i’ve been thinking of what the most efficient way to use your monitor or screen space is? do you usually just use windows that cover the whole screen? or how do you divide your windows and apps on the screen? do you leave for example firefox window cover the whole screen? and just alt + tab to other programs or apps?
Tiling windows manager, a good hotkey config, and multiple virtual desktops.
So I’m looking at the tiling manager on Wikipedia, but it’s application is still kinda going over my head. What’s the difference between resizing and dragging windows vs using the manager?
The manager does it automatically for you. For instance, if you only have 1 window open, it will cover the entire screen, but if you open another, both windows are placed in halves and so on. It’s kinda like dragging a window to a corner to snap it, but automated
Currently I just use a shortcut window manager that allows me to sort windows semi automatically. But definitely looking to go a similar route @[email protected]
I use an iPhone and iPad for all my personal computing stuff, so this is just my work setup. 4k 32” that has most things:
- left 1/4ish is MS Teams
- middle 1/3ish is Arc (had been Chrome)
- top right 1/4ish is iMessage
- bottom right 1/4ish is MS To-Do
MB Pro is open to the right of the 32”, always had Outlook.
My main actual non-web applications are Excel and Word, and those float around wherever is important for the moment, usually multiple, side by side.
I use an application called Moom to arrange the standard stuff into pre-defined regions.
I usually have apps take up the full screen when working - up to three displays (but sometimes even that’s not enough.
Windows 11 has basic window management functionality with Snap Layouts, but with the FancyZones power toy, you can customise the available layouts.
I have 3 27" 4k monitors that I use for my work, as a programmer. I used the Power Toys utility to create snap zones to contain my usual apps. I like to have my main code window take up the entire center monitor plus half of each of the “wing” monitors, then I can use tabs to view 5 or 6 code files at once. The remaining space on the far right is for work IM, and the far left is used for Firefox and discord.
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This guy gets it.
Depends on the apps I use. Obviously gaming has to be full screen, and since my laptop screen is small, I usually maximize windows when using certain apps that require large space such as Libreoffice, Firefox, Inkscape, etc.
For a few other apps, such as text editors, I usually divide the screen into two. Typically I have file explorer or music player on one side and text editors on the other.
When I lived in a house with a big monitor I used a kind of tiled layout. Now that I’m offgrid with a tiny laptop screen I run fullscreen and have multiple virtual desktops. I multiplex terminals with screen or tmux, depending on the use case.
I have like a dozen programs for work, everything has it’s own little area designated. And some with overlap, 'cause it all just doesn’t fit still. I hate having to find the little icons and keep flipping or tabbing back and forth when I can just adjust my focus area.
Using workspaces is great (at least in linux), otherwise lookin into other window managers could be beneficial. I use i3-gaps on my small laptop, and gnome on desktop and I frequently swap and split up everything I do into workspaces.
I use gridmove when working on Windows. A little fussy to set up new templates, but allows complete control over window placement. Like others, I use a different set up depending on what I’m working on. My large main monitor is often split with my IDE taking up 2/3 of the screen and my documentation on the other 1/3.
When working on a laptop with a smaller screen, I often use virtual desktops and split my windows among them. I find it faster to switch between apps that way, knowing exactly where they are in relation to my current screen, compared to alt tabbing through a bunch of windows.
I am on Linux and use a tiling window manager (i3wm in my case). Have a look at such managers, they are great at optimizing how you use screen real estate.
will do thanks!
