Simple Dynamic Window Manager for Windows

demo.mp4

When I am working on a computer 99% of my interaction is using one of the following window configurations:

• A single fullscreen window (e.g. when I am coding, browsing the web, etc.)
• Two equal windows side-by-side (e.g. when debugging or when coding while reading documentation)

So the normal window managers waste a lot of bandwidth making all sorts of (to me) useless window configurations possible, this is an issue which tiling window managers tend to fix. On linux I normally use i3 which is a decent (though not perfect) tiling window manager. The main feature that I miss in i3 is the ability to have the same program on multiple workspaces, which is pretty useful for my use cases. For example sometimes I want to have a code editor and a browser side-by-side when reading documentation in a documentation workspace and once I am done with the documentation I want to move to a workspace with fullscreen code editor. (I am sure there is an extension or script that makes that possible, but at least it is not a first-class feature of i3). dwm is another window manager that does have a feature similar to this, however, as much as I enjoy being stuck in a boot-loop because I made a mistake in a "config" file, sometimes I need to actually get work done on my computer which seems to be the antithesis to dwm's philosophy.

I have tried many tiling window managers on windows over the years, however, because windows's window manager is not really designed to be customized they all eventually led to frustrations that made me give up on them.

In this repository I try to create an extremely simple window manager for windows that tries to optimize my own use cases. The main idea is not to mess with window's window management as much as possible. Here is how it works: Whenever you run window-manager.py, it takes a snapshot of all open windows at the instance that you ran it and creates a dummy window. Whenever you focus on this window, instead of focusing the window, it restores all windows to the position and size that they were when the snapshot were taken. So for example for my use-case of having two configurations, one for reading documentation while coding and the other exclusively for coding, I can first create a snapshot when my code editor is full screen and then create another snapshot when editor and browser are snapped to different sides of the screen and toggle between these two configurations by focusing on these "dummy" windows. This method does not mess with windows' window management system at all and the system's behavior is completely indistinguishable from normal behavior except for when you focus on one of these dummy windows. Another advantage is that these windows can be controlled naturally using windows's normal window management shortcuts (e.g. control+tab) so your muscle memory is applicable.

Here is my setup:

• I use autohotkey to lauch window-manager.py (I use Win+Space as the shortcut). Here is the script that I use:

#Space::
run pythonw C:\path\to\window-manager.py
return

• There is a textbox when you run window-manager.py where you can optionally enter a name for the dummy window. I use this name along with switcheroo to quickly switch to a workspace by typing its name.

Advanced Usage

• If the name of the window configurations starts with ++, we save the window configuration in a file so that it can be restored later. Since in this case, we need to launch the programs if they are not present, you need to specify which of the windows are included in this configuration (you select the checkbox next to desired windows). You can also optionally specify a command which is used to open a program. For example, if you want to open a file explorer in a specific directory, you can add something like this in the textbox next to the explorer window: explorer \path\to\directory.
• If the name of the window starts with +, we search the previous window configurations and if a configuration with the same name (minus the plus of course) exists, we try to recreate this configuration, but we don't launch any new windows.
• If the name of the window starts with * we behave similar to when it starts with +, but now we do launch new windows if they are not present.
• So overall the workflow is something like this: you first create a new configuration with a name like this ++my-awesome-config and select the windows that are present in this configuration (also optionally specify the commands which are used to launch these windows) and then later (event after a computer restart) invoke these configurations by entering *my-awesome-config as the name of configuration.