
Fancy Zones, a tiling window manager - nailer
https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/blob/master/src/modules/fancyzones/README.md
======
rickbutton
This seems like a good time to plug my tiling window manager for Windows,
workspacer. [https://www.workspacer.org/](https://www.workspacer.org/)

I use xmonad on my linux machines, and wanted something similar for Window, so
workspacer trys to replicate that style of window manager (configurable via
writing C#, dynamic layouts, etc).

I've been using it every day for about a year, but its still pretty early,
there are some applications for which it freaks out, but for the most part it
works! What it really needs is a good set of docs and a bunch of examples, but
I haven't had any time to flesh it out.

I was hoping to see some unique tricks in the source for Fancy Zones, but it
looks like it more or less does the same thing as workspacer, managing the set
of open windows and occasionally calling SetWindowPos.

~~~
JerwuQu
Oh! This is the closest I've seen to what I want when on Windows. I run linux
at home but Windows at work, so I miss i3 a lot. I've tried some other tiling
WM attempts for Windows before but none of them have worked very well...

I'll definitely give this a try!

~~~
rickbutton
Please do! I haven't had time to work on it lately, but if there is interest
in it I wouldn't mind picking it back up!

~~~
JerwuQu
Just downloaded it and I have some pretty specific/opinionated requests
already :P

I like it when the config file is explicit - as in that there are no defaults
outside of what is specified in the config file. This way it's very easy for a
new user (like me) to edit things like keybinds, colors, etc. without having
to basically recreate the default config to then edit it.

Also, since I'm an i3 user, I'd like if there was the possibility of
navigating windows using directions instead of in a sequence, and to create
layouts on the fly by doing splits and resizing. Maybe this is already
possible by writing some code in the code though?

Nothing too important, but thought I'd voice my initial thoughts. Thanks for
your work!

I'll go ahead and plug my dmenu equivalent[0], since that's also something I
use when on Windows and which someone might find useful.

[0]: [https://github.com/jerwuqu/wlines](https://github.com/jerwuqu/wlines)

~~~
rickbutton
on default config: yeah, I'm not sure what the best story is here. I would
like the out of the box experience to be nice, and I want to be able to
configure anything, but I also want to be able to ship nice improvements to
the defaults without making all users update their own config. For example, I
just pushed a commit that adds a default ignore for a new start menu process
in 1903. If I place that ignore in the "template" for the config file, then
all users with a custom config will need to somehow diff their config with the
default. I am 10000% open to suggestions on how to make this better.

On direction changes, I've gotten this request a few times. It should be
pretty easy, but I haven't gotten around to it:
[https://github.com/rickbutton/workspacer/issues/43](https://github.com/rickbutton/workspacer/issues/43)

On the fly layouts would be neat. Since layouts are just an instance of
ILayoutEngine, you could probably just write a bunch of custom code to allow
you to make splits however you want. I would be super interested in seeing
what this looks like!

wlines is awesome! There is a feature in workspacer similar to dmenu called
"menus", but there are a few bugs, mostly around it sometimes not showing up
in focus, which is a pain. I have some config on my work machine that lets me
press alt-shift-p and navigate to a bunch of work projects I maintain, only
typing the first few characters of the project I'm looking for.

~~~
laumars
The way most software I've seen resolve this is to have a defaults config file
and a user config file. defaults is defined by the application maintainers and
the user config overrides any settings in the defaults.

So you can do updates to the defaults but if users wanted to specify specific
customisations those would be preserved. Also users can browser the defaults
config and copy/paste chunks of that config into the user config file.

Those files are often named differently and/or located in different parts of
the file system hierarchy; but the concept is the same.

