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Window Tiling

Basic Window Tiling

The Cinnamon desktop environment includes basic window tiling:

  • Press Super + Left to make the active window tile to the left half of the screen.
  • Press Super + Right to make the active window tile to the right half of the screen.
  • Press Super + Up to make the active window tile to the top half of the screen.
  • Press Super + Down to make the active window tile to the bottom half of the screen.
  • You can tile to a corner by combining these options. For example, to tile to the upper right corner, hold the Super key and then press the Up arrow and then the Right arrow.
  • Cinnamon's basic window tiling has no window gaps so it maximizes your screen area and is especially helpful when working on smaller screens like laptops.

OhMyDebn Cinnamon window tiling

Advanced Window Tiling

For more advanced window tiling options, we've included a custom version of the gTile extension:

  • Pressing Ctrl-Shift-G will display the gTile overlay and give you several options for tiling the active window.
  • The default grid options are 2x2, 3x2, 4x4, or 6x6. You can select a different grid option with the mouse or by pressing 1, 2, 3, or 4. You can modify these default grid options by going to the gTile extension settings.
  • Select the starting tile by pressing the letter associated with that tile and then select the ending tile by pressing the letter associated with that tile. For example, to tile the window to the left half of the screen in a 4x4 grid, press a and then n.
  • To set the window to a single tile, press the letter twice. For example, to tile to the upper left corner, press a twice.

OhMyDebn gTile window tiling

To configure gTile:

  • press Super + Shift + G, or go to System Settings -> Extensions and click the Configure button next to gTile
  • click the Behavior tab
  • from here you can adjust the window gap size, enable Maximize with gaps, and choose an Automatic tiling mode (see below)

OhMyDebn gTile settings

There are also hotkeys for common tiling options that leverage gTile for window gaps:

  • Press Ctrl + Shift + 1 (numeric keypad) to tile to bottom left corner with gaps.
  • Press Ctrl + Shift + 2 (numeric keypad) or Ctrl + Shift + Down to tile to bottom half with gaps.
  • Press Ctrl + Shift + 3 (numeric keypad) to tile to bottom right corner with gaps.
  • Press Ctrl + Shift + 4 (numeric keypad) or Ctrl + Shift + H to tile to left half with gaps.
  • Press Ctrl + Shift + 5 (numeric keypad) or Ctrl + Shift + Enter to tile to full screen with gaps.
  • Press Ctrl + Shift + 6 (numeric keypad) or Ctrl + Shift + L to tile to right half with gaps.
  • Press Ctrl + Shift + 7 (numeric keypad) to tile to top left corner with gaps.
  • Press Ctrl + Shift + 8 (numeric keypad) or Ctrl + Shift + Up to tile to top half with gaps.
  • Press Ctrl + Shift + 9 (numeric keypad) to tile to top right corner with gaps.

For example, to lay out windows like in the following screenshot:

  • Press Ctrl + Shift + O to display the OhMyDebn logo and then Ctrl + Shift + 7 to tile to the upper left corner.
  • Press Ctrl + Shift + S to display the fastfetch window and then Ctrl + Shift + 1 to tile to the lower left corner.
  • Press Super + T to start btop and then Ctrl + Shift + 9 to tile to the upper right corner.
  • Press Super + F to start the file manager and then press Ctrl + Shift + 3 to tile to the lower right corner.

OhMyDebn gTile window tiling with gaps

Automatic Tiling

In addition to the manual tiling options above, gTile can automatically place windows for you as they open - no hotkey required. Configure this from the same Behavior tab covered above, using the Tiling mode dropdown:

  • Off (the default) - nothing is tiled automatically; only the manual hotkeys above apply.
  • Rule-based tiling - many of OhMyDebn's own hotkey-launched apps (like cliamp and SO-CRATES) are automatically placed in a sensible spot as soon as they open.
  • Traditional tiling (3 windows) - every new window is automatically split into a tiling layout, cycling through up to 3 windows before starting over - similar to a classic tiling window manager.
  • Traditional tiling (unlimited) - the same idea, but keeps splitting the screen for as many windows as you open instead of cycling back to the start.
  • Scrollable tiling (like Niri) - every new window opens as its own full-height column, and your screen becomes a viewport that scrolls across the strip of columns (see below).

You can change the mode at any time from the Behavior tab, or just press Super + L to cycle through the modes (Super + Shift + L cycles backward) - an on-screen display shows the newly selected mode, similar to Omarchy's layout toggle. Switching modes affects windows you open afterwards; existing windows stay where they are.

Windows placed by automatic tiling glide smoothly into place, Hyprland-style. You can adjust the animation duration - or set it to 0 to disable the animation - on the same Behavior tab, and disabling desktop effects disables it as well.

Scrollable Tiling

Scrollable tiling is inspired by scrolling window managers like Niri and PaperWM (and the scrolling layout in Omarchy):

  • The first window you open fills the screen.
  • The second window collapses the first into a column and opens beside it as its own column. By default each column is half the screen wide; this is configurable on the Behavior tab.
  • Additional windows keep opening as new columns, and columns that no longer fit on screen are scrolled out of view (minimized) until you come back to them.
  • Focusing a window in any way - clicking it in the window list, Alt + Tab, or the hotkeys below - scrolls its column back into view.
  • Closing a window gives its space back to the remaining columns, and when only one window remains it expands to fill the screen again.

Navigate the strip of columns with these hotkeys:

  • Press Super + , to focus the column to the left.
  • Press Super + . to focus the column to the right.
  • Press Super + Shift + , to move the current column to the left.
  • Press Super + Shift + . to move the current column to the right.

All of these hotkeys (and the mode-cycling hotkeys above) can be rebound on the Hotkeys tab of the gTile settings.

Maximize with Gaps

If you'd rather your maximized windows keep the same gap as your other tiled windows instead of filling the screen edge-to-edge, enable Maximize with gaps on the same Behavior tab. Once enabled, clicking a window's maximize button (or double-clicking its titlebar, or pressing Super + PageUp) leaves a gap around the window instead of a true edge-to-edge maximize. Doing it again restores the window to its original size and position.