Tuesday, August 14, 2007

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Take control of your windows with WinSplit and GridMove

WinSplit Revolution is a very simple to use window organizer. You can use Ctrl+Alt+(numpad) to move the selected window to the specified quadrant on the screen or use a handy little popup window if you prefer to use the mouse.
  

WinSplit also has several other functions:



  • Mosaic Ctrl+Alt+m : evaluates the best arrangement to show several windows at the same time.
  • Close All Ctrl+Alt+c : close all open windows.
  • Fusion Ctrl+Alt+f : WinSplit splits the screen in two with the last two active windows. By default each windows takes half of the screen but a window appears with a slider to change the ratio between the both windows.
  • Save the window position for a process so the application always opens at a certain place on the screen.

GridMove
I found GridMove less intuitive to use initially but it is great when you get used to it. GridMove works using a set of pre-defined grid templates that you can use or edit. The default template works like this image shows


There are several ways of organizing the windows:



  • Left button drag: click close to the upper left hand corner of the window and drag to a grid
  • Middle button drag: this is the simplest option as you just click the title bar with the middle mouse button and drag the window to one of the grids
  • Edge Drag: Click and drag the title bar to one of the edges and keep it there for a short time until the grid to appears
  • Keyboard: WinKey + G shows the grids. Enter a number to move the current window to that grid. This is a great timesaver as you don't even have to take your hands of the keyboard to organize your windows. You can also press letters to perform other actions:

    • N: GridMove will switch to the next grid on it's list.
    • M: toggles the maximize state of the window
    • 0: minimizes the window

Which program is best for you depends on your needs. GridMove is your only option if you have multiple monitors, it is also the best choice if you have a set of grids you use. I currently use WinSplit Revolution as it lets me play around with the different layouts live. I had to modify the hotkeys as my laptop does not have a numeric keypad. For the moment I use WinKey + arrow keys to move left/right/up/down in combination with Shift+Ctrl.


I may move to GridMove in the future if I find that I always use the same layout (or if I am lucky enough to get a second monitor :-)


Via Coding Horror

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