Everything about Tiling Window Manager totally explained
In computing, a
tiling window manager is a
window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more popular approach of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects (
windows) that tries to fully emulate the
desktop metaphor.
Xerox PARC
The first
graphical user interface (GUI) was created at
Xerox PARC. This GUI (Smalltalk) used the
desktop metaphor. Later Xerox PARC also developed CEDAR, the first windowing system using a tiled window manager. The first
Xerox Star system tiled application windows, but allowed dialogs and property windows to overlap.
(External Link
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Andrew Project
Andrew Project's windowing system, the Andrew Window Manager was tiling only. It was superseded by "X Window System".
X Window System
In the
X Window System the window manager is a separate program. X enforces no specific window management approach and current X protocol version X11 explicitly mentions the possibility of tiling window managers. The Siemens RTL Tiled Window Manager (released in 1988) was the first to implement automatic placement/sizing strategies. Another tiling window manager from this period was the Cambridge Window Manager developed by
IBM's Academic Information System group.
No new tiling window managers for X were developed for some time. In 2000 both
larswm and
Ion released a first version.
Larswm implements a form of dynamic tiling: The display is vertically split in two regions (tracks). The left track is filled with a single window. The right track contains all other windows stacked on top of each other.
Ion combines tiling with a tabbing interface: The display is manually split in non-overlapping regions (frames). Each frame can contain one or more windows. Only one of these windows is visible and fills the entire frame.
dwm allows for switching tiling layouts by clicking a textual 'icon' in the status bar. The default is a Larswm-like main area + stacking area arrangement, represented by a
[]= character glyph. There is also a non-tiling floating layout similar to
evilwm which permits windows to be moved and resized, represented by a
fish-like
><>. Third party
patches exist to add a
golden section-based
Fibonacci layout
(External Link), a grid layout
(External Link), and a horizontal stacking arrangement.
(External Link).
Since then other tiling window managers for X have appeared:
Microsoft Windows
The first version (
Windows 1.0) featured a tiling window manager, partly because of litigation by
Apple claiming ownership of the overlapping window
desktop metaphor. But due to complaints, the next version (
Windows 2.0) followed the desktop metaphor. All later versions of the operation system stuck to this approach. There are, however, some third party programs that try to emulate tiling functionality:
SplitView - Transforms a large single monitor system into a multi-monitor system by tiling windows in multiple configurations(shareware)
WindowSizer - Tiles windows (shareware)
allSnap - Snap to grid or other windows (freeware)
BlueDock - Makes it easier to snap windows (freeware)
WinSplit - Tiles windows using keyboard shortcuts (freeware)
Tiling applications
Although tiling window managers are not widely used, most applications already display multiple functions in a similar manner. Examples include email clients, IDEs, "sidebars" in web browsers, and contextual help in Microsoft Office. In addition, HTML frames can be seen as a markup language-based implementation of tiling. The tiling window manager just extends this usefulness beyond multiple functions within an application, to multiple applications within a desktop. The Tabbed Document Interface can be a useful adjunct to tiling, as it avoids having multiple window tiles on screen for the same function.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Tiling Window Manager'.
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