Floating Window Controls

Floating windows are free-moving, overlapping windows you can place anywhere on the desktop. This page covers how to move, resize, minimize, close, pin, recolor, and arrange them. For the snap-to-tile and pop-out gestures, see Snapping-and-Pop-out.

Floating vs. snapped: what carries over

Most of the controls on this page live on a window's title-bar right-click menu (or its color button / a keyboard shortcut), so they work the same whether the window is floating or snapped into the tiling strip — see Snapping-and-Pop-out. The exceptions are the ones that only make sense for a free-floating window: dragging to move or resize, pinning, and the whole-desktop arrange and size-lock actions.

Control	Works on a snapped (tiled) window?
Minimize / Restore	Yes
Close / Terminate / Delete	Yes
Recolor (color button)	Yes
Minimize / close shortcuts (Ctrl+Alt+m / Ctrl+Alt+w)	Yes — they act on the focused window in either mode
Move / resize by dragging	Floating only — a snapped window is sized by its column width and arranged in the strip (see Columns-and-Widths)
Lock to screen (pin)	Floating only — a snapped window is part of the strip and always scrolls with it; the pin exempts a floating window from following the strip's scroll
Cascade / Tile / Minimize All / Lock Size	Floating only — these arrange the floating layer

Move and resize

Floating only. Dragging applies to free-floating windows. A window that's snapped into the tiling strip is moved and sized through the strip instead — set its width with the column presets (Columns-and-Widths) and rearrange it with the strip actions (Arranging-Windows).

• Move — Drag a floating window's title bar.
• Resize — Drag its edges or corners.

Most of the remaining controls live on the title-bar right-click menu — right-click a window's title bar to open it. See Context-Menus for the full right-click reference across the desktop.

Minimize, close, terminate, and delete

The title bar itself carries two buttons — minimize and × — and × is worth understanding: by default it soft-closes (the view detaches, a terminal's shell keeps running). Turn on Control Panel → Windows → "Close (×) terminates terminal sessions" and × instead hard-kills the session, optionally behind "Confirm before terminating". The right-click Close stays the soft-close path either way.

The rest of these actions are on every window's title-bar right-click menu, so they work the same whether the window is floating or snapped into the tiling strip — see Snapping-and-Pop-out.

A window's title-bar menu lets you get a window out of the way or close it. It's important to know that closing is soft — what actually happens depends on the window type.

Action	What it does
Minimize	Hides the window to the taskbar.
Restore	Brings a minimized window back (same menu item, when the window is minimized).
Close	Soft close. A terminal's shell keeps running so you can reattach later. A non-empty sticky note is retained and reopens from Closed notes in the + menu (an empty note is discarded). A text editor's content is a file on the host, so closing it leaves your file as it was unless you choose Save. With unsaved changes it asks Save, Don't save or Cancel: Cancel, Esc or a click outside keep the editor and its text, and only Don't save discards the unsaved text. A file manager, the task manager, and the Control Panel/help are ephemeral — Close just dismisses them.
Terminate	Terminals only. Hard-kills the shell process tree. You're asked to confirm first.
Delete note / Delete file	Only on sticky notes and the text editor (a window kind opts in). It asks to confirm first. On a sticky note it discards the note's text, which lives in this browser; on the text editor it closes the editor and discards unsaved text; the file on disk is not touched. The Scratchpad has no Delete item: its notes are stored on the broker, closing its window does not delete them, and closing a tab removes that tab from the notes (an earlier History revision can restore it). The last remaining tab cannot be closed, so to empty it clear its text.

Because a closed terminal keeps its shell alive, Terminate is the only way to actually kill the process tree. For a sticky note or an editor file, Close preserves the content (a note in Closed notes, a file on disk), while Delete is the one path that throws a sticky note's text away (an editor's file on disk is never deleted).

You can also minimize or close the focused window from the keyboard:

Action	Default binding
Minimize focused window	Ctrl+Alt+m
Close focused window	Ctrl+Alt+w

These act on the focused window in either mode (floating or snapped), and they're rebindable — see Keyboard-Shortcuts.

Pin a window (lock to screen)

Floating only. Pinning applies to floating windows. A window that's snapped into the tiling strip is part of the strip and always scrolls with it; the pin exists to exempt a floating window from following the strip's scroll — so the Lock to screen item only appears on a floating window's menu.

By default a floating window scrolls away with the tiling strip. To keep it put, use the title-bar right-click menu:

• Lock to screen (pin) — The window stays in place and does not scroll away with the strip. This pins its position, not always-on-top.
• Unlock (scroll with strip) — Reverses it, so the window scrolls with the strip again.

Color and rename

The color button is on the title bar of terminals, sticky notes and text editors (hidden on screens 520 px wide or less), so recolor works the same whether the window is floating or snapped into the tiling strip.

• Recolor — Use the color button in the title bar of a terminal, sticky note or text editor. You can pick from the palette, choose a custom color, or reuse a recent one.
• Rename — Double-click a sticky note's or text editor's title to rename it.

Arrange all floating windows

Right-click the empty desktop in floating mode for one-shot arrangements that act on all floating windows:

Item	Effect
Cascade	Stacks the windows in an overlapping cascade.
Tile Horizontally	Gives each window a full-width row, stacked top to bottom.
Tile Vertically	Gives each window a full-height column, placed side by side.
Tile H + V	Tiles the windows in a grid.
Minimize All Windows	Minimizes every floating window to the taskbar.

After you run one, an "Undo <action>" item appears so you can reverse the most recent arrange. Undo is single-level — only the last arrangement can be undone.

Lock Size (global)

The empty-desktop right-click menu also has a global Lock Size toggle:

• Lock Size — Snaps every floating window to the default size and hides the resize handles, so windows can't be resized.
• Unlock Size — Restores free resizing.

Related

• Snapping-and-Pop-out — drag a floating window into the tiling grid, or pop a tiled window back out to a float.
• Window-Types — terminals, notes, the editor, the file manager, and the task manager.
• Context-Menus — the full right-click reference.