Prostokat

A "polished" GNU/Linux tilling utility.

Key Features • Intro • Install • How To Use • Configuration • Credits • Contribute • License

Key Features

Tile using a layout and a grid
Use a global mousebind to tile windows
Tile by snapping windows to areas
Flexible CLI + GUI app
Compatible with most GNU/Linux desktop environments
No dependencies, just a binary

Intro

Prostokat uses profiles to manage different tilling configurations.

A profile is a configuration for your tilling: it has a grid and a layout.

A grid represents the way the screen is divided in equally sized cells

A 3x1 grid would divide a screen into 3, using 3 columns and 1 row.
A 4x2 grid would divide a screen into 8, using 4 columns and 2 rows.
A nxm grid would divide a screen into n*m, using n columns and m rows

# 3x1 grid
|-+-+-|
| | | |
|-+-+-|

# 4x2 grid
|-+-+-+-|
| | | | |
|-+-+-+-|
| | | | |
|-+-+-+-|

A layout is an array of areas in your grid which will be used to tile your windows to. You can have as many areas in your layout as grid cells, so for a 2x2 grid you could have up to 4 areas.

A layout in a 2x2 grid could have 4 areas, one per grid cell
A layout in a 3x1 grid could have 3 areas, dividing the screen in thirds
A layout in a 4x1 grid could have 3 areas too: 1 big one at the middle, and 2 smaller ones at the sides

# 2x2 grid with 4 areas 
|-+-|    |-+-|
| | |    |1|2|
|-+-| -> |-+-|
| | |    |3|4|
|-+-|    |-+-|

# 3x1 grid with 3 areas
|-+-+-|    |-+-+-|
| | | | -> |1|2|3|
|-+-+-|    |-+-+-|

# 4x1 grid with 3 areas
|-+-+-+-|    |-+-+-+-|
| | | | | -> |1| 2 |3|
|-+-+-+-|    |-+-+-+-|

An area is a tilling region that has coordinates and dimensions.

posx: x position in grid
posy: y position in grid
height: number of rows to span
width: number of columns to span

# profiles/default.yaml
grid:
  cols: 3
  rows: 1
# splits monitor in thirds (grid: 3x1)
# |-+-+-|    |-+-+-|
# | | | | -> |1|2|3|
# |-+-+-|    |-+-+-|
layouts:
# area 1: pos(0, 0) dim(1x1)
- posx: 0
  posy: 0
  width: 1
  height: 1
# area 2: pos(1, 0) dim(1x1)
- posx: 1
  posy: 0
  width: 1
  height: 1
# area 3: pos(2, 0) dim(1x1)
- posx: 2
  posy: 0
  width: 1
  height: 1

Install

You can download the latest installable version of Prostokat for GNU/Linux distros.

To clone and run this application, you'll need Git and Golang installed on your computer. From your command line:

# Clone this repository
$ git clone https://github.com/pedrobarco/prostokat.git

# Go into the repository
$ cd prostokat

# Build the app
$ make clean && make build

# Install it
$ sudo make install

# Run the CLI
$ pk -h

How to Use

Start prostokat via its CLI by running pk start. You should now be able to use Shift + Mouse 3 to tile an active window to the closest tilling area.

Note: Prostokat uses the current mouse position to detect to which area should the window be tilled to.

Usage:
  pk [command]

Available Commands:
  completion  generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
  help        Help about any command
  init        Initialize or reinitialize pk
  profiles    Manage prostokat profiles
  start       Start prostokat window manager

Flags:
  -h, --help   help for pk

Use "pk [command] --help" for more information about a command.

The default configuration splits the monitor in thirds. However, you can have as many profiles as you would like.

Configuration

Using pk profiles you can easily manage your profiles.

Suppose we want to have 2 new profiles: a dev and games.

For the dev profile:

tile to corners
divides our monitor in 4

For the games profile:

a large area at the center
two equally sized areas at the sides

# profile/dev
|-+-|    |-+-|
| | |    |1|2|
|-+-| -> |-+-|
| | |    |3|4|
|-+-|    |-+-|

# profile/games
|-+-+-+-|    |-+-+-+-|
| | | | | -> |1| 2 |3|
|-+-+-+-|    |-+-+-+-|

Let's start by creating our profiles.

Note: pk uses the default profile template to create new profiles.

$ pk profiles create dev
+ $HOME/.config/prostokat/profiles/dev.yaml 
Profile dev was successfully created 

$ pk profiles create games
+ $HOME/.config/prostokat/profiles/games.yaml 
Profile games was successfully created

Now we can edit the profiles.

For the dev profile we want a 2x2 grid with a 4 area layout.
For the games profile we want a 4x1 grid with a 3 area layout.

Open and edit your profiles with pk profiles edit [profile]

$ pk profiles edit dev

# profiles/dev.yaml
grid:
  cols: 2
  rows: 2
layouts:
- posx: 0
  posy: 0
  width: 1
  height: 1
- posx: 1
  posy: 0
  width: 1
  height: 1
- posx: 0
  posy: 1
  width: 1
  height: 1
- posx: 1
  posy: 1
  width: 1
  height: 1

$ pk profiles edit games

# profiles/games.yaml
grid:
  cols: 4
  rows: 1
layouts:
- posx: 0
  posy: 0
  width: 1
  height: 1
- posx: 1
  posy: 0
  width: 2
  height: 1
- posx: 3
  posy: 0
  width: 1
  height: 1

Now we can run $ pk profiles activate dev to set our default profile to dev. Running $ pk start will now use the dev profile by default. When playing games, we can run prostokat with a custom profile: $ pk start -p games.

Have fun!

Credits

This software uses the following open source packages:

Contribute

Fork it
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/myFeature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'feat: add something')
Push to the branch (git push origin feature/myFeature)
Create a new Pull Request

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details

pedrobarco.github.io · GitHub @pedrobarco