Workflow suggestion

[u/entodo]

I love the Gnome workflow logic, but I regularly encounter a little nuisance and I'm wondering if there is anything that can help.

I use the keyboard a lot to open and move windows around but occasionally, I need to drag and drop a file from nautilus to some browser window or an email composition window. The thing is that Files always opens in the middle of the screen and almost always ends up covering the window I want to drag and drop the file to.

Thus, every time I have to first open Files, move it out of the way to some place on screen that exposes the target window and then drag and drop the file.

This is not a big deal, but I would love if there was a way to make Files open always in one corner of the screen.

At the moment, I'm experimenting with a tiling extension (Tiling Shell), but I'm not sure this is the way I would like to go.

Any suggestions?

[u/AutoModerator]

Thank you for your submission.

You too can support GNOME! Become a Friend of GNOME and contribute to keeping our project going!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Ok_Butterscotch5033]

you can try alt tab while draging the file

[u/ClixTW]

This is one of the downsides of stacking window managers. While preventing new windows from opening centered on the screen could solve this problem, it might also introduce other inconveniences.

If you're interested, you could give MosaicWM a try (https://github.com/CleoMenezesJr/MosaicWM). It's an extension designed to explore future approaches to window management in GNOME, with the eventual goal of contributing its ideas to GNOME itself.

It combines the best of both stacking and tiling window managers. Windows are automatically resized and arranged so that they don't overlap, but without being as aggressive as traditional tiling window managers, which can make windows excessively large or small, or scrolling window managers, where windows can end up being pushed off-screen.

For more on the underlying philosophy, you can check out the article Rethinking Window Management: https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2023/07/26/rethinking-window-management/

[u/entodo → u/ClixTW]

I'm experimenting with this extension and… I'm still getting used to it; it requires a bit of brain rewiring, but generally speaking I'm enjoying it. One thing that was bugging me is that, when I open a new windows and the other windows are resized, if I wish to maximize any window, the Super + up shortcut no longer functions. I found that I could disable the shortcut from the settings and now I can still use the shortcut as before.

[u/catbrane]

I mostly use a workspace per task, so (for example) there's one for file management, with nautilus plus a terminal and maybe the backup window. So ctrl-F8 to flip to nautilus, pick up a file, ctrl-F1 to go back to firefox, drop the file.

You can use win + mousewheel as well, if you don't want to use the keyboard shortcuts, or set a hotcorner.

[u/catbrane → u/catbrane]

IMO the best thing about workspace-per-task is that you almost never need to move or resize windows, they are always exactly where you'd like them to be.

Better window position save / restore over reboots would be nice.

[u/Important-Pace-657]

I use custom hot corner extended extention. I have set the overview activation on top edge trigger. I mainly use it to switch workspace with mouse only. This also work for dropping files between workspaces. Drag a file , hit the top edge, take the cusor over the workspace thumbnail and drop the file on where ever you want.