~~~
rickbutton
thats an interesting idea.

right now, configuring workspacer is a very imperative, mutable process,
because you just setup instances of objects, and call functions that setup
some state. some care would need to be taken to design an API that could be
"layered" in that it could be easily overridden by the user. this is a good
idea!

~~~
WorldMaker
Might be just as easy as making sure that all of your defaults are documented
in the doc-comments of relevant properties and encouraging people to use CSX
editors that have good documentation tooltips for API exploration (like VS
Code with OmniSharp)?

------
simias
I tried using a custom "window manager" for Windows a while ago (back in the
Vista days IIRC) and it didn't really work well.

The main problem was that, as far as I could tell, the window manager couldn't
really preempt the windows and force them to show up in a certain way. Instead
it basically asked them "pretty please, could you show up at this location
with these dimensions?". As a result frozen apps (such as graphical apps that
triggered a breakpoint in code or are simply misbehaving) or apps running as
admin would refuse to obey and stay stuck. IIRC one workaround was to run the
window manager with admin privilege but even that didn't help with frozen apps
I think. Besides I wasn't really comfortable running such an application with
administrator privileges.

Of course that was a long time ago and it was a non-MS project, hopefully this
one works better. I really can't see myself working without a tiling WM
anymore, "conventional" desktops feel terribly clunky and inefficient to me.

~~~
GuiA
I’ve encountered similar issues with macOS tiling window managers. At the end
of the day, you’re bolting on behaviors that the original designers of the
system didn’t intend you to, and there’s always going to be tension there.

When I’m on Linux I love using xmonad/i3, but on other platforms I’ve learned
to accept the defaults; otherwise you just end up using things that work most
of the time, but not really, and it’s really infuriating when you expect your
workflows to be snappy and consistent.

~~~
tendencydriven
Have you tried chunkwm[1] on Mac? It has it's issues but it has served me fine
for the last few years.

[1]
[https://github.com/koekeishiya/chunkwm](https://github.com/koekeishiya/chunkwm)

~~~
sdegutis
There's also AppGrid[2] for Mac, which I've been using for years and still use
to this day. It's simple but flexible.

[2]
[https://github.com/mjolnirapp/appgrid](https://github.com/mjolnirapp/appgrid)

------
Miner49er
Recently been forced to work on Windows, been looking for a tiling windows
manager for Windows. I'm used to i3/Sway.

Played with it a bit. It has some good ideas, but hopefully they keep adding
features. Some things it's missing (that most or all tiling WMs have):

\- Custom keyboard shortcuts

\- ability to switch focus quickly with keyboard shortcuts (move to window to
right/left, instead of alt-tabbing through all open windows for example)

\- virtual desktop keyboard shortcuts to quickly switch to a numbered Virtual
Desktop and move windows to them (I have a autohotkey script for this), but
would be nice for it to be built-in to this.

\- an option to auto-tile when new windows are opened. As it is, it floats new
windows, and you have to manually move them into position. This is fairly
cumbersome.

~~~
clircle
Also coming to Windows from an i3 background, I've set up a custom autohotkey
script that handles a lot of window management stuff for me on windows 10.

F1 - Run or switch to Outlook

F2 - Run or switch to Firefox

F3 - Run or switch to Emacs

...

F9 - Cycle windows in app

F10 - previous window (alt+tab)

F11 - maximize / restore

F12 - Kill window

It's not tiling, but it's a potent workflow.

~~~
snaptravisty
For the launch, open of applications I use Win+Position on super bar.

Win+1 Explorer

Win+2 Firefox

Win+...

~~~
asdfman123
Man, that saves me from so much alt-tabbing. I was using a custom AutoHotKey
script to move between all sorts of Visual Studio solutions and manually
opening email/chat/chrome/whatever else.

------
UI_at_80x24
I know that several of my Windows-based co-workers will like this. Looking at
the screenshots it does look cumbersome though. The real power of i3 is it's
simplicity. You are not overwhelmed by complicated constructs. This appears to
be a more static approach to tiling 'I want Layout #3' vs 'Open a new window
here'.

I really hope this catches on. It's a fantastic productivity booster that I
feel is on-par with having a second monitor.

~~~
shawnz
In my opinion, the major disadvantage of current tiling WMs like i3 is that
they don't make effective use of the mouse, which can be a very efficient
input device for some usages.

If this product is able to change that, then that could outweigh the pain of
the awkward configuration for me.

~~~
TickleSteve
Regarding the mouse... thats the entire point of i3, i.e. to make it all
keyboard-driven.

It's sort of like saying "the problem with cars is that they don't make
effective use of the horse".

i3 doesn't do anything to prevent you using the mouse for whatever application
you like.

