How I use a tiling manager to make my Windows experience more efficient

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• Tiling window managers are an efficient way to use a PC.
• They automatically arrange windows for you.
• The FancyWM window manager can be installed on Windows for free.

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As a long-time Linux user, I can totally appreciate the desire to change the desktop. That’s a fairly simple feat on Linux, because there are so many varied desktops to be had.

But what about Windows?

Every time I find myself on a Windows desktop, one of the first things I think is how horribly inefficient the desktop is. The last time I had to use Windows, I thought, “There has to be something different, something more efficient.”

And so, I decided to find something. That something is a tiling window manager called FancyWM.

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You might be asking, “What is a tiling window manager?” The answer is simple: A tiling window manager is one that arranges windows in a grid-like pattern with a focus on efficiency and productivity. Tiling window managers are designed to make the best use of screen real estate by removing typical window decorations.

Tiling window managers are designed to maximize screen real estate by eliminating the need for traditional window decorations, such as title bars, borders, and menus.

For the longest time, I didn’t like how tiling window managers made decisions for me, until I realized those decisions were pretty darned efficient. Now, I see the beauty and simplicity of the tiling window manager and often make use of one when I need to work more efficiently.

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If you’re a Windows user, I want to show you how you can add tiling to your desktop, and it all begins with something fancy… as in FancyWM.

FancyWM is a dynamic tiling window manager that works with both Windows 10 and 11. The feature list for FancyWM includes:

• Dynamic, tiling layouts managed with either mouse or keyboard
• Window focus and swapping are handled with keyboard combinations
• Horizontal and vertical panels
• Panel stacking and embedding
• Jump and/or move windows to virtual desktops
• Auto-float windows
• Customizable keybindings
• Multi-monitor support
• Quick toggle to disable/enable tiling
• Low CPU usage
• Animations can be disabled for better battery life
• Does not tile pop-ups

FancyWM uses the Shift+Up Arrow as its activation hotkey. Once you’ve activated the hotkey, you can then use one of the keybindings you’ve created in settings.

Let’s get FancyWM installed on Windows 11 and then check out the basic usage.

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Installing FancyWM

What you’ll need: The only thing you’ll need for this is a machine running Windows 10 or 11. Of course, given that Windows 10 support is about to end, I would suggest using Windows 11. If you have a Windows 10 machine that doesn’t support Windows 11, I would suggest switching to Linux and using Pop!_OS, as it has built-in tiling that can be quickly enabled or disabled.

With FancyWM running, open up a few apps, and you should immediately see that those windows are automatically tiled for you. At that point, you will start to get what the tiling window manager is all about.

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For those of you who want more, here’s what you do. Before you hit the hotkey combination, click on the FancyWM icon in the system tray, and the settings app will appear. Click the Keybindings section and learn some of the keybindings that you might use (such as Ctrl+Left Arrow to move a window left or Ctrl+Right Arrow to move a window to the right). You can also customize those keybindings, so they’re easier for you to remember.