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?

You could use wmctrl and easily keybind commands like wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -b remove,maximized_vert,maximized_horz && wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -e 0,0,0,500,500. See man wmctrl. — user55822, Oct 28 '12 at 16:31
Is this a duplicate of this? http://askubuntu.com/questions/103456/automatically-size-windows-using-xfce-like-in-gnome ... or are you using 12.10 which should have tiling built into the WM. — fossfreedom, Oct 28 '12 at 18:51
wmctrl looks great but how do i resize the active window to 50 percent? — rubo77, Oct 28 '12 at 21:38
@rubo77, If you're familiar with bash scripts, http://sprunge.us/VjYL. But you might as well consider installing 12.10 since fossfreedom says it's built in. — user55822, Oct 28 '12 at 23:17
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 — rubo77, Oct 29 '12 at 17:30
@rubo77, about your panel issue, did you try with Y=24 instead of Y=0 (considering your panel's height is 24 pixels) ? — user55822, Oct 29 '12 at 23:25
thx, that fixed that too. I optimized the script solution there — rubo77, Oct 30 '12 at 10:42

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

7

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

new entry for shortcut to move window into left half of the screen

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

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

Community

1

answered Oct 30 '12 at 14:27

rubo77

32,486

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 – Sumit Murari Feb 25 '15 at 18:45
2

This answer is out of date with newer XFCE versions (see this question/answer for how to do it natively: http://askubuntu.com/questions/210231/xubuntu-12-10-window-tiling-shortcuts) – mboratko Jan 01 '16 at 22:19

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 18 '16 at 19:14

7

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.

answered Jun 18 '16 at 19:14

Jotaf

171
1
1

Even if late vote but this is the correct answer (at least in my xubuntu environment 16.04) – Pierre Jan 19 '17 at 14:37
This is definitely the correct answer as of 16.06 – MrJman006 Sep 19 '17 at 15:27
Recently installed XFCE Debian 9. Funny thing is, I tried this but it does not work on the window manager settings itsefl, so I thought it was not a solution. After reading your answer I tried again, it works on most everything except the window manager :). – Greggory Wiley Nov 11 '22 at 13:36

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 24 '13 at 15:35

2

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

answered Jan 24 '13 at 15:35

gillesB

121

File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/init.py", line 76, in require_version raise ValueError('Namespace %s not available' % namespace) – lefterav Jun 03 '14 at 22:30
I created an issue for that problem on GitHub. I will look after it in the near future. (https://github.com/gillesB/azulejo/issues/9) – gillesB Jun 04 '14 at 06:49
The problem occurs if the dependencies are not installed. You can find the needed packages here: https://github.com/gillesB/azulejo – gillesB Jun 04 '14 at 20:02

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

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