~~~
badsectoracula
The point is to use the mouse for window management not just on the
applications. Now, i haven't used i3, but from a tiling window manager i'd
expect _at minimum_ that i can drag-drop windows with the mouse between
"zones" and resize the zone boundaries interactively with the mouse.

For extra stuff i'd like using the wheel up/down on a title bar to
minimize/restore a zone, drag-dropping a window over another window to create
a zone made out of tab-like title bars, ctrl+clicking multiple titlebars to
select multiple windows (so that, e.g, drag-dropping them to another zone
would put all of them as tabbed windows in there or being able to close all of
them either via a shortcut or via a popup menu command, and/or commands to
merge them in one tabbed zone, or split tabbed zone(s) to individual zones),
right clicking on a zone separator to offer a popup with commands to
split/merge the zone, move the splitter at some specific percentage, etc,
drag-dropping one or more windows at the edge of the screen to create a new
zone (or set of zones for multiple windows).

There are so many things you can add with a mouse, especially if instead of
thinking of it as a car vs horse you think of it as what it actually is: an
additional input device that is right next to your keyboard and unlike the
keyboard it provides precise analog input for 2D motion.

As a starting point you can check what pretty much every IDE with support for
tiling does (e.g. the recent versions of Visual Studio - not VSCore, the real
one).

~~~
virtualwhys
i3 isn't really a Windows click-click-click style UI; you do most everything
with the keyboard, including % based resizing, converting tiles to tabs or
stacks, moving tiles from one section or virtual desktop to another, etc.

It's really quite a powerful and easily configurable tool, so much so that I
consider it to be an absolutely indispensable part of my day-to-day computing
experience (working on a Mac, for example, is just depressing in comparison).

~~~
shawnz
But why? I think it would be hard to argue that the mouse isn't significantly
more efficient for, e.g. resize operations than the keyboard. And you have one
right there on your desk, don't you? Don't you find it to be a waste that it
can't make effective use of all your input devices even in situations where
they could provide advantages?

~~~
chmielewski
Decade-long user of i3 here, I have three different keyboards (netbook to
server) and three different trackpads\mouses -- the keyboard is more efficient
for resize operations. I use focus-follows-mouse (agreed, why not use all
devices) and fling the cursor all over the place all the time, but don't have
to click and don't even have to use my fingers if I can drag my lower palm
across the trackpad.

------
Jedd
> ... also to restore these layouts quickly.

This is the most frustrating problem I have with Microsoft Windows, which
frequently needs a reboot (to satisfy update obligations, or just to try to
fix degraded performance).

After more than twenty years having my preferred desktop environment (KDE)
bring back all my application windows, laid out as they were prior to reboot,
across multiple virtual desktops, it's profoundly frustrating to have to spend
several minutes each time trying to recreate my layout on Microsoft Windows
10.

Yes, tiling WMs etc may solve (for small values) this in different ways, but
the fact remains that after a reboot on Microsoft Windows I'm back to a
pristine desktop each and every time.

~~~
jhoechtl
Sorry to tell you that KDE on Wayland will not make you happy any more.

~~~
eikenberry
I think this still could change though given Wayland is still very much a work
in progress. Maybe they just haven't implemented this feature yet. AFAIK it
isn't technically impossible with Wayland.

------
kryogen1c
Im a huge fan of window management, so I'll definitely check this out.

Incumbents are pretty strong, though. Windows 10 introduced Snap, which easily
breaks your screen into halves or quadrants

[https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/help/4027324/windows-10-...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/help/4027324/windows-10-snap-your-windows)

Sysinternals, well known for simple powerfull tools, makes a program called
Desktops. It creates a total of 4 sets of desktops you can hotkey between.

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/sysinternals/downloads/desk...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/sysinternals/downloads/desktops)

sysinternals desktops multiplies my 3 monitors and gives me 12, and a few are
quartered or halved. 16 "sections" in use pretty commonly with no extra
software or hardware cost.

It should be noted that my work computer has 8gb ram and an i5, so if i can do
it you can too : )

~~~
criddell
For Windows 10, you probably don't need Desktops anymore. If you click on the
task view button on the toolbar, one of the options at the top is to add
virtual desktops. You cycle between them with ctrl-win-left and ctrl-win-
right.

~~~
cjarrett
Win+Tab opens up an overlay that allows you add a desktop as well.

