Is it possible to place windows with keyboard shortcuts in Xfce?

Question

With Compiz in Unity, I could press Ctrl+Alt+6 to place a window on the right-half of the screen, Ctrl+Alt+4 to place it on the left half, Ctrl+Alt+7 to place it in the top left quarter of the screen, and so on.

Is there something similar in Xfce on Xubuntu?

Solution 1

i prefer using Alt+d to move the window into the left half of the screen and Shift+Alt+d the right half.

• store this script as /usr/local/sbin/window-left and /usr/local/sbin/window-right
• in your Settings Manager you can add a new entry in xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts: /commands/custom/<Alt>d, String and /usr/local/sbin/window-left
• in your Settings Manager you can add a new entry in xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts: /commands/custom/<Shift><Alt>d, String and /usr/local/sbin/window-right

(You can choose the best shortcut Keys, that fit for you using <Alt>, <Shift>, <Control> and <Super>)

Solution 2

These actions already exist for the Window Manager of XFCE/Xubuntu, it's a matter of binding them to proper keys!

You can do this through the GUI. Just go to Settings, Window Manager, and click the Shortcuts tab. The actions you are looking for are named Tile window to the left, Tile window to the top-right, etc.

Solution 3

I had the same problem after switching away from Compiz, as I have not found a real solution and I did not want to use single scripts, I forked a project, which nearly had the features which I needed.

You can find it under: https://github.com/gillesB/azulejo

It is not perfect yet, multiple screen support is missing, but I use it everyday. It should also be usable in other desktop environments as it is based on EWMH (1). For example I used it for a while with Mate and I tested it shortly with Cinnamon.

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EWMH

Comments

[nilsonneto]

Is this a duplicate of this? askubuntu.com/questions/103456/… ... or are you using 12.10 which should have tiling built into the WM.

[rubo77]

I use 12.04 LTS

[rubo77]

wmctrl looks great but how do i resize the active window to 50 percent?

[user55822]

@rubo77, If you're familiar with bash scripts, sprunge.us/VjYL. But you might as well consider installing 12.10 since fossfreedom says it's built in.

[rubo77]

thanks, that worked. (I don't want to upgrade, cause I am administering customers with 12.04 LTS until next LTS-Release). I added your script there

[user55822]

@rubo77, about your panel issue, did you try with Y=24 instead of Y=0 (considering your panel's height is 24 pixels) ?

[rubo77]

thx, that fixed that too. I optimized the script solution there

[lefterav]

File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/__init__.py", line 76, in require_version raise ValueError('Namespace %s not available' % namespace)

[gillesB]

I created an issue for that problem on GitHub. I will look after it in the near future. (github.com/gillesB/azulejo/issues/9)

[gillesB]

The problem occurs if the dependencies are not installed. You can find the needed packages here: github.com/gillesB/azulejo

[user7581305]

If your shortcuts isn't working, remember to make them executable. chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/window-left chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/window-right

[mboratko]

This answer is out of date with newer XFCE versions (see this question/answer for how to do it natively: askubuntu.com/questions/210231/…)

[Pierre]

Even if late vote but this is the correct answer (at least in my xubuntu environment 16.04)

[MrJman006]

This is definitely the correct answer as of 16.06