Auto-layouter

The auto-layouter is an example of a built-in tool. It extends the behavior of the workspace tiling mode with automatic management of window sizing and positioning to fit a certain profile. The currently provided one comes in two variants, center-focus and center-focus (force scale).

You can activate this mode by going to global/tools/auto layouting/center-focus and revert back from it with global/tools/auto layouting/default.

This mode works with three or more windows and split the screen into three columns: a center area (the intended focus) and two side columns. New windows will spawn de-selected evenly divided in the side columns, as shown in this screenshot:

menu UI

This mode was specifically made for working with many terminal windows, VMs, remote desktop sessions etc. where you need to keep a watchful eye on some windows, but don’t want to draw unnecessary attention away from whatever you are working on.

The scaled version always tells the clients that they have the size of the center area even when they are in the smaller side columns. This cuts down on resize- negotiation, resize- related refreshes and eliminates any resize-latency when swapping with center.

There are five configurable options reachable through global/config/tools/auto layouting:

  1. Side-Opacity (scaled) applies in center-focus scaled mode and forces a background blend with a certain opacity in the 0 (invisible) to 1(opaque).

  2. Mouse-SelectSwap (yes or no), if set to yes, clicking a window in the side columns automatically swaps it with the center area.

  3. Center Weight (0.5 to 0.9) determins how much of the screen width that should be reserved for the center area.

  4. Side Shader (+ Side Shader Select) allows you to set a shader override for the side-column so they can have a different appearance than when in the center region, e.g. blurred or greyscale.

  5. Side Titlebar can be used to disable titlebar rendering for the side columns so that they occupy less vertical space, but will still respect the window setting when in the center slot.

It also adds two new paths to target/window/swap, Swap-Focus and Swap-Select(Focus). If activated with the center window selected, the center window will be swapped with the previous that was last in the center window.

Future Changes

  • Additional auto-layouting modes (spiral, book, etc.)