~~~
criddell
That's another way of getting to the task view.

------
phkahler
This sounds like a feature for sysadmins and programmers. It's something you
need to "configure".

There are three thing I'd like regarding window layout:

1) the WM remembers the last placement of each app (and child window, and
second or 3rd instance), and put them there when relaunched.

2) since I use a huge 4k monitor, I almost never want a window to drag beyond
any edge of the screen. I dont need snapping, just a large hysteresis (in one
direction) at the edge of the screen.

3) an easy way to set which thing launch at login. This may want to be in one
of the common menus, not off in a config tool or .login file.

BTW I use gnome (on wayland), so if you know how I can get any of these
behaviors I'd like that.

~~~
nailer
For 1, Fancy Zones has "Move newly created windows to their last known zone"

------
kache_
Gonna drop a PSA, if anyone is moving from i3wm to OSX, check out yabai.
[https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai](https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai)

~~~
ptrkcsk
Another option is Amethyst:
[https://ianyh.com/amethyst/](https://ianyh.com/amethyst/)

------
bob1029
Will definitely check this out. I use a 43" 4K and the default corner/side
snapping behavior is just not sufficient for managing windows. Having visual
studio snapped to the right/left 50% of your screen all day is terrible for
your neck, especially considering the default location of solution explorer in
VS. I really just need a 'priority' zone or column right in the middle of the
display that I can quickly snap other things around. A 3x3 grid or simply 3
columns might work out well for me.

~~~
spectaclepiece
If you're on an X11 based desktop system I would highly recommend
Quicktile[1]. I have a 43 inch 4k too and the 3x1 layout is one of the most
common I use. Centering a single window in the middle is also very useful. On
my mac I use Spectactle[2] instead and I have the keyboard shortcuts mapped
the same on both systems. If I would use Windows this looks like a good
option.

[1]
[https://github.com/ssokolow/quicktile](https://github.com/ssokolow/quicktile)
[2] [https://www.spectacleapp.com/](https://www.spectacleapp.com/)

~~~
Fnoord
Another option is Amethyst [1]. It does the tiling for you.

[1] [https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst](https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst)

------
woodrowbarlow
so, i've tried this out. it seems like, unless i'm missing something, the
zones can only be used on your primary display right now. that makes it
useless for me.

another commenter mentioned maxto so i tried it out as well. it looks like
maxto is exactly what fancy zones will be once it's finished.

~~~
jenmsft
Currently the new zone editor only supports tbe primary monitor. You can
switch to the old zone editor in settings in the interim, though

------
haunter
I think it's not updated anymore but I used WindowGrind on 10.

[https://bitbucket.org/joshua_wilding/windowgrid-
binaries/src...](https://bitbucket.org/joshua_wilding/windowgrid-
binaries/src/master/)

~~~
xbkingx
Came here to mention WindowGrid and WinNumpad Position.

WindowGrid: Drag window with left+right mouse buttons brings up a customizable
grid. Release RMB to set first corner, and LMB to set opposite corner.

WinNumpad Position: Win key+Numpad key to snap window into corresponding
position (eg- 7 for top left corner). Hit number multiple times to cycle
through sizes. [https://pbrs.weebly.com/win-numpad-
positioner.html](https://pbrs.weebly.com/win-numpad-positioner.html)

Both are basically abandoned, but they work well along side the built in Aero
Snap features.

Other old alternatives that have various levels of functionality (and clearly
inspired many of the tools posted in this thread):

GridMove (free): Used to be my go to, but hdpi scaling and the Modern UI
window elements borked it. Based on AutoHotKey, but surprisingly responsive,
extremely customizable (though not very user friendly). Would love to see this
make a comeback.
[http://www.dcmembers.com/jgpaiva/](http://www.dcmembers.com/jgpaiva/)
[https://github.com/jgpaiva/GridMove](https://github.com/jgpaiva/GridMove)

MaxTo (paid): User friendly and pretty, but less useful since Aero Snap.
Rarely updated, but alive. Nice if all you want is a slightly more control
over the built in Aero Snap. [https://maxto.net/](https://maxto.net/)

