Snapping windows in XFCE?
 

Hi Guys,

I have looked around on the internet for this issue without success. I am looking to duplicate the windows 7 "snap" feature that lets you drag a window to one side of the screen and have it snap into place there, filling exactly that half of the screen. You can then do the same to another window on the other side and have a perfectly arranged screen divided into two parts. I really like this feature and would like to be able to do the same in XFCE under Slackware 14. Is this possible?

Thank you.

Not that I'm aware of, but it is possible in KDE. I've heard, but don't know for sure, that mickeysoft actually "borrowed" the snap feature from an Open Source project, perhaps, it was KDE?

I was hoping it would be simple. It is possible under XFCE to get the snap feature to work for the top and bottom halves of the screen (this is in the settings manager), so I thought there would probably be a way to do it side by side. Drat.

Thank you though!

You should be able to use Compiz under Xfce (depending on your graphics capability), and I'm pretty sure Compiz includes a module to do this. (KDE definitely does :))

True, but I don't really like Compiz, and plus, I'm on a netbook with limited resources. So I hope to find a better way.

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=40030

Should be possible to steal that patch and recompile xfce with it. Not the simplest solution tho. But probably easier on the resources than compiz.

Yes it is totally possible
Go to Setting Manager app, choose Window manager, then choose Advanced tab
Make sure "Snap windows to screen border" is selected
Make sure to unselect the Wrap workspaces options, as they interfere with vertical snapping.

Now if you drag to the left or right it will snap vertically to take up half the screen, If you drag to the top or bottom it will snap horizontally to take up half the screen.

You can also setup keyboard hotkeys in the keyboard tab of Windows manager, they are listed as "tile window to left" etc.

no need to patch anything, the corner tiling patch just allows you to snap vertically while dragging to a corner, while letting you still use wrap workspace options to drag windows to new workspace by going offscreen on the left or right.

Fantastic! I was thinking that the workspace function was the reason the windows couldn't snap that way, but I didn't think to check if it could be turned off. So simple.

I will probably look into the patch as well in the future so I can still use all my workspaces if I want to as well. But for now, this is perfect!

just an FYI

You can still move windows to other workspace either through a keyboard shortcut, or right click on the title bar and choose "Move to another Workspace". I find these methods much better than dragging windows to workspaces.

Thanks. You might be right in that it is better. Come to think of it, most of the time my windows end up in another workspace by dragging, it is by accident. This way may actually feel more controlled.

Thank You! Until this point, I did not think this was possible with XFCE. This is a major part of my workflow, so I was about to switch to another desktop environment.