Group Size/Drag

Available in: Actual Window Manager, Actual Multiple Monitors.

The Group Size/Drag feature allows you to handle a group of tiled windows in natural efficient manner. Tiled (or adjacent) windows are those that placed side by side without gaps or overlaps. As there are no gaps/overlaps, tiling is the most efficient way of utilizing the available screen space. Actual Window Manager provides numerous tools to arrange windows as tiles, like Snap, Aero Snap, or Desktop Divider.

With this tool, you can either adjust the size of windows within the group or drag the entire group as a single window without breaking the carefully arranged relative layout of windows.

 

Group Size

Once you placed required windows to each other, you may want to adjust their sizes in according to current circumstances. Usually, you would have to resize each window, carefully trying to preserve the already arranged layout. Group Size lets you do this quicker: just start to resize a window - and all its neighboring windows will begin to change their sizes accordingly, as if they were cells in a spreadsheet.

By default, Group Size is enabled and active all the time; you can temporarily disable it by pressing the specified modifier keys (<Ctrl> by default) when you begin to resize a window.

 

Group Drag

In some cases, you may want to move the arranged layout of tiled windows to another place on the desktop (e.g. to another monitor in a multi-monitor environment). With Group Drag, you can start to drag any window in the group - and all other windows in the group will move along, as if the group were a single window.

By default, Group Drag is enabled but not active; to activate it, you need to press the specified modifier keys (<Ctrl> by default) when you begin to drag a window.

Hint
After the feature activates, you can release the modifier keys - it will continue to work until you stop dragging.

 

Useful Notes

  • Both features utilize the same combination of modifier keys but you can set the mode of activation separately.

  • Both features work when using either mouse or keyboard to resize/move a window.

  • While moving/sizing windows, you can press <Esc> to cancel the current operation - and all windows in the group will restore their positions/sizes.

  • You can combine Group Size Drag with Easy Window Dragging/Sizing by specifying the same combination of modifier keys.