Best Window Managers of 2024

Bspwm, a tiling windows manager, represents windows as leaves on a binary tree. It only responds X events and messages received on a dedicated socket. bspc, a program which writes messages to bspwm socket. bspwm does not handle keyboard or pointer inputs. A third-party program, such as sxhkd, is required. Sxhkd is required to translate keyboard and mouse events into bspc calls. Monitors can only display the tree for one desktop (the desktop that is currently focused). The tree is a division of the rectangle of a monitor into smaller rectangular areas.

IceWM is a window-manager for the X Window System. IceWM's goal is to be fast, simple, and not get in the way of the user. It has a taskbar that includes a pager and global and window-specific keybindings, as well as a dynamic menu. Keyboard and mouse can be used to manage application windows. Windows can be iconified on the taskbar, the tray, the desktop, or hidden. You can control them by using the Alt+Tab quick switch window and a list of windows. Menu-selectable focus models include a few configurable options. RandR and Xinerama support setups with multiple monitors. IceWM is well documented, highly configurable, and themeable. It includes a simple session manager and a system-tray, as well as an external background wallpaper manager that supports transparency.

In a normal WM you spend half of your time searching and aligning windows. XMonad automates this process, making it easier to work. A Request and an Update for Our Sponsors. It's been a little over a year since XMonad 0.17.0 was released. This was also the period when we started looking for funding. The number of people who have decided to support us is astounding. Thank you! Our expenses are transparent, but it can be difficult to keep track if you are not directly involved with the project. xmonad automates window arrangement so you can focus on other things. Haskell and smart coding practices ensure a crash-free environment.

Moom makes window management easy by using a mouse--or a keyboard shortcut if you are one of those people. Moom allows you to move and zoom windows into a half-screen, quarter-screen, or full screen. You can also set custom sizes and positions, and save the layouts of open windows for one click positioning. You'll wonder why you ever used your Mac without Moom. Moom's popup palette will appear when you hover the mouse over a window's green buttons. Fill the screen quickly, or move to horizontal or vertical halves at the screen edges. Want quarter-size windows instead? If you hold down the Option key the palette will show four quarter-size corner choices, as well as center without resizing.

VEEER is a productivity tool for designers and developers that maximizes your workflow speed. You need a tool to quickly arrange and move windows if you are a Mac designer, developer, or someone who spends long hours on the Mac. VEEER allows you to drag windows and control them by activating the activation key and double-clicking or dragging them - without using the window title bar. When working with several windows, such as when importing/exporting documents or working in different applications at the same time, switching between them by minimizing and maximising can be a waste of time.

Magnet can be activated by dragging windows, keyboard shortcuts, or the menu bar. It will then organize them into tiles. Multitasking is greatly enhanced by having multiple windows neatly aligned side-by-side. Fullscreen, halves and quarters. Up to six external displays can be supported. Combinations are endless. Magnet snaps windows into quarters when you drag them to the corners. You can use the side edges to arrange horizontal halves and vertical halves. Dragging to the top edge maximizes the size of a window on a screen. Bottom edge creates threes. Slide it to expand the two-thirds. The corners and bottom edge are where you will find quarters and halves.

BetterSnapTool lets you easily manage the sizes and positions of your windows by dragging them either to one of the corners of the screen or to the left, right, or top of the screen. This allows you to maximize your windows or position them side-by-side, or even resize to quarters of the display. BetterSnapTool allows you to create custom snap areas on your display if you need more than the standard snap areas. Other features include custom keyboard short cuts, customizing the clicks on window button, moving/resizing Windows by holding a key and many others.