Tiling (computer)

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In the area of graphical user interfaces, tiling refers to the tile-like arrangement of windows next to one another, free of overlap. Depending on the surface, tiling can be the only way to display multiple windows on the desktop at the same time, or one option alongside others.

The technical arrangement (several tiles engl. Tiles) of a image or a graph next to each other is referred to as tiling designated. The tile display enables a recurring picture element to be shown repeatedly next to and / or one below the other in order to create the impression of a large area. This process, also known as tiling , is often used for background images that represent a recurring pattern or texture .

Another area of ​​application of the tile display is the display of large-format images: Here, the image is broken down into many partial images before display and only the tiles of the image section to be displayed are displayed. In this way, images that could otherwise not be displayed due to their size can be delivered in a manner that conserves bandwidth and memory. Areas of application are map services such as Google Maps or high-resolution panorama images (Panos).

A comparable method is also used to display so-called photo mosaics . If a picture is put together from many individual pictures to form a large picture, it is called stitching .

history

Xerox PARC

The CEDAR developed by Xerox PARC is considered the first graphical user interface with tiling . The Xerox Star also used tiling to arrange windows, but also knew some overlapping windows.

Siemens RTL Tiled Window Manager

Another early window manager with tiling was the Siemens RTL Tiled Window Manager from 1988. It is still considered a textbook today because of its algorithms for automatic size adjustment, placement, arrangement and resizing to icons and restoration. RTL ran on X11R2 and R3, mainly on Siemens' own systems, such as Sinix .

Andrew Project

The Andrew Project (AP or tAP) was a desktop client system (similar to the early Gnome ) for X with a window manager that was capable of tiling and overlapping.

Well-known window managers with tiling

Microsoft Windows

Windows included a window manager from Windows 95 up to and including Windows XP , which works overlapping by default, but can also be switched to tiling.

This feature was not reintroduced when the taskbar was redesigned in Windows 7 . Instead, it is possible to drag windows to the left or right edge of the active screen (to pin them there) so that they each take up one half of the screen and two windows can be displayed side by side.

With the introduction of Windows 8 , the concept of tile display was introduced system-wide. The tiles represent programs and the apps familiar from cell phones in the context of a tile-based start screen. These can display static or dynamic content (live tiles).

history

The first version ( Windows 1.0 ) was based on a window manager with tiling, in part because of a legal dispute with Apple, which claimed rights to the metaphor of the desktop with overlapping windows. But due to complaints, the next version ( Windows 2.0 ) followed the desktop metaphor. All later versions of the operating system retained this approach as the default behavior.

Third-party software

There is third-party software that adds more sophisticated tiling functionalities (in brackets, the license under which the software is available):

X Window System

In the X Window System, the window manager is a separate program. X itself does not require a specific window manager and the current X protocol version X11 explicitly mentions the possibility of window managers with tiling. Siemens RTL Tiled Window Manager (released in 1988) was the first to implement automatic strategies for arrangement and size. Another tiled window manager from this period was the Cambridge Window Manager , developed by IBM's Academic Information System Group .

After that, no new window managers with tiling were developed for a long time. In 2000 the first versions of larswm and Ion were released.

List of window managers for X with tiling

  • awesome dwm derivative having the opportunity window - Tags to provide
  • Compiz - Although Compiz is actually a window manager with compositing , it has a grid plug-in that adds keyboard shortcuts for tiling and allows windows to be tiled.
  • dwm allows tiling layouts by toggling by clicking on an ASCII-Art "icon" in the status bar. The default setting is a larswm-like combination of main area and stack area, represented by a []= character glyph. There is also a non-tiling flow layout, similar
  • Echinus
  • Enlightenment , allows up to 144 virtual desktops per monitor on which tiling can be switched on individually. The user can easily switch between a tiling desktop and an overlapping desktop. It is also possible to use a tiling desktop on one monitor, overlapping desktops on other monitors or vice versa.
  • evilwm , which allows windows to be moved and resized, represented by a fish-like one ><>. There are third-party patches to add a Fibonacci layout according to the golden ratio, a grid layout , a gap-free grid layout and a horizontal stacking arrangement.
  • euclid-wm
  • i3 intends to be an improved, dynamic tiling window manager inspired by wmii.
  • Ion combines tiling with a tabbing interface . The display is manually divided into non-overlapping areas (frames). Each frame can contain one or more windows. Only one of these windows is visible and fills the entire frame.
  • KWin , the KDE window manager , offers an experimental tiling function from version 4.5. However, this is currently removed in development version 4.10.
  • larswm implements a form of dynamic tiling: the display is divided vertically into two areas (tracks). The left track is filled with a single window. The right track contains all of the other windows, stacked one on top of the other.
  • Lucca WM
  • Matchbox is specifically aimed at mobile devices and embedded applications where multiple tiled windows don't fit well. It does not allow overlapping main windows (although, as with many tiled window managers, dialog windows are “special” with batch management), but it does this by showing only one window instead of tiling multiple windows. This can be thought of as a one-tile layout.
  • Musca includes manual tiling, multi-screen support, virtual desktops, and mouse or keyboard navigation.
  • plpwm is a configuration of the plwm window manager toolkit that supports tiling.
  • Qtile is a tiled window manager, written and configured in Python .
  • ratpoison - keyboard controlled GNU screen for X
  • Scrotwm - another minimalist window manager with tiling
  • StumpWM - ratpoison in Lisp
  • tritium
  • TrsWM
  • WMFS
  • wmii - developed parallel to dwm by the same author
  • From version 4.12 onwards, Xfwm4 , the window manager from Xfce , is better able to recognize when the user wants to arrange windows in tiling fashion and supports him with automatic size adjustment and positioning.
  • xmonad - automatic window manager with tiling, written and extensible in Haskell
  • Herbstluftwm - manual tiling window for X11, uses Xlib and Glib, written in C ++

Third-party applications with tiling for X.Org

  • Tile is a small command that enables tiling among other window managers.
  • Stiler (formerly known as "poor man's tiling window manager") is a simple Python script that allows tiling under any window manager.
  • PyTyle is a manual tiling manager that can be linked to any EWMH- compliant window manager.

Others

Application programs with tiling

Although tiling is not the standard mode of window managers on any widely used platforms, most application programs display concurrent functions in a similar manner. Examples include email clients , IDEs , sidebars in web browsers, and the context-sensitive help in Microsoft Office . In addition, HTML frames can be viewed as an implementation of tiling based on a markup language . Window managers with tiling extend this useful property beyond the concurrent functions in application programs to concurrent application programs within a desktop. The document interface with tabbing can be a useful addition to tiling, as it avoids multiple windows for the same function on the screen.

See also

credentials

  1. ^ Xerox Star
  2. ↑ bug.n ( Memento of the original from August 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / developer.berlios.de
  3. ↑ Presentation of version 4.12 of Xfce (eng)