AquaSnap (paid): Very similar to MaxTo, but more refined. Free personal
version is limited to single display functions. Updated rarely, but alive.
[https://www.nurgo-software.com/products/aquasnap](https://www.nurgo-
software.com/products/aquasnap)

Windock (free): Crashes for me but works for some.
[https://www.ivanyu.ca/#/windock/](https://www.ivanyu.ca/#/windock/)

Freesnap (free): Not maintained, but used to be great. Haven't tried it in a
while, but thought it deserved mentioning. [https://mike-
ward.net/freesnap/](https://mike-ward.net/freesnap/)

~~~
vegardlarsen
Author of MaxTo here. It is very much alive, but there is just me working on
it so progress is sometimes slow.

There are some very cool things coming in the next release: \- support for
different triggers, that lets you run specific commands in response to windows
events. Basically our recipes feature extended quite a bit. \- WinSplit-like
hotkeys for those who liked those. Configurable. \- lots of these small
quality of life improvements

We are getting closer to a public preview of this, but shoot me an e-mail for
a private preview.

------
Nr7
This is part of the new PowerToys utilities. There's already a post on Hacker
News front page about it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20890828](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20890828)

------
nickjj
I got REALLY excited when I read this title until I read the documentation and
now I probably won't even bother testing it.

If anyone is looking for an i3-like tiling window manager (a Linux tiling wm)
Fanzy Zones isn't it. This one requires pre-setting a bunch of layouts up
front, unlike i3 where you can just seamlessly open and move windows that
auto-split as you go with zero window configuration up front.

IMO the mods should change the title of this post to define what type of
tiling window manager it is, such as "Fancy Zones, a pre-defined layout based
tiling window manager from Microsoft". In the title's current form it's
borderline clickbait.

~~~
nailer
It's an Open Source project. Send a PR or a feature request:
[https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/new?assignees=...](https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/new?assignees=&labels=&template=feature_request.md&title=)

~~~
nickjj
>
> [https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/new?assignees=...](https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/new?assignees=&labels=&template=feature_request.md&title=)

This isn't something that's really a feature request. It would require
changing how the whole entire application works at a fundamental level, or
really building 2 applications in 1.

That's why you have 2 different sets of tiling window managers on Linux. You
either have fixed layout ones where it's automatic after configuration or
manual tiling window managers instead of 1 tool trying to do both.

~~~
ndarwincorn
> You either have fixed layout ones or dynamic tiling window managers instead
> of 1 tool trying to do both.

I must be missing something, because the 'dynamic' tiling window managers are
1 tool doing both fixed and floating (or stacking) layouts.

~~~
nickjj
Sorry, I should have been more clear in my words. I edit what you quoted for
clarity.

i3 acts much differently because if you open 1 window it takes up your whole
screen and if you open another window it will be split 50/50 (the direction
depends on what hotkey you hit). And it keeps going like this. You can just
naturally use your system and let the tiling window manager worry about
resizing things and you can fine tune the sizes with hotkeys on the spot if
you desire to have non-symmetrical splits.

This is why i3 is classified as a manual tiling window manager. You get to
control how the splits happen on the spot, rather than it being automatic as
long as you pre-configure the layouts beforehand.

i3 also lets you optionally choose to make windows floating on demand with
hotkeys or even pre-configure certain apps or window titles to be floating by
default. There's stacking as well.

This video does a good job showing how i3 works and feels:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKviflL9XeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKviflL9XeI)
(and how it's drastically different than Fancy Zones).

~~~
ndarwincorn
Ah I realize how I misunderstood/how that was poorly worded, but I'm well
aware of how i3 works, thanks.

This may come as a shock to you, but some of us prefer our highly-tailored
pre-configured tiling setups to the ad-hoc interaction that is i3.

~~~
nickjj
> This may come as a shock to you, but some of us prefer our highly-tailored
> pre-configured tiling setups to the ad-hoc interaction that is i3.

Yes, that's why i3 and other wms exist on Linux and everyone is happy using
the tool they prefer.

I'm more upset about the title of the post being clickbait because like you
said, some people prefer different styles of tiled window managers.

Having it defined as "tiling window manager" is going to make the 50% of the
people who prefer i3 feel they got baited into clicking the link. I know I
went from "omg best software day ever" to "..." between reading the title and
clicking the link.

