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What is the best tiling window manager for Windows?

I'm looking for something like awesome.

It would be nice if it removes the title bar and has "comfortable" shortcut keys (for me that's vi keys, but feel free to use your own reference). Open source would be a plus.

voyager
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    Seems like a very constructive question to me. – Andriy Drozdyuk Mar 06 '12 at 15:58
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    I really like [WinDivvy](http://mizage.com/windivvy/). It has a really nice GUI but it cost a bit. – Sawny Nov 06 '12 at 19:44
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    Don't see how this isn't construtive – Mike McFarland Jul 07 '13 at 00:28
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    @MikeMcFarland Asking for "what's the best…?" is the prime example of a non-constructive question, since everyone defines this differently. – slhck Jul 21 '13 at 12:52
  • MaxTo is a pretty good tiling manager, you can get it for as cheap as $10. http://maxto.net/ Divvy isn't bad either. – leetNightshade Dec 06 '13 at 00:25
  • Do not use SplitView, it doesn't work that well. When hitting arrows they don't move with the window. The Win + Arrow key moves the window around erratically. It's all around just buggy. – leetNightshade Dec 06 '13 at 00:44
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    everyone DOES NOT define 'best' differently. So there there are billions of people in the world there are billions of definitions? There are commonalities in definitions, there is information to be conveyed here, these are important fact to be conveyed, and the Nazi-like quest for 'canonical answers' and no subjectivity whatsoever is the most horrible policy of this site. It's really too bad. – Joe Dec 07 '15 at 05:32
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    FYI [Tiling window manager for Windows](https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/q/34006/903) – Franck Dernoncourt Apr 23 '17 at 16:07

3 Answers3

54

bug.n is nice, and Open Source. :-)

drglove
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    +1; I tried it, and love it. I especially like the fact that it can be disabled very easily (windows+shift+q) and is customizable through its config files. Oh, and being a DWM clone doesn't hurt :D – Babu Sep 06 '09 at 01:23
  • Yep, really doesn't :-) –  Nov 20 '09 at 21:47
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    I don't know why uoi're linking to freenet (blocked by my proxy), but Wikipedia links to http://www.autohotkey.net./~joten/ for bug.n – Ed Brannin Jun 22 '10 at 14:11
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    It doesn't work well with Chrome, does it? The tabs simply disappear. – André Paramés Apr 09 '11 at 16:51
  • @Babu: It's Ctrl+WinKey+Q – Andriy Drozdyuk Mar 06 '12 at 15:55
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    It is also very confusing - there is no tutorial on how to use it, or documentation that I can see anywhere. – Andriy Drozdyuk Mar 06 '12 at 15:59
  • Also it claims multiple monitor support, but it's very, very bad support. Even on one monitor it's a bit buggy, not as awesome as Awesome. bun.g doesn't show running programs on the taskbar like you would expect. – leetNightshade Jun 18 '14 at 15:58
  • I tried bug.n and loved its simplicity and responsiveness plus, of course, ability to easily quit/ disable while I was on the learning curve. I noticed of late, however, that Office 2013 apps don't play well with it - e.g., decorations are not removed, closing a window makes it pop up again, etc. Also I see the "desktop" is considered as one of the windows for tiling purposes leading to a "hole". – koushik Feb 28 '15 at 06:39
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    agree, this is the best I've seen but it doesn't work well in Chrome and Firefox. It is also confusing. There is no clear description how to change the config files. I'm already trying for hours to disable the mouse movement when I click on a layout. Can't find it. – Reman Oct 25 '16 at 12:21
  • @drozzy, Yeah.. I have been working for a few hours tryign to understand bug.n as well. not sure whether its the 9.0 version.. but couldnt understand whats going on.. I starting working on a tutorial here.. as a way to educate myseff as well as create something useful so future users can get up to speed quicker. Feel free to contribute.. A lot of windows users maynot be familiar with dwm or the master/stack model of arranging windows.. so I put that information in there as well.. Let me know wht you guys think, as well https://github.com/alphaCTzo7G/bug.n/blob/master/tutorial/tutorial.html – alpha_989 Sep 09 '17 at 19:03
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    @alpha_989 Did you ever finish the tutorial? The link doesn't work :( I'm still struggling with bug.n on Windows 7, windows flashing and jumping every where, and I can't figure out the config file. I was hoping it'd be like i3 which only took me a few minutes to get used to. – Matt Mar 28 '19 at 12:21
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It doesn't remove title bars, but you can use Winsplit Revolution to use create keyboard shortcuts for regions ("tiles") on your screen.

Dan Walker
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From a wikipedia article:

  • WindowSizer - Tiles windows (shareware)
  • WinSplit - Tiles windows using keyboard shortcuts (freeware)
  • HashTWM - Tiling window manager with automatic tiling (MIT/X11)
  • GridMove - Tiles and arranges windows on sophisticated layouts with hotkeys and multi-monitor support (freeware/donationware)
  • bug.n - Dynamic, tiling window manager, which tries to clone the functionality of dwm (see list of X window managers) (GPL)
  • MaxTo - Tiles windows on user-defined grid by intercepting windows that are maximized or using hotkeys. Supports multi-monitor setups (shareware)
  • Twinsplay - Tiles windows using keyboard shortcuts (trial/closed source)
aioobe
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R.J.
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