Guide To Auto-Tiling In Pop!_OS
This guide will help you setup and use a workflow similar to that of other full fledged tiling WMs, like bspwm, dwm, xmondad, awesome, etc.
1. Disabling The Dock
When using the tilling feature, you don’t really need the COSMIC dock. Thus, we will disable it so it doesn’t hinder your workflow.
Open Settings. Go to Desktop → Dock, or simply search for ‘Dock’. Disable the ‘Enable Dock’ option.
2. Setting Up Work spaces
Open Settings. Go to Desktop →Workspaces, or simply search for ‘Workspaces’. Make sure to mimic settings shown in the image.
- Chose ‘Fixed Number Of Workspaces’. This option is better than dynamic workspaces if using a tiling workflow.
- Change ‘Number of Workspaces’ to 10. This is generally the preferred number when using a tiling workflow.
- Chose ‘Workspaces on Primary Display Only’. I have found the GNOME’s implementation of workspaces spanning all displays quite counter-intuitive, thus prefer workspaces spanning only on primary display. This setting will only have an impact if you use multiple monitors.
3. Setting Up Workspaces Navigation Shortcuts
This part is tedious so I have created a shell script to automate it.
wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/ThundR67/6c05a2d70388440581a7d6aa797ddaf6/raw/eab5331fe7db15ae2cfc4dd625b17f1d2e8710d6/shortcut.sh | sh shortcut.sh- Open GNOME terminal or whatever terminal you use.
2. Simply run the above command to download and execute the script. This will set effective shortcuts for workspace navigation that I will discuss in some time.
4. Setting Up Tiling Settings
Click on the tiles icon on the top right of GNOME status bar. The icon will be besides the Wi-Fi icon.
Make sure your settings match the above image.
- Enable ‘Tile Windows’. This will enable the auto-tiling feature of Pop!_OS.
- Disable ‘Show Window Titles’. Window titles are just wastage space in a tiling workflow, so its best to disable them.
- Enable ‘Show Active Hint’. This lets you easily distinguish the application in focus.
How To Use Tiling Workflow
Now lets understand how to use this workflow.
1. Launching Applications
These are the typical ways you will be launching your applications. You can add further shortcuts via Settings →Keyboard →View and Customize Shortcuts →Custom shortcuts for applications you use frequently.
- Press <Super> to activate the launcher. This allows you to open any application via searching.
- Press <Super+T> to launch the terminal.
- Press <Super+F> to launch the file browser.
- Press <Super+B> to launch the web browser.
2. Managing Window
- Window whose border is highlighted is the application with focus.
- Press <Super+q> to close.
- Press <Super+m> to maximize and minimize.
- Press <Super+h/j/k/l> to move focus to left/down/up/right window.
3. Adjust Window Properties
- Press <Super+Enter> to enter adjustment mode. You must enter this mode to run below commands.
- Press <h/j/k/l> to move the window left/down/up/right.
- Press <Shift+j/l> to increase window size in vertical/horizontal direction.
- Press <Shift+k/h> to increase window size in vertical/horizontal direction.
- Press <Enter> to apply changes or <Esc> to discard changes.
4. Navigation Workspaces
- Press <Super+Num}> key to moves to that workspace. Example, pressing <Super+5> moves to 5th workspace.
- Press <Super+Shift+Num> key to move to that workspace and also move the window in focus to that workspace.
- You have 10 workspaces available, with <0> key being tied to 10th workspace.
- These workspaces are only on your primary display.
Ending Thoughts
You will now have a tiling workflow. If you are new to tiling, the learning curve is quite steep, but the productivity gains are well worth it. The idea of tiling is to extensively use keyboard while minimizing the use of a mouse. Remember the tiling feature of Pop!_OS is still not as capable of other dedicated tiling WMs, but it has most of the features you will need. Pop!_OS also has a stacking feature, which increases the tiling capabilities, that I will cover in the upcoming blog.
