Window Gaps

Extension for KDE's window manager to add space around windows touching a screen edge or other window.

The size of the gap and the layouts and applications to be gapped are configurable.

Please note that this script does not do any automatic tiling. Its purpose is to reshape windows that have been manually positioned with the stock KWin window management system.

Installation

Dependencies

kwin on X11.

Installation via graphical interface

Please make sure to select the most recent version in the installation process.

Please do not use Discover for installation since a bug causes a wrong version to be installed.

Install the script via System Settings > Window Management > KWin Scripts > Get New Scripts … > search for Window Gaps > Install.
Enable the script by activating its checkbox, and apply the settings.

Installation via command line

git clone https://github.com/nclarius/tile-gaps.git
cd tile-gaps
./install.sh

Configuration

System Settings > Window Management > KWin Scripts > Window Gaps > configuration button.

You may need to uncheck the checkbox for the script, apply the settings, recheck, and reapply in order for the changes to take effect.

In Plasma versions < 5.24, a bug in the KWin scripting system [1] [2] may cause the configuration not to be found. To fix this, please execute the following commands in a terminal:

sed -i 's/ConfigModule/Library/g' ~/.local/share/kwin/scripts/tilegaps/metadata.json
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/kservices5/
ln -sf ~/.local/share/kwin/scripts/tilegaps/metadata.json ~/.local/share/kservices5/tilegaps.json
qdbus org.kde.KWin /KWin reconfigure

Screen edges

Gap sizes are counted from the area that windows maximize to, i.e. from the edge of any panel you may have on that screen edge, rather than the outer screen edge itself.

Panels

Gaps on panels are not provided by this extension, but by the Plasma panel: Right-click on panel > Enter Edit Mode > More Settings... > Floating Panel.

If you have any floating panels, specify this in the configuration so that gaps can be adjusted accordingly.

Latte dock is no longer maintained, and not officially supported by this extension.

Sticky Window Snapping

For Sticky Window Snapping to work with gaps, make sure you have the threshold in the SWS configuration set to at least the largest gap size.

Applications

To find the window class name of an application: Right-click on the titlebar of a window of the application > More Actions > Configure Special Application Settings... > the pre-filled entry in Window class (application) (if it consists of two words, only the second part) is the window class to put in the script configuration.

Issues

The extension currently does not appear to work on Wayland. I'm working on finding out what causes it and how to fix it.

Small Print

This work is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.
This program comes with absolutely no warranty.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute and/or modify it under certain conditions.

If you like this project, you can make me happy with a review in the app store.

dtdowd / tile-gaps