xfwm as tilling wm

jemadux · 2023-11-25 11:19:49

Hello .. I am love tilling wm .

I don't want switch for my own reasons to i3 or something like that ... can you just provide how i can do xfwm as tilling wm ?

zub · 2023-11-26 05:16:11

Have you seen the Window Manager keyboard settings? You can natively assign keyboard shortcuts to tile a window to any half or quarter of the screen as well as horizontal/vertical fill, maximize, minimize etc. It is simple but maybe it is enough for you. It is what I use.

On the other end, if you want to be more sophisticated, you could try replacing xfwm but still using the rest of xfce. I haven't actually done this, but the Arch WIki has instruction on how to use a different window manager with xfce. So you replace the xfwm4 component with i3 or awesome or whatever you should please.

In terms of middle ground where you don't fully replace xfwm, there are some scripts/applications that are more advanced that the native xfwm. Here is some links from my bookmarks. I tried most of these over the past 1-3 years and didn't find any of them to be what I was looking for but plenty of people like them. Tho I see some of them have been recently updated so I might check back in on them.
* xpytile: Automatic / dynamic window tiling for XFCE
* New Script: Tile, Cascade, Expose' Windows, etc / General discussion / Xfce Forums
* Xlap
* shinglify
* Using xdotool as a Tiling Window Solution
* ssokolow/quicktile: Adds window-tiling hotkeys to any X11 desktop
* Qtile
* leukipp/cortile: Linux auto tiling manager with hot corner support
* Improved Tiling Control in a Stacking Window Environment
* dfyockey/demitile: Point & Keypress Tiling for X11-based Desktop Environments
* jakebian/snaptile: Versatile window tiling for X11 with powerful keyboard controls

(In no particular order.)

If you are still not sure on your solution, maybe try providing more details about what functionality it is you are more looking for and even a bit about why you don't just go for a straight tiling WM.

eriefisher · 2023-11-26 12:20:13

Go to Settings>>Window Manager>>Keyboard

Scroll down to find the tiling settings and add your shortcuts.

Here is a set up I found a while back.
https://uli.rocks/p/tilling-xfce/

zub · 2023-12-10 08:22:48

Just wanted to add that after I made the above comment a couple weeks ago, I took another look at some of the links I posted. And it was worth the time because quicktile has been a great addition to xfce! I guess in the past I had bookmarked it but never really tried it out for some reason.

It adds a bit of useful functionality compared to the built-in window management as described by eriefisher. For example more variations on window tiling to allow cycling through different permutations of a given command. Such as tile to the right:

But according to issue #136 in the quicktile repo, there are some benefits to using the xfwm native tiling that can't/won't be available to quicktile. I am currently using a mix of both to do different things but the keyboard shortcuts are a bit of a mess so eventually I'll have to fix that.

Don't know if it's any help to OP because I don't know what their requirements are. But to me this is the first replacement/extension to the existing xfwm capabilities that is really easy to integrate into my existing habits. So I wanted to recommend quicktile to anyone searching for a bit more juice, while not going fully tiled.

mint4all · 2023-12-11 01:43:49

Greetings!

If you have not yet decided on a particular add-on, perhaps it would be worth to take a look at https://www.giuspen.net/x-tile/ ... As I understand it, it won't make such a mess with your keyboard's tiling-key mappings (can't verify this myself as I don't you use it / have no need for window tiling). And has a lot of tiling layout options, and a gui to configure it, too.

Cheers, m4a

Last edited by mint4all (2023-12-11 01:44:58)

Mo_B · 2024-11-25 09:03:13

I'm also looking for ways to have tiling in Xfce if not migrating to a real tiling WM like Awesome or i3.
Once there was a feature request, I can't find it anymore.

Background: I use some setupts with 3 separate 25" screens and some with 2 screens. Each has a panel. I use shortcuts to Maximize, Maximize horizontally, Tile half, tile quarter, Move to the left monitor...etc.
All that works within the monitor areas.

Now switching a 2x25" with 2560x1440 each by a 49" with 5120x1440, I would like to have the same workflows: In order to have all the above features it would be necessary to virtualls split the screen. A workaround would be, to use 2 display inputs on the screen with Picture-by-Picture and use it like 2 physical screens...

A better layout on a 49" would be to have zones like 1/4, 1/2, 1/4. Having a main window in the center and 2 small windows on each side, like |aXXb|.
In that case it would be required to define split zones.

The best would be to have a feature like virtual monitors, splitting a physical monitor into virtual monitors. But actually the display settings about monitors is part of X or xrandr and not part of the window manager..

How do other Desktop Environments such as KDE/Gnome do that, is any of them able to do custom tilings like real tiling WMs?
What is your idea how to design that feature?
After all we could file a Feature request or find the original one...

Added later 07 min 13 s:
Ok, found. I already started a thread about that topic and going to continue there:
https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=16584

zub · 2025-03-17 03:33:40

@ Mo_B I am giggling a bit because my reason for wanting tiling it that I prefer to work on a tiny 12" notebook. (I *might* go up 1" next time but not sure). It doesn't stop me from having many things open at once when working. I was working on a project today, it was the typical list of windows required: terminal, text editor, 1 or 2 special applications, notes, web browsers, GUI file manager.

I manage it pretty efficiently with the native xfwm4 tiling tools. I think I'm going to reinstall QuickTile because it helped before.
I don't know if it would help in you opposite situation, but this tool called JumpApp has been a good addition
github.com/mkropat/jumpapp. I have a couple different shortcuts to either find my existing terminal and bring it to my current workspace, or open a new one. the Rofi launcher is good, it can search through open windows.

My problem is that I don't actually want a tiling manager. You can't really do too much tiling on 12 inches because your work area gets too small, right away. xfwm4 has almost everything that's practical. What I really want is a stacking window manager. A concept that apparently exists only in my brain.

At work I have some gigantic screen ?20? inches and I really despise it. I'm constantly lost in it. But it's running terribly designed industry software on windows, you need a big display because of the poor workmanship on the software. I had to use it on a laptop once.. not viable. And windows itself is like a baloon castle, everything padded for no reason.

I'm sure the big multi display workstations make sense in their context and for the use cases.

Mo_B · 2025-03-21 00:05:35

You mean https://github.com/ssokolow/quicktile ? Does that work with xfwm?
That JumpApp doesn't help me on tiling.
12" would be too small for me, for mobile working 15,6" is minimum and then I even have 2 of that.
My big screen setup finally got 3 separate screens instead of 1 big 48" screen. Actually because of the missing tiling abilities in Window managers. At the end I'm better prepared for sharing 1 screen while working on the other, or changing one screen of 3 from horizontal to vertical position, creating a big non-square display area...

I still like to see better tiling options in Xfce soon. To be honest even MS Windows 11 is not very flexible eventhough they improved tiling. It's not able to tile in quarters or even smaller regions of the screen, only a few fixed layouts.

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#1 2023-11-25 11:19:49

xfwm as tilling wm

#2 2023-11-26 05:16:11

Re: xfwm as tilling wm

#3 2023-11-26 12:20:13

Re: xfwm as tilling wm

#4 2023-12-10 08:22:48

Re: xfwm as tilling wm

#5 2023-12-11 01:43:49

Re: xfwm as tilling wm

#6 2024-11-25 09:03:13

Re: xfwm as tilling wm

#7 2025-03-17 03:33:40

Re: xfwm as tilling wm

#8 2025-03-21 00:05:35

Re: xfwm as tilling wm

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