Check out bug.n. You can bind, tile and move windows windows just like i3, and it even has its own status bar + workspace support. It's pretty great to be able to launch the same programs using the same keybinds, manipulate open and close all the same way across Linux and windows computers.
I'm a sworn Linux user, but this is the first version of Windows that I actually feel like using for more than games. So I decided to see if I could get a workflow I'm used to and comfortable with. So far, so good.
bug.n is a DWM-like tiling window-manager for Windows, that runs on top of explorer.exe, as an AutoHotKey script.
Note that bug.n doesn't seem to really understand what modern applications are, at least not with the default conf (but likely not at all), so it doesn't try to manage those like standard windows. I'll try to dig in the code and make it work smoother if I find the time.
So far, I'm really liking the handiness of a tiling WM on top of a pretty smooth and polished OS (well, if you forget the occasional bugs and instabilities that are expected on test builds). I might consider using it as my main OS for a while if I can use the tools I'm used to, or find good replacements.
Sorry about the JPEG artifacts on the screenshot, I couldn't find a simple tool to blur out details in a picture while keeping a lossless format...
Edit: And I actually failed at blurring all the details. Oh well, whatever.
WinDivvy is the one I use most often simply for ease of use. Adjustable grid pattern and customizable hotkeys. The grid is somewhat limiting but for everyday use I find it adequate. Note: windows/apps will open in the same position and size they were when last used.
Bug.n is by far the most "powerful" window manager I have ever seen. So much you can do with it but tbh I can't personally attest to all it's features as the learning curve was too intimidating for me so I've made do with WinDivvy. If you're up to the task, this one seems to be exactly what you're looking for.
Personally I use a AutoHotKey program called bug.n, which has all my window management needs. It provides 9 virtual desktops per monitor, I can manage windows in the area using a tiling manager, floating or a monocle view (maximized windows).
You manage the windows using keyboard shortcuts and most shortcuts are based on the windows key and using shift/ctrl/alt as modifiers for the commands. e.g. Win+up/down change active window, win+shift+up/down move selected window up or down the stack.
Everything is heavily customizable, all hotkeys can be changed and I currently have 28 custom rules to get my windows of different programs just how I like them. The default settings usually work quite well and some of my rules are just pushing the window to the virtual desktop area I want it to e.g. RSS/Mail goes to area 5 and NifScope (modding tool) goes to area 6.
imgur showing my 2 monitors. My secondary monitor is the rotated one with a bunch of folders, which I need for a skyrim mod, that I'm messing with.
The program isn't perfect, as the latest version has a memory leak, but the previous version works well enough to make it worthwhile.
> and under Windows there isn't really anything comparable.
Well not really. At least in windows 7 there were quite a lot of themes, you can install blackbox for windows like /u/zangent said and there even are tiling "window managers" like bug.n. With a good theme and a pixel font windows can look pretty nice. And ofc theres also /r/Rainmeter
What you really need is a 'tiling window manager', but for Windows (what you are wanting to do is quite easily done on Linux). I don't really know of any proper tiling window managers for Windows, not ones that are as good as the ones you can get in Linux.
There is 'bug.n', but that's done mostly with Autohotkey, so I don't think it will work quite the same way with fullscreen games, though it might work with borderless fullscreen games.
Both use Autohotkey, so you might be able to move borderless fullscreen games to a pre-defined area, with keyboard shortcuts.
http://www.nurgo-software.com/products/aquasnap Another alternative to the ones you've already tried.
I'm currently using bug.n - works good with keyboard/mouse, but if you want to use exotic layouts, you have to do a bit of config file fiddling.
Protip: drag windows with the middle mouse button, it's great!
https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n
If you come around testing both, could you give me an impression which one you prefer?
There's a section on the doc to overwrite, remove, and add hotkeys.
Though you shouldn't need to snap Windows if you are using a tiling window manager. I won't assume though :)
I've used "bug.n" before and it's pretty good. It was REALLY good back in the Windows 7 days, but the last time I used it (1 year+ ago) it was a little buggy in Windows 10. It may have improved. Worth a shot, at least.
