QuickTile

Keyboard-driven Window Tiling for your existing X11 window manager

Important Message For Users of GTK+ 2.x QuickTile

In addition to migrating from GTK+ 2.x to GTK 3, QuickTile 0.4.0 makes the following changes:

• The PyGTK to PyGI migration has changed the list of dependencies significantly.
• Regressions in certain GDK APIs have made python-xlib a mandatory dependency.
• The middle command has been renamed to center for consistency with move-to-center. You will have to update anything which calls middle via the command-line or D-Bus APIs, but quicktile.cfg will update automatically.
• Please contact me if you maintain your own QuickTile patches. I have begun a major refactoring and want to make sure your changes get updated accordingly.

Requirements:

Debian and derivatives (Ubuntu, Mint, etc.):

sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip python3-setuptools python3-gi python3-xlib python3-dbus gir1.2-glib-2.0 gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-wnck-3.0

Fedora and derivatives:

sudo dnf install python3 python3-pip python3-setuptools python3-gobject python3-xlib python3-dbus gtk3 libwnck3

For other distros or for more details, please consult the Dependencies section of the manual.

Installation

QuickTile can be run from the source folder without installation via the ./quicktile.sh script.

For system-wide installation, the recommended option is pip3, which will record a log to allow easy uninstallation.

sudo -H pip3 install https://github.com/ssokolow/quicktile/archive/master.zip

QuickTile's dependence on PyGObject prevents a fully PyPI-based installation option.

Consult the Installation section of the manual for full details and alternative installation options.

First-Run Instructions for Global Hotkeys:

1. Run quicktile or ./quicktile.sh once to generate your configuration file at ~/.config/quicktile.cfg.
2. Edit the keybindings as desired.
3. Run quicktile --daemonize or ./quicktile.sh --daemonize to bind to global hotkeys.
4. If everything seems to be working, add quicktile --daemonize or /full/path/to/quicktile.sh --daemonize to the list of commands your desktop will run on login.

Consult the Configuration section of the manual for further details.

Important Notes:

• If run in a terminal, QuickTile's --daemonize option will attempt to report any problems with claiming global hotkeys for itself.
• You can get a list of valid actions for the configuration file by running quicktile --show-actions.
• You can list your current keybindings by running quicktile --show-bindings.
• If you experience problems, please consult the FAQ section of the manual before reporting an issue.

Usage (Typical)

1. Focus the window you want to tile
2. Hold the modifiers defined in ModMask (Ctrl+Alt by default).
3. Repeatedly press one of the defined keybindings to cycle through window sizes available at the desired location on the screen.

Consult quicktile --show-bindings or the Command Reference section of the manual for a list of default keybindings.

(For example, under default settings, repeatedly pressing Ctrl+Alt+7 will place the active window in the top-left corner of the screen and cycle it through different width presets.)

This works best when combined with functionality your existing window manager provides (eg. Alt+Tab) to minimize the need to switch your hand between your keyboard and your mouse.

See the Usage section of the manual for alternative ways to interact with QuickTile.

Removal

If you used the installation instructions listed above, a system-wide installation of QuickTile can be removed with the following commands:

sudo pip3 uninstall quicktile
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/quicktile

See the Removal section of the manual for instructions on clearing out files left behind by other installation methods.

Contributing

I welcome contributions.

The recommended approach to make sure minimal effort is wasted is to open an issue indicating your interest in working on something. That way, I can let you know if there are any non-obvious design concerns that might hold up my accepting your pull requests.

If you're looking for something to do, a ready supply of simple TODOs is split across two different mechanisms:

1. Run grep -R TODO *.py quicktile/ in the project root.
2. Set todo_include_todos = True in docs/conf.py and run cd docs; make html to generate a version of the manual with a TODO listing on the top-level API documentation page.

See the Developer's Guide for more information.