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xfce-tiling

Tiling zone menu for XFCE in the style of Windows 11 Snap Layouts: hovering the cursor over a window's maximize button pops up a small window with thumbnails to resize and move the window into a monitor zone. It can also be opened with a global hotkey (Super+Z), which works even for apps that don't use the xfwm4 button (Electron, VS Code…). For Firefox and Chrome/Chromium, hover works through a configured virtual zone (see "CSD apps").

Zones by monitor resolution

The zone set is chosen per monitor (the one containing the window):

Monitors up to 1080p (8 zones): halves and quarters

• Left / right / top / bottom half
• Top-left / top-right / bottom-left / bottom-right quarter

Monitors above 1080p (49 zones): all of the above + thirds, sixths and ninths, including double combinations

• Left / middle vertical / right third
• Top / middle horizontal / bottom third
• Sixths (3×2 grid): top and bottom × left/center/right
• Ninths (3×3 grid): top left/center/right, middle left/center/right, bottom left/center/right
• Two thirds in columns (2/3 × 1): left+center / center+right
• Two thirds in rows (1 × 2/3): top+center / center+bottom
• Two sixths (2/3 × 1/2 blocks): left/right × top/bottom
• Two horizontal ninths (2/3 × 1/3): left+center / center+right × row
• Two vertical ninths (1/3 × 2/3): top+center / center+bottom × column

The popup is laid out in side-by-side columns to stay compact.

"Above 1080p" means any monitor exceeding 1920×1080.

Requirements

X11 environment with XFCE (xfwm4) and these GObject libraries:

sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-wnck-3.0 \
                 gir1.2-keybinder-3.0 gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0

Installation

./install.sh          # installs into ~/.local (no root) + autostart
xfce-tiling daemon &  # start now, without restarting the session

It will start automatically on each login. To remove it: ./uninstall.sh.

Usage

• Hover: move the cursor over the maximize button of a window decorated by xfwm4 (Terminal, Thunar, native apps) → the menu appears below the button. Move onto the menu and click a zone.
• Super+Z hotkey: opens the menu for the active window, whether or not its button works (the only way for most CSD apps). Esc or a click outside closes it.

Also, for testing or to bind your own shortcut:

xfce-tiling menu      # show the menu once for the active window

CSD apps (Firefox, Chrome…)

Client-side decorated (CSD) applications draw their own title bar and maximize button, whose position xfwm4 does not know. For the apps in the _CSD_APPS table in button_detect.py (Firefox, Firefox ESR, Chrome, Chromium) a virtual rectangle is defined at the top-right corner where the app draws its button: hover works just like on decorated windows. To add another app, add its window class (xprop WM_CLASS) to that table.

_GTK_FRAME_EXTENTS (the invisible shadow of GTK/CSD apps such as Firefox) is also compensated so the visible part of the window fills the zone exactly, with no gaps.

For all other CSD apps (Electron, VS Code, Spotify…) use the global Super+Z hotkey, which covers everything.

How it works

Module	Responsibility
layouts.py	Definition of the 8 / 49 zones as fractions of the work area.
wm.py	libwnck: active window / window under cursor, frame extents (incl. _GTK_FRAME_EXTENTS), apply zone, monitor + workarea via Gdk.
button_detect.py	Computes the maximize button rectangle by reading xfwm4's button_layout and the theme's button widths; virtual zones for known CSD apps.
popup.py	Popup window with the thumbnails of each zone (Cairo) and the click logic.
daemon.py	Pointer polling loop (hover) + global hotkey via Keybinder.

Exact placement: with STATIC gravity, Wnck.set_geometry receives the outer frame rectangle, so zones fit together with no gaps while respecting XFCE panels.

Changing the hotkey

The default is <Super>z. For another one, edit DEFAULT_HOTKEY in daemon.py (GTK accelerator syntax, e.g. <Super><Shift>z) and restart the daemon (pkill -f xfce_tiling; xfce-tiling daemon &).