Right | Move the current window to the left or right |
| Super Ctrl Up or Super Ctrl Down | Move the current window up or down |
| Super t | Take the window, placing it when finished navigating |
| Super Tab or Alt Tab | Cycle through the most recently used windows |
| Super Shift Tab or Alt Shift Tab | Cycle backwards through the most recently used windows |
| Super C | Center the active window horizontally |
| Super R | Resize the window (cycles through useful widths) |
| Super Shift R | Resize the window (cycles through useful heights) |
| Super F | Maximize the width of a window |
| Super Shift F | Toggle fullscreen |
| Super Return or Super N | Create a new window from the active application |
| Super Backspace | Close the active window |
| Super I | Absorb the window to the right into the active column |
| Super O | Expel the bottom window out to the right |
The workspace stack & monitors
Pressing Super Above_Tab will slide the active workspace down revealing the stack as shown in the above screenshot. You can then flip through the most recently used workspaces with repeated Above_Tab presses while holding Super down. Above_Tab is the key above Tab ( ` in a US qwerty layout). Like alt-tab Shift is added to move in reverse order:
Pressing Super Page_Down and Super Page_Up will slide between workspaces sequentially:
The workspace name is shown in the top left corner replacing the Activities button adding a few enhancements. Scrolling on the name will let you browse the workspace stack just like Super Above_Tab . Right clicking the name lets you access and change the workspace name and the background color:
Swiping the trackpad vertically with three fingers lets you navigate the workspace stack (only available in Wayland).
There’s a single scrollable tiling per workspace. Adding another monitor simply makes it possible to have another workspace visible. The workspace stack is shared among all the monitors, windows being resized vertically as necessary when workspace is displayed on another monitor.
PaperWM currently works best using the workspaces span monitors preference, this can be turned on with Gnome Tweaks under Workspaces. If you want to use workspaces only on primary you need to place the secondary monitor either below or above the primary (with the best result having it below).
| Workspace Keybindings | |
|---|---|
| Super Above_Tab | Cycle through the most recently used workspaces |
| Super Shift Above_Tab | Cycle backwards through the most recently used workspaces |
| Super Ctrl Above_Tab | Cycle through the most recently used, taking the active window with you |
| Super Ctrl Shift Above_Tab | Cycle backwards through the most recently used, taking the active window with you |
| Super Page_Down / Page_Up | Cycle sequentially through workspaces |
| Super Ctrl Page_Down / Page_Up | Cycle sequentially through workspaces, taking the active window with you |
| Monitor Keybindings | |
|---|---|
| Super Shift Arrow_key | Select neighbouring monitor |
| Super Shift Ctrl Arrow_key | Move active window to neighbouring monitor |
The scratch layer is an escape hatch to a familiar floating layout. This layer is intended to store windows that are globally useful like chat applications and in general serve as the kitchen sink. When the scratch layer is active it will float above the tiled windows, when hidden the windows will be minimized.
Opening a window when the scratch layer is active will make it float automatically.
Pressing Super Escape toggles between showing and hiding the windows in the scratch layer. Activating windows in the scratch layer is done using Super Tab , the floating windows having priority in the list while active. When the tiling is active Super Shift Tab selects the most recently used scratch window.
Super Ctrl Escape will move a tiled window into the scratch layer or alternatively tile an already floating window. This functionality can also be accessed through the window context menu ( Alt Space ).
| Keybindings | |
|---|---|
| Super Escape | Toggle between showing and hiding the most recent scratch window |
| Super Shift Escape | Toggle between showing and hiding the scratch windows |
| Super Ctrl Escape | Toggle between floating and tiling the current window |
| Super Tab | Cycle through the most recently used scratch windows |
| Super H | Minimize the current window |
Development & user configuration
A default user configuration, user.js , is created in
/.config/paperwm/ with three functions init , enable and disable . init will run only once on startup, enable and disable will be run whenever extensions are being told to disable and enable themselves. Eg. when locking the screen with Super L .
We also made an emacs package, gnome-shell-mode, to make hacking on the config and writing extensions a more pleasant experience. To support this out of the box we also install a metadata.json so gnome-shell-mode will pick up the correct file context, giving you completion and interactive evaluation ala. looking glass straight in emacs.
Pressing Super Insert will assign the active window to a global variable metaWindow , its window actor to actor , its workspace to workspace and its PaperWM style workspace to space . This makes it easy to inspect state and test things out.
Using dconf-editor to modify settings
It’s possible to create simple rules for placing new windows. Currently most useful when a window should be placed in the scratch layer automatically. An example, best placed in the init part of user.js :
The wm_class of a window can be found by using looking glass: Alt F2 lg Return Go to the «Windows» section at the top right and find the window. X11 users can also use the xprop command line tool.
New Window Handlers
If opening a new application window with Super Return isn’t doing exactly what you want you can create custom functions to fit your needs. Say you want new emacs windows to open the current buffer by default, or have new terminals inherit the current directory:
The app id of a window can be looked up like this:
Available application actions can be listed like this:
Due to limitations in the mutter keybinding API we need to steal some built in Gnome Shell actions by default. Eg. the builtin action switch-group with the default Super Above_Tab keybinding is overridden to cycle through recently used workspaces. If an overridden action has several keybindings they will unfortunately all activate the override, so for instance because Alt Above_Tab is also bound to switch-group it will be overridden by default. If you want to avoid this, eg. you want Alt Tab and Alt Above_Tab to use the builtin behavior simply remove the conflicts (ie. Super Tab and Super Above_Tab and their Shift variants) from /org/gnome/desktop/wm/keybindings/switch-group (no restarts required).
User defined keybindings
Extension.imports.keybindings.bindkey(keystr, name, handler, options)
| Option | Values | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| activeInNavigator | true , false | The keybinding is active when the minimap/navigator is open |
| opensMinimap | true , false | The minimap will open when the keybinding is invoked |
See examples/keybindings.js for more examples.
Fixed Window Size
Currently it is not possible to have a default fixed window size. Please check the following issues for progress / info:
Recommended Gnome Shell Settings
There’s a few Gnome Shell settings which works poorly with PaperWM. Namely
- workspaces-only-on-primary : Multi monitor support require workspaces spanning all monitors
- edge-tiling : We don’t support the native half tiled windows
- attach-modal-dialogs : Attached modal dialogs can cause visual glitching
To use the recommended settings run set-recommended-gnome-shell-settings.sh . A «restore previous settings» script is generated so the original settings is not lost.
These extensions are good complements to PaperWM:
- Switcher — combined window switcher and launcher
- Dash to Dock — a great dock
A similar idea was apparently tried out a while back: http://10gui.com/
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Tiled scrollable window management for Gnome Shell
