✨ "Secondary" function on radial menu

[mrkai77]

Feature Request Description

This was a feature that was requested on Reddit.

The user would be able to move their cursor further from the radial menu, to trigger a secondary function. For example, you can move your cursor downwards to get bottom half, and then if you move it even further, you would get bottom third (And this should be customizable)

I was also told that I can try and use the "raw" cursor position instead of its coordinates on the screen, so that even if Loop is triggered from the corner of the screen, the user would still be able to select the secondary function.

Screenshots

No response

Additional Context

No response

Final Checks

• My issue title is descriptive
• This is a single feature request (multiple feature requests should be reported individually)

[boedy]

First of all, I must commend the incredible work on this window management solution 🎩 👏 . The innovative approach of utilizing a radial menu for window control, combined with the application's unexpected polish in an open-source project, captivated me from the start. The customization options further deepened my admiration.

Upon familiarizing myself with Loop, my initial reaction was sheer excitement, quickly followed by curiosity: "Could I also use Loop to resize windows into thirds?" While the current options suffice for my MacBook screen, the scenario changes significantly when switching to an ultra-wide monitor—a scenario where window managers truly shine and what I use as a daily driver at work. The radial menu, as it stands, seems somewhat limited in this context.

For ultra-wide monitors, I envision frequent use of the following grid configurations:

3 x 2 Grid:

4 x 2 Grid:

4 x 3 Grid:

The concept suggested on Reddit for extending the cursor away from the radial menu to activate secondary functions, such as snapping windows to a third of the screen, is an intuitive solution for edge snapping. However, I'm curious about its implementation for resizing a window to occupy two-thirds of the screen space. How would this mechanism work, especially considering the varied monitor sizes and aspect ratios?

[mrkai77]

Hey @boedy, thank you very much for the kind words!
I am still thinking through how this will function, but in short, here's what I've thought of so far:

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The first idea that I am thinking of doing is to implement this through the means of #137, where when secondary radial menu is activated (either through the cursor getting further or through a modifier key), the user would be able to choose a "secondary" window action to do.

For example:
If I move my mouse towards the right when Loop is activated, Right Half is triggered. However, when I move my mouse further (or somehow activate the secondary radial menu), the right side of the radial menu could be assigned do do something else, such as Right Third or Right Two Thirds.

Of course, the each of the radial menu's sides would be user-configurable, as tracked in #107.

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However, I have had another conflicting idea that would also work seamlessly, and would probably be more extensive:

Again, this would require #107, where the user would be able to customize each side of Loop's radial menu. This gets interesting when the user-configurable radial menu gets a Cycle window action assigned to it. In a Cycle window action, the user could put Top Third, Top Half and Top Two Thirds all in one set, and then cycle through them via a mouse click. So, when the radial menu is configured to operate like this, it would operate like so:

1. Activate Loop
2. Move cursor upwards (This would activate Top Third as it is first within the Cycle window action set)
3. Click mouse (This then moves onto the next window action within the Cycle, which would be Top Half)
4. Click mouse again (This finally activates Top Two Thirds)
5. Close Loop to snap window

This would be very similar to how Cycle keybinds work at the moment, except that in this case, the user would be able to do it fully using their mouse.

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Anyways, this is still in the brainstorming phase, so if you have any feedback, that would be greatly appreciated!

[boedy]

Hi @mrkai77 ,

I wanted to get back to you sooner, but I was bogged down with other work.
It's nice to see you're brainstorming various ideas. I've been pondering over the concepts you've shared and would like to contribute an idea that might synthesize elements of your proposals, potentially offering a novel user interaction model.

The essence of this idea revolves around a click-and-drag mechanism that directly manipulates the preview size based on the user's cursor movement whilst holding down the left mouse button:

1. Initial Activation and Preview Scaling: Activating Loop and moving the cursor towards a specific quadrant (e.g., Bottom Right) sets the initial preview (e.g., Bottom Right Half). The further the cursor moves from the radial center, the more the preview scales down, making the window smaller.
2. Directional Dragging for Preview Expansion: Dragging the cursor away from the radial center, but within the selected quadrant, dynamically adjusts the preview size in the opposite direction. This part might require some experimentation to determine the most intuitive behavior for scaling direction.

To snap a window to the 'Bottom Right Two Thirds' of the screen, a user would::

1. Activate loop
2. Move the cursor to the Bottom Right quadrant, initially setting the preview to Bottom Right Half.

3. Drag the cursor further within the Bottom Right quadrant to shrink the preview, eventually reaching Bottom Right Third.

4. Click and drag the cursor towards the right edge of the screen, expanding the preview to Bottom Right Two Thirds.

5. Close Loop to finalize the window positioning.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this.

[mrkai77]

This is a interesting approach to solving this issue!

However, I can easily see users requesting that they would want to resize windows beyond Bottom Right Third. In addition, when the user is using a vertical monitor, it would probably make more sense to vertically resize it into the Bottom Right Third. How would you approach this? It can easily be user-configurable, but I am concerned that having this many options would lead to a messy UI/UX.
However, I do like this concept in terms of how it feels like it would be super flexible!

I am still leaning towards the idea where the user could set their own Cycle window action on each side of the radial menu, since that would be more in-line with Loop's current functionality. However, I really like your idea, so I am going brainstorm how I can combine the two seamlessly :)

[boedy]

To add a bit more context: It would work in multiple directions. If build on the original example:

If the user would now:

• Click-Drag ➡️ right, the preview would grow to the left (as illustrate in my previous reply)
• Click-Drag ⬇️ down, the preview would grow upwards, which would be helpful for vertical monitors.
• Click-Drag ↘️ down right, the preview would grow to the left as wel as up

The further the user drags, whilst holding down the left mouse button, the further the preview grows.