Favorite Layout - span window over multiple rect

[like-a-glitch]

I've been using this extension since Ubuntu 22.04 as it was the closest thing I could find to Windows Power Toys Fancy Zones.

For my setup (16x9 portrait + 32x9 Landscape) I use the following layout:

I recently switched to Ubuntu 24.04 and got almost everything working the way I had it in 22.04.

Both systems use Wayland.

The only thing I can't seem to figure out now is how to get a window to span over multiple rect of a layout.

In 22.04 this worked like a charm:

1. Grab and hold a window
2. (Layout is displayed)
3. Hover over a rect (e.g. row 1 col 1 in my “4x2” layout)
4. Press and hold the super key
5. Move mouse to a different rect (e.g. row 2 col 3)
6. Let go of the window
7. (window would cover the left 3/4 of my screen in this example)

Other Settings:

• Default Window Movement Mode = Favorite Layout
• 'Adaptive / Favorite / Ignore' Mode Activator = Disabled

Any ideas on which combination of settings I got wrong?

Maybe someone who is till working with 22.04 got this working and can share his settings?

[Leleat]

I can reproduce this. It's a bug and not a combination of settings, if it worked before. I'll take a look at it.

[Leleat]

This should be fixed with #340.

However, I am not gonna make a new release soon-ish since that is basically the only change since the last release. So if that specific workflow is important to you, you should manually install that branch. Once I make a new release on EGO, you will get it via the automatic updates from EGO/gnome-shell again.

[like-a-glitch]

Thanks for the quick response / fix.

This extension is under 'System Extensions' in 24.04.

EGO shows it as 'not installed'.

I remember there being some sort of error when i tried to install it a few days ago via EGO. I didn't know it was already present.

Will it still be updated as soon as there is a new version on EGO?

[Leleat]

This extension is under 'System Extensions' in 24.04.

Ah, since you are on Ubuntu I guess you are using Ubuntu Tiling Assistant, right?

I remember there being some sort of error when i tried to install it a few days ago via EGO. I didn't know it was already present.

Yeah, that was likely a conflict with Ubuntu Tiling Assistant then. If you want to switch to the 'vanilla Tiling Assistant', you'd need to disable Ubuntu Tiling Assistant, log out and back in, then install/enable vanilla Tiling Assistant.

[like-a-glitch]

I installed the vanilla Tiling Assistant and noticed the version numbers in the Extensions App.

So I guess that means the Ubuntu version does not get updated as soon as a new GitHub Release is available. I think I'll stick with vanilla then.

In the meantime I found a good workaround by setting Default Window Movement Mode to Ignore and Favorite Layout Move Mode Activator to Super. Usage is pretty similar.

I noticed that setting Super for one of the 3 Mode Activator options will be reset to Disabled upon reboot.

Putting dconf write /org/gnome/shell/extensions/tiling-assistant/move-favorite-layout-mod 4 into autostart fixed it.

With everything else working like I'm used to I don't feel the need to do the manual install right now.

[Leleat]

I noticed that setting Super for one of the 3 Mode Activator options will be reset to Disabled upon reboot.

That's actually intended behavior but maybe it is unexpected from a user's perspective, hmm....

The reason Tiling Assistant disables Super as a modifier to activate a Move Mode is that you have Super as the mouse-button-modifier. I. e. if you hold Super and click on a window you start grabbing said window and start moving it around. This is the default behavior for GNOME and I believe it would be weird if a user starts a non-default move mode from Tiling Assistant by using the default action to move windows. So on boot, if Tiling Assistant detects that you have Super as the mouse-button-modifier, it will disable Super as a move mode activator within Tiling Assistant.

Maybe it would be better to just not expose Super (or Alt) as an activator in the prefs window, if they are set to be the mouse-button-modifier to not confuse users...

[like-a-glitch]

OK I get it. Thanks for the clarification.

For me it works fine to have Super do both things.

Would it be possible to add a custom keybinding for enabling the window spanning over multiple rects?

Currently if I set the Favorite Layout Move Mode Activator to anything else then Super I still need to press Super plus the other key to get the window to span multiple rects. Otherwise it will just place the window in the rect where the mouse is currently in.

---

So just as a wild example, would it be possible to:

• Grab a window and no Layout appears.
• Hold the 1 key and the layouts will be highlighted.
  • When I move the window around, it would just place the window in the rect where the mouse is currently in.
• Hold the 2 key as well.
  • It would now span the window from the rect I'm in to the rect I move the mouse to next.

This way there would be no Super or Alt involved. 1 and 2 are just examples for any key realy.

[Leleat]

Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to query whether an arbitrary key is being pressed while a grab is going on.