nclarius / Exquisite

Easy window layout management for KDE Plasma

Exquisite

Exquisite is a KWin script that brings Windows 11 like window tiling to KDE Plasma.

Installation

You can donwload Exquisite from the KDE Store (System Settings > Window Management > KWin Scripts > Get New KWin Scripts...). For development, you can clone the repo and run ./install.sh. KWin needs to be restarted on every install (either log out and back in or run kwin_x11 --replace, use kwin_wayland if you're on a Wayland session).

Usage

The default shortcut is CTRL + ALT + D but it can be configured from System Settings > Shortcuts > KWin Scripts > Exquisite. Click on a window and click a layout box on the Exquisite window to place that window in that layout. You can do this for multiple windows and close the Exquisite window when you're done (by the close button on the top right or by pressing the shortcut keys).

showcase.mp4

Configuration

Exquisite can be configured from System Settings > Window Management > KWin Scripts. Current configuration options include:

• Column count for the main window
• Main window position (Top, Center or Bottom)
• Main window header visibility
• Whether to maximize the window or not when the background button on a layout is clicked, the default behaviour might annoy some people

Keep in mind, KWin needs to be restarted for the settings to apply.

Modifying and Creating Layouts

Exquisite layouts are stored in ~/.local/kwin/scripts/exquisite/layouts/. You can freely change them or add new ones. They're named by numbers so if you're going to add a new one, look at the last ones number and name your file one up that number. Let's take a look at an existing one (0.qml) to understand how they are structured:

import QtQuick 2.6

Item {
    property string name: "Two Vertical Split"
    property var windows: [
        {
            row: 0,
            rowSpan: 6,
            column: 0,
            columnSpan: 12
        },
        {
            row: 0,
            rowSpan: 6,
            column: 6,
            columnSpan: 12
        }
    ]
}

The import statement and Item declaration are boilerplate, what we really need to understand are the two properties: name and windows. name is pretty self explanatory, it's the name of the layout. The names aren't currently used but they might be in the future, better to write something explanatory rather than not.

The windows parameter is an array of JS objects. Each object represents a window and has 4 entries: row, rowSpan, column and columnSpan. These entries describe how the window is laid out in the layout, let's take a look at each one in detail:

• row: The row that the top left corner of the window will be placed at. Rows start from the left side of a grid so you can think of this parameter as like the y position of the window.
• rowSpan: The amount of grid cells that the window is going to span inside a row. This includes the origin cell which is row. You can think of this as like the width of the window.
• column: The column that the top left corner of the window will be placed at. Columns start from the upper side of the grid so you can think of this as like the x position of the window.
• columnSpan: The amount of grid cells that the window is going to span inside a column. This includes the origin cell which is column. You can think of this as like the height of the window.

The grid that the layout windows are placed in is 12x12 (choose 12 since it's a relatively small number and can be divided by 2, 3 and 4). For row and column, the minimum value is 0 and the maximum 11. For rowSpan and columnSpan, the minimum is 1 and the maximum is 12.

Here is an image for better explanation:

The window in this image would be:

{
    row: 2,
    rowSpan: 7,
    column: 1,
    columnSpan: 9
}