Xfce Forum

u666sa

Member

Registered: 2019-11-13

Posts: 43

FEATURE REQUEST: optional tiling functionality

What's up devs. I have this amazing idea. I want you to add optional tiling functionality to XFCE. How would it look like?

In Settings you could switch between 3 options;
1) Classic floating XFCE
2) Fully titling XFCE
3) Hybrid floating+tiling

When switched to fully tiling XFCE, desktop environment would act like an i3 or xmonad, tiling windows according to config file, respecting panels, and even placing windows to particular workspace if specified in config. Windows can still be floated if chosen. You can specify whether to display title bar and decoration for all windows, or for a particular application, all done via config file. Essentially this is i3 within your XFCE.. Done not to consume resources, done to maximize the workflow.

When switched to hybrid mode, floating+xfce, default mode is floating, unless particular application has section in config file, then it would be tiled according to config. Essentially this is reverse of fully tiling XFCE, unlike in fully tiling XFCE all windows are tiled unless specified otherwise in config or via command, in hybrid, all windows are floated, unless specified otherwise. I see two different config files, even 3, because I want to also specify workspace, position, titlebar, decoration, and etc, for the classic xfce environment, per application basis.

I hope you implement this feature!

cmcanulty

Member

From: Beulah, Michigan

Registered: 2014-05-10

Posts: 266

Re: FEATURE REQUEST: optional tiling functionality

have you tried x-tile? It works well in xfce4

jaywilkas

Member

Registered: 2021-06-05

Posts: 19

Re: FEATURE REQUEST: optional tiling functionality

Perhaps you may want to try my python script  xpytile

https://github.com/jaywilkas/xpytile

xpytile offers something which is like what you called "hybrid mode":
no tiling, automatic tiling and tiling on demand (per hotkey).

The settings are desktop (workspace) specifc and can be changed at runtime per hotkey.
But since xpytile is a helper-script and not really part of Xfce, windows are always floating, even when xpytile assists you arranging and resizing windows.

xpytile comes with 5 different tilers.

You can store and re-create the windows geometries (position and size) on each workspace per hotkey.

Besides the tiling functionality the script also offers simulaneous resizing of side-by-side (docked) windows.
Also this feature can be turned off | on  per hotkey on demand, separately for each workspace.

These actions (and some more) can be triggered by configurable hotkeys:
- chose tiler "master and stack vertically"
- chose tiler "vertically"
- chose tiler "master and stack horizontally"
- chose tiler  "horizontally"
- chose tiler  "maximize active window"
- restore windows layout
- store current windows layout on active desktop
- cycle windows
- toggle whether simultaneous resizing is on | off
- toggle whether automatic tiling is on | off
- shrink width/height of master window and (re-)tile
- enlarge width/height of master window and (re-)tile
- log name & title of active window in /tmp/xpytile_<USERNAME>.log
- exit

Last edited by jaywilkas (2021-06-05 16:18:58)