How do I display two windows as split screen?

Question

I have two open programs, but I want to view both of them at the same time. Dragging and adjusting them manually takes time, and I might have to do this every day. Is there any shortcut for doing this in Ubuntu?

I'm thinking something like this:

Screenshot showing two windows side-by-side

Ctrl + Alt +Numpad left / Ctrl + Alt +Numpad right. must be here somewhere. — Jacob Vlijm, Feb 17 '15 at 09:09
...And Ctrl + Alt +Numpad up / Ctrl + Alt +Numpad down for upper/lower half. — Jacob Vlijm, Feb 17 '15 at 09:19
Woa, that's a nice screenshot of an ancient Google on an ancient operating system :) — Ray, Feb 17 '15 at 12:26
You used the wrong screenshot. Windows XP (in the screenshot, it has the Green theme applied) doesn't have such feature (natively). It was introduced in Windows Vista. — Ismael Miguel, Feb 17 '15 at 16:36

score 93 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

93

To set a window occupying the left half of the screen use this shortcut:

Ctrl + Super + ←

For the right half:

Ctrl + Super + →

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

Community

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answered Feb 17 '15 at 09:16

Luís de Sousa

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Super? What key is that? – Ismael Miguel Feb 17 '15 at 16:34
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Super is the "windows key" – Gremlin Feb 17 '15 at 17:14
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For those wondering why @IsmaelMiguel used super: not all keyboards are alike. Many are agnostic to the operating system that it uses. Many vendors,however prefix the super key with the dominant operating system that is bundled with a desktop package. Dell keyboards are labeled with Windows. Apple's equivalent label is the command key. In many ways, I wish more keyboards where agnostic to the OS. WASD keyboards do this and many others. – justinpage Feb 17 '15 at 20:46
@KLVTZ Thank you for explaining. This should be addressed in the answer. – Ismael Miguel Feb 17 '15 at 21:39
@IsmaelMiguel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_key_(keyboard_button) – Tim Oct 24 '15 at 21:14
Any way to change these shortcuts? – Vadorequest Jan 09 '16 at 16:10
Not working on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS – Wizard79 Feb 13 '18 at 09:18
@Wizard79 Just tried it out, works perfectly on 14.04. – Luís de Sousa Feb 13 '18 at 10:13
@LuísdeSousa tried yesterday and again now, not working on 14.04. It works on my other Ubuntu machine, 17.10. – Wizard79 Feb 14 '18 at 11:56
@Wizard79 You must file a bug report. This functionality is common to all Unity 7 releases. There is something wrong with your particular set-up. – Luís de Sousa Feb 15 '18 at 10:49
@LuísdeSousa solved: this works only with Compiz, I'm using Metacity – Wizard79 Feb 15 '18 at 15:46
In Ubuntu 16.04, "Ctrl + Alt + Arrow" worked for me. – Arun Saha Apr 10 '18 at 14:20
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For Ubuntu 18.04 it is Super + ←/→. – Tushar Sep 28 '18 at 03:40
@Tushar These shortcuts are the same on Ubuntu 18.04 – Luís de Sousa Oct 01 '18 at 14:33
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For Ub 20.04.1 it's also Super + ←/→ – Jan 13 '21 at 16:19
What about making a window 1/4 of the screen (e.g. in upper right corner)? – parsecer Apr 16 '21 at 04:35
@Tushar god bless you! – devnull Ψ Aug 11 '22 at 11:16

Gladen · Answer 2 · 2015-02-17T20:02:41.770

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You can also just drag the window all the way to the left or right edge of the screen, it will show an animation that highlights the new dimension and then just release it.

edited Feb 17 '15 at 20:02

answered Feb 17 '15 at 09:34

Gladen

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OP mentioned that is not what he wants to do. – Jacob Vlijm Feb 17 '15 at 09:35
Oh, read over that bit for some reason.. sorry! – Gladen Feb 17 '15 at 09:36
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Happens to me all the time :) – Jacob Vlijm Feb 17 '15 at 09:36
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Although he talks about "Dragging and adjusting them manually takes time".. which implies that he tries to resize it to take the half of the screen manually.. – Gladen Feb 17 '15 at 09:37
You might be right... – Jacob Vlijm Feb 17 '15 at 09:37
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OP sounds like he is fiddling with window sizes manually (collapse from maximize, drag each window edge to line up with right of screen, middle of screen, top of screen, bottom of screen...). Gladen's answer sounds a lot more like Windows 7's aero snap, which is basically "drag title bar to edge of screen and it fills half the screen for you", which takes like a second to do. – evilspoons Feb 17 '15 at 16:30
While the cursor itself moves close to the edge, while the window is being dragged, you should see a translucent orange field appear. – nick indiessance Feb 03 '18 at 07:31
Tho it's tedious !! – Jan 13 '21 at 16:19

How do I display two windows as split screen?

2 Answers2