Gnome creators are working on native support for window tiling

Gnome’s creators are working on standard support for window tiling in the desktop environment. There are now dozens of external apps for this, but the makers want to support it natively.

The makers writing in a blog post that they are currently working on full support for window tiling, where windows are automatically rearranged in the way the user would like. The makers don’t want to build a new tool that users can optionally enable, because there are already dozens of such tools for Linux. Also, some distros, including Pop!_OS, already support window tiling natively.

The makers say they need more metadata for support. For example, that data must be able to indicate what the maximum size of a window can be before it no longer looks good. The makers also want to have a range of different sizes and formats in which an app works well. For example, a chat app would have to be less wide than many other apps. This can be done dynamically based on the contents of the window,” the makers say. As another example, they mention a spreadsheet, where the size of the window depends on the number of columns.

The makers of Gnome are still thinking about the correct implementation. They want to implement a new API in the desktop environment for this, but recognize that it can take a lot of time for developers to use that API properly. In an initial concept, the developers use three models. In a mosaic model, an app opens directly in a way that ‘makes the most sense for the app’, for example a maximized web browser or a weather app that opens smaller. There is also a classic edge tiling system that is comparable to the current tiling that applies to the side and top of the screen. There is also a concept for a floating window that will lie on top of other windows. The makers don’t explicitly mention a timeline for when window tiling should come, but that will likely take “several cycles” of Gnome development releases.