[Feature] Modifier to span window across multiple tiles

[laundmo]

Description

In FancyZones, theres a modifier key that allows dragging a window across multiple zones to snap it to the sum of all of them. I've been trying to find a KDE Plasma tiler/zone tool that has this, and so far this is the most promising in every other aspect.

Dragging a window while holding the modifier should "paint" the tiles, so its possible to start on a central tile, hold the modifier, drag the window down to make it cover that tile, drag the window up to make it cover that tile as well, then let the mouse button go to have it snap to the sum of all selected tiles.

Non-rectangular selection can be accomplished by potentially selecting tiles above/below the tile which is currently being "painted" with a selection to keep it rectangular, tho this is not a full solution. I never had a FancyZones layout complex enough to require this, so i dont recall its behaviour in this case, and i can't find it in the documentation

Problem it Solves

This allows for sort of ad-hoc layouts built from smaller tiles. Its very useful for cases where i sometimes want multiple small and sometimes one larger window at the same area.

The way the "painting" of selections works is relatively important for the speed and ease of use. For example, before finding this, i tried MouseTiler, and while it does have a drag to span it has 2 major usability issue for me:

• its a toggle on/off, not a modifier being held
• it doesn't "paint", instead acts like a selection box: it only spans from the drag start to the drag end, making it impossible to start on a centered tile and "paint" in the selection above and below.

Alternatives Considered

1. Snap to one zone, drag the edges to resize: This is really slow, and the whole raison d'etre for this kind of feature is speed.
2. Using another tool: There probably is something that handles this kind of multi-tile selection exactly correctly, but PlasmaZones seems very feature-rich otherwise and i'd like to keep using it.

Note that there have been multiple feature requests against Plasma directly to add this to their built-in tiling mode (the one with the overlay editor)

• https://discuss.kde.org/t/drag-window-on-multiple-tiles/42377
• https://discuss.kde.org/t/tile-zone-spanning/38100
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=506307

Checklist

• I searched existing discussions and issues

[fuddlesworth]

I have the ALT+CTRL+DRAG shortcut where it will fill multiple zones that share a border if you drop between zones.

Would this be an extension of that?

[laundmo]

Yes, i think so. i wasn't aware of that shortcut but it sounds like it needs some precision, which likely makes it to inconvenient for the usage i'm used to

[fuddlesworth]

Gotcha. I'll put this on the board.

[fuddlesworth]

@laundmo checkout release 1.8.1

[laundmo]

I finally got around to testing this: It works great! Thank you! Its exactly as quick as I recall from FancyZones. I consider this feature request finished.

[YAMLcase]

The zone spanning feature works really well with the mouse, but can it also work with keyboard shortcuts? For example, meta+alt+shift+right moves the window to the right... can adding the ctrl modifier make it instead grow the window into the adjacent zone to the right? yes I realize only a piano virtuoso can play that chord :)

[fuddlesworth]

Hrm. I'd have to think about it, or maybe just add it and let people put their own?

Problem with KDE is they already define so damn many shortcuts. It's gotten really hard to do consistent shortcuts that are actually usable without doing finger gymnastics.

[YAMLcase]

oh I see what you mean, including a modifier for a keyboard shortcut is just another combo shortcut. Yes, I am discovering that truth about too many shortcuts.

An idea: What about just meta+arrow for span up, down left right? On this fresh Plasma install those are assigned to the KWin Quick Tile window moves... which was the first thing I reassigned when I tried using my FancyZones muscle memory for moving windows around.

[YAMLcase]

@fuddlesworth after having a few days to think about this feature, I realized why I wanted to span multiple zones with a shortcut. For me, it was a compromise for when I got FZ setup years ago to be able to switch between a bunch of browser windows for research and a large work area (vscode, CAD, etc) and one browser for research/reference.

Having explored PlazmaZones the past few days I think I'll actually be able to accomplish my initial goal nicely... not sure how yet but you've got a lot of shortcuts to work with.

TLDR: If I'm the only one asking for keyboard shortcut to span zones, ignore it as all I was asking for was a hack anyways.

[fuddlesworth]

@YAMLcase

went ahead and added this functionality to v3.3.0 :D Activate with CTRL+ALT+ARROW