Tiling Windows Into a Mosaic

Documentation / Contents - Window Manager

• Overview of the Window Manager
• Desks: Your Virtual Desktops
  • Switching Desks
  • Moving a Window to Another Desk
• How Windows Get the Keyboard: Focus
  • The Three Focus Policies
• Moving, Resizing, and Minimizing Windows
  • Moving a Window
  • Resizing a Window
  • Minimizing a Window
  • Maximizing a Window
• The Window Menu
  • The Commands
  • Close Versus Exit
• Tiling Windows Into a Mosaic
  • Turning Tiling On

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• Copyright Information

Tiling Windows Into a Mosaic

By default cywm lets windows float freely and overlap, the classic desktop behavior. It can also tile them: arrange the windows on a desk into a mosaic that shares the screen without overlapping. Each desk remembers its own tiling state, so you can tile one desk and leave another free-floating.

Turning Tiling On

Hold Ctrl and Alt and tap the "t" key to step through the tiling modes, watching a small preview as you go. You can also set a desk to start tiled in Blueprint Preferences, on the Tiling tab.

Living With a Tiled Desk

By default you can still move and resize a tiled window by hand, and cywm simply rearranges the mosaic around your change. If you would rather the layout stay put, turn on the tiling lock in Preferences. The gap between tiled windows is a separate setting.

A minimized window is never part of the mosaic: put away as an icon, it holds no floor space until you bring it back.

See How Windows Get the Keyboard: Focus, whose Automatic policy depends on whether a desk is tiled.