~~~
ndarwincorn
Probably closer to 80% :).

I get the baited feeling. But you know as well as me that any sort of tiling
interaction with Windows beyond snap left/snap right is progress.

------
AceyMan
On Win 10 I'm using the combo of Virtuawin (for multi-desktops and window
assignments) and AquaSnap for tiling / positioning.

NB: Virtuawin seems like OSS abandon-ware (last build ~2017, iirc) but it
works great (so far), while AquaSnap is trialware (I bought it after two days
of use) and is still shipping releases.

I also hack the registry to enable focus-follows-mouse without autoraise.
(Powertoys could enable the first capability but not the latter, hence the
registry mod.)

I'm primarily a Windows SE, but I fell in love with these capabilities in X
when I was learning my way around Linux and just _had to have_ the same
experience on Windows <grin>.

------
uakiki
I wrote (and use) Mosaico.

Download it at [http://www.soulidstudio.com](http://www.soulidstudio.com)

Any feedback welcome!

~~~
fraXis
This looks great. Something I have been looking for since upgrading to a
49-inch Ultra-wide, where I now prefer to keep my application windows floating
around the center on this giant monitor.

Do you still actively develop it? The digital signature in your .exe says 2017
and your website footer says 2015.

~~~
uakiki
Thank you! Yes, I'm currently working on a 2.0 version, which is a big
refactoring code-wise and takes a lot of time. That's why regular updates are
missing unfortunately :/

------
jchw
Speaking of tiling window managers in new environments, I’ve had a really
positive experience with Sway, the i3-compatible Wayland compositor. Almost
everything you need can be done, someone has even written an OBS plugin
capable of capturing from it (and any other wl_roots-based compositor.) I
think when Chrome, Firefox and Electron all ship a WebRTC build capable of
capturing from wl_roots based compositors, there will be no practical
downsides to Sway over X11/i3. (There’s already plenty of cool things about it
today.) That could take a while, though, since upstream WebRTC does not have
support for this today.

------
clscott
This looks neat. This is a kind of window manager I have wanted for quite a
while on OSX

~~~
cvrajeesh
I've been using spectacle[0] for a while and happy with it

[0]:
[https://github.com/eczarny/spectacle](https://github.com/eczarny/spectacle)

~~~
throwaway413
Seconded - this is the first thing I install on any new Mac I get my hands on.

------
buybackoff
NVIDIA's nView Desktop Manager has Gridline Editor that is very similar. It's
an indispensable tool for a ultra-wide monitor. If you happen to have NVIDIA
GPU and Windows most likely you already have it one right click from desktop.

------
iamtheworstdev
for those unfamiliar with it, there's also 'divvy', which has a mac and
windows client.

[https://mizage.com/divvy/](https://mizage.com/divvy/)

I use it on my 34" monitor.

~~~
thefz
User on OSX before, and on windows since the start! They gonna have to pry
WinDivvy from my dead cold hands.

------
dleslie
Funnily enough, I recently purchased MaxTo[0], which appears now to have a
decent and free competitor.

0: [https://maxto.net/](https://maxto.net/)

~~~
vegardlarsen
Thank you for you purchase. I'm the author of MaxTo.

I'm not too worried about the competition here; MaxTo's feature set is
expanding and will remain quite a bit more powerful than FancyZones for the
overseeable future. :)

------
rackforms
Interesting. The recent 1903 update has a significant flaw where any
disconnection from an RDP session (I work remote) completely resets all window
positions. I was saved by this wonderful tool:

[https://github.com/adamsmith/WindowsLayoutSnapshot](https://github.com/adamsmith/WindowsLayoutSnapshot)

Wonder if this tool would perform the same general function.