>From 1 to 10 how do you hate booting back into windows to do some windows specific operation?
It doesn't bother me at all. I only use Windows for games that don't run at all under Linux or only with considerable effort.
Because I only have time for computer games at weekends at most, and there are fewer and fewer games that are interesting for me, it is very rare that I boot Windows at the moment.
>But man I hate to do it, suddenly Im dropping from my tiling window manager heaven to this terrible windows user expirience
Have you checked out tools like https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n or https://github.com/TimUntersberger/nog?
Recently got into the Metal Gear Solid series due to seeing youtube videos on it. Needless to say I'm loving the hell out of it. MGS3 is my favorite of the series so far and thought I would try to throw together a MGS style desktop.
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The "taskbar" is a window manager for Windows 10 called bug.n. I've never used a Linux distro and never used a WM before, but I'm really liking it so far.
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The terminal is Hyper with a theme called 'hyper-oldschool'. Many of the available retro terminal themes for Hyper have been broken and won't work with the latest version, so to get them to work I use version 1.4.6 of Hyper. I think it came out well and emulates the old school MGS codec pretty well.
I must say, I don't really care about NeoFS, dirvish does enough for me...
But Nog, I'm very much really caring about. Whats the (very brief) sales pitch of why you didn't just use something likebug.n or workspacer? Just wanted to make one? How stable do you feel it is?
To sell myself on it, bug.n being a collection of autohotkey scripts makes me feel slightly queezy, and Workspacer while quick, having it's configuration in C# and basically no documentation beyond finding other peoples setups in it's issue tracker is a bit of a frustration.
Nog looks really good with a pretty comprehensive docset and config via rhai is neat.
Nog
Looks good tbh, I'm a linux user but I recently changed to windows again because wanted to play games and I needed some windows programs for me sadly tbh:(
You should look to bug.n, it's a i3-gap*ish* sortf of program made in ahk and it looks good here
The top bar is part of Bug.N. Which is the window manager. Bottom bar transparency was done with Rainmeter. Don't have links for the latter but you can get Bug.n here https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n
There are also tiling window managers for Windows--I use bug.n and it's pretty sweet. It could probably even do tiling if you tinkered enough, but you'd probably have to write that shit in Autohotkey. :/
Do you use something like bug.n (https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n). I just checked and with no gapps I get that result, since I set my gapps to 5px or something I have standard even bigger gapps but that is because i want to.
Look into bug.n. It's more like dwm for Windows but it can be configured like i3 if you have admin rights to disable some default key shortcuts from Windows. I combined it with ditto for clipboard management and executor to replace rofi. It makes windows bearable for a tiling wm user. Beware that the latest version was a false positive for some AV software, I just use the version before that.
I laughed right out loud at Workspace 4, haha. Got some weird looks on the bus.
Quick access to window resizing/relocating is very appealing, and hot keys seem to be a good approach - I like the precision of having the system size/place windows for me rather than trying to fine tune things with a mouse. I've found bug.n which seems to be the best options in the Windows environment for the time being.
You're right about the Windows approach, and for many people, most of the time, it works great. Less so when you want more... creative window arrangements.
I watched a couple videos on i3 and it looks pretty awesome. Unfortunately, as most of my work is done in Visual Studio, it's not worth running a VM with i3, as the whole point would be to include VS in my tiled setup. I'll play with bug.n and see how it goes though.
Thanks for all your input!
Here's a cheatsheet to get used to the commands: https://www.cheatography.com/gamer204/cheat-sheets/bug-n/
I learned everything from the documentation: https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n/blob/master/doc/Default_configuration.md
You could try downloading the Dell software or the LG software. I don't know if either of those will work. Or you could try using a Windows Tiling Manager like bug.n.
I found bug.n pretty nice actually. Open source and somewhat actively maintained. Also leverages AutoHotkey which has a lot of useful features itself.
I want to recommend bug.n. It's a tiling WM for Window's that's really easy to setup (just run an executable on startup.) It has functionality/keybinds very similar to dwm for Linux.