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demitile

Point & Keypress Tiling for X11-based Desktop Environments

  • Tested in Xfce and Mate

Description

Demitile enables active window tiling to different locations using a single tiling key. Tiling location is determined by mouse pointer position, and tile size is controlled by repeated tiling key presses. A detailed article on this tiling control technique, including a demonstration video, is available at http://dfyockey.github.io/demitile.

Coarse Tiling

The screen workarea (i.e. the area excluding never-hidden panels) is viewed by Demitile as a grid of equal-size areas, as shown in the following table. These areas are used to determine large-scale tiling location.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Tile to Upper-Left Quarter  |      Tile to Upper Half      |  Tile to Upper-Right Quarter  |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|      Tile to Left Half       |        Tile to Center        |      Tile to Right Half       |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Tile to Lower-Left Quarter  |      Tile to Lower Half      |  Tile to Lower-Right Quarter  |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To tile the active window to a particular location, the mouse is pointed to the corresponding area, after which the tiling key is pressed. The window should immediately tile to the size and position indicated in the table.

When the mouse pointer is located in the center area, the window centered while being sized to full height and half-screen-workarea width.

For practical reasons, windows that are not "Normal" according to the xwininfo utility are excluded from tiling. These include the desktop window, desktop panels, and other unusual windows (e.g. skinned VLC windows, Conky windows with own_window_type other than normal, etc.). Attempts to tile such windows will have no effect.

Fine Tiling

After a window has been coarsely tiled, fine tile selection can be performed by repeated presses of the tiling key. In so doing, a tile's size can be toggled between a number of widths.

Repeated presses of the tiling key toggle window width between the following workarea fractions:

Left/Right Quarter or Half Tiles

  • Quarter,
  • Three-quarters, and
  • Half

Upper/Lower Half Tiles

  • Half (centered horizontally), and
  • Full (i.e. maximum width)

Notes:

  • Unlike mouse double-clicking, successive key presses are effective any time after the first key press until either

    1. a tiling operation is performed on another window, or

    2. the mouse pointer is positioned in a different screen area when the tiling key is pressed.

  • Fine Tiling does not apply to a center tiled window; attempts will have no effect.

Dependencies

Demitile requires that the following utilities be installed:

  • wmctrl
  • xdotool
  • xprop
  • xwininfo

On Debian-based systems (Ubuntu, Mint, Raspbian, etc.), xprop and xwininfo may by combined with other utilities in package x11-utils.

Setup

  1. Place the demitile file in the directory of your choice.

  2. Select a key or key combination to use as the tiling key.

    • Suggestions for a tiling key:
      • the Menu key or Ctrl+Up (for left-hand mousing),
      • Ctrl+` or Ctrl+Space (for right-hand mousing),
      • one of the Windows or Super keys (if possible in your Desktop Environment).

    However, any available key or key combination can be used as the tiling key.

  3. Set a keyboard shortcut for the selected tiling key(s) to launch demitile.

    • If the directory containing demitile isn't on your PATH, the keyboard shortcut will need the full path to demitile.

  4. (Optional) Disable tiling by moving toward the screen edge.

    • Recommended to avoid confusion due to differences between drag-tiled and demitiled window behavior after tiling. If moved after tiling, drag-tiled windows return to their pre-tiled size while demitiled windows retain their tiled size. Also, a drag-tiled window requires a spurious demitile window operation before it will toggle in width.
    • In Xfce... If checked, uncheck Automatically tile windows when moving toward the screen edge on the Accessibility Tab in Window Manager Tweaks.
    • In Mate... If checked, uncheck Enable side by side tiling on the Placement tab in Window Preferences.

  5. (Optional) Disable shadows under windows.

    • Recommended to provides sharper visual definition of tiled window edges.
    • In Xfce... If checked, uncheck Show shadows under regular windows on the Compositor Tab in Window Manager Tweaks.
    • In Mate... Set Window Manager to Marco + Compton in the Windows section of Desktop Settings.