BTW: For any MS folks listening, please fix this bug, it's dreadful! :(

------
msla
This doesn't look like what a Linux or BSD user would call a window manager.
It looks more like a way to configure the MS-Windows window manager (that is,
the graphical shell) to behave a bit more like i3 or xmonad in how it arranges
windows on the screen. There's no real way to pry off MS-Windows and run
anything else on top of the NT kernel, is there?

~~~
WorldMaker
Microsoft themselves tried in Windows 8, when they thought they might actually
have a chance to reinvent most of the graphical shell. The original UWP
"world" (app composition model) involved a separate tiling window manager that
a lot of people hated (I loved it, sigh). In Windows 8.1 that tiling window
manager got rather capable allowing for any number of vertical splits and the
Win32 desktop taking up what remains after the splits. In Windows 10 the last
vestiges of that tiling window manager remain only in Tablet Mode and devolved
back to only supporting one vertical split at a time, just managing two semi-
maximized apps running more traditionally like the Win32 desktop mode.

------
NoGravitas
I'd love to give this a try. The improvements to edge/corner snapping in
Windows 10 already feel like they give me about 60% of a tiling window
manager, and if this was 80%, that would be fantastic. Unfortunately, it
requires a newer release of Windows 10 than my workplace is running, so it's
out of the question for me for now.

------
prabir
DWM port windows is what I use daily. [https://github.com/prabirshrestha/dwm-
win32-6](https://github.com/prabirshrestha/dwm-win32-6)

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leshow
Does windows have virtual desktops? I don't see any hotkeys for moving between
vdesks. Never thought I'd see the day MS makes a tiling wm with hotkeys
inspired by i3 & friends.

I'll stick with i3 though.

~~~
19870213
Use Win+Tab then in the upper left corner there is a button for 'New desktop'.
On my work Dell laptop I can use three-finger swipe to switch desktops. Not
sure about moving windows between virtual desktops.

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Spacemolte
Looks really nice, but not a big fan of the name "Power Toys" \- It makes me
think it's some extension to powershell or a collection of powershell scripts
that does something fancy.

~~~
mc32
Well it inherits the name from the Win95 days, some years before powershell
became a thing. And “power” is a word borrowed from biz like power lunches and
power walking, etc. just a happy play on words.

I think it also borrows a bit from “Kai’s Power Tools”

~~~
WorldMaker
"Power user" has been a computing term for decades, for someone that uses
advanced features. (In this case you have toys for power users.)

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/power_user](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/power_user)

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agsamek
Does it allow for scaling windows or just resizing. I would be thrilled by a
possibility to have 1 main area and 3 smallers on a side, where windows
wouldn't resize but just scale down.

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tshanmu
not directly related but whats the closest to i3 on osx? I have tried Amethyst
- it works but has quite a few rough edges and rouge app interaction problems.

~~~
larrywright
Check out Hammerspoon
[https://www.hammerspoon.org/](https://www.hammerspoon.org/)

------
thunderbong
This is great. As a primarily keyboard person, I've always wished for this.

Great productivity booster!

~~~
ehnto
Try the Vimium chrome extension as well. I avoid the mouse as best I can woth
vimium and i3 and when it's flowing it's really fast.

------
appleflaxen
This is great.

I had some difficulty using it on multiple monitors though.

~~~
cdurth
i cant seem to get it to work with additional monitors, what did you do to get
it working?

~~~
Akinato
Same here, I'm having difficulties getting it to work on both.

------
ElijahLynn
What is equivalent of something like this for Linux?

~~~
ElijahLynn
Looks like:

* [https://i3wm.org/](https://i3wm.org/) (i3)

* [https://xmonad.org/](https://xmonad.org/) (xmonad)

* [https://awesomewm.org/](https://awesomewm.org/) (Awesome)

------
_pmf_
To see the day ...

------
boarnoah
> PowerToys

What a project name :P

~~~
efdee
Surely one that weeds out the millennials from the old guard ;-)

~~~
polar
Millenials are older than you think. :)

~~~
y4mi
do they know the powertoys heritage though?

also: i'm not sure i agree with <19 yrs old people being ... "old"

~~~
jowsie
Am millennial. Fully aware of the PowerToys heritage. I used to run the win95
explorer.exe on Windows 98 back in the day along with a bunch of PowerToys
tweaks.

Millennial were born 1981-1996 ;) There's no <19 year old millennial's left,
I'm afraid.

~~~
y4mi
I confused millennia with generation x... You're right if course! I can never
keep these terms straight

~~~
y4mi
No, it's not. Too late to delete however...

------
jklinger410
Listen, I have an extremely locked down work PC. I need this app to be able to
install in a public folder ASAP.

/Edit

I'm going to assume all these downvoters work for my IT department.

