How I set up my KDE to use tiling

One of the things I enjoy the most is using my computers without touching the mouse. I become much more productive from not having to context switch and I save so much time and effort by not having to physically take my hands off the keyboard to use the mouse or trackpad.

Tools like tiling window managers such as Hyprland really clicked with me and my usage. However, just using a minimal barebones tiling window manager without a desktop environment can be really annoying, especially in a work setting.

Plugging in laptop into a monitor for it to not auto detect, connecting a USB stick and not getting a prompt to mount, etc.

These can all be solved with custom shell scripts and some tinkering. But these solutions can be hacky and janky. When I connect my laptop to a monitor before I need to present something in a meeting, I just need it to work.

This is why I decided to settle on KDE. It already has all the functionality I need for work and personal use. I just need to get the tiling functionality I love so much from tiling window managers to work on KDE.

To achieve this, I used a KWin Script called Krohnkite and tweaked other KDE settings.

My workflow

This is my workflow with tiling:

• I use workspaces (i.e. Virtual Desktops) to organise my windows.
• I generally use a maximum of four windows per workspace.
• I move them around using keyboard shortcuts and rarely use my mouse.

My setup (at the time of this write-up)

• KDE Plasma 6.6.5 with Wayland
• CachyOS

I used the AUR to install some packages mentioned below. Alternatives include installing from other package managers or building from source.

📦 Installation

For the tiling functionality on KDE, I use Krohnkite.

In some older versions of KDE (e.g. 5.x something), tiling seems to be an option available in the System Settings so it's worth checking whether you already have it or not.

• System Settings -> Window Management -> KWin Scripts
• Get New... -> search for Krohnkite and install.
• Enable it and hit Apply. Existing windows may not get updated but newer ones will.

🎨 Appearance Configuration

Gaps

The first issue I had with the default settings is that there are no gaps between the edges of the screen and between windows. Luckily, this can be changed in Krohnkite settings.

• System Settings -> Window Management -> KWin Scripts
• Krohnkite -> Configure... -> Geometry -> Set all Default Gaps to 8px

Rounded Corners (+ Glow and Borders)

I added some softness to the windows by rounding out their corners using Rounded Corners.

• System Settings -> Window Management -> Desktop Effects
• Rounded Corners -> Configure...

Roundness tab

Parameter	Value
Active Window	10
Inactive Window	10
Disable Roundness on Tile	False
Disable Roundness on Maximise	False
Disable Roundness on FullScreen	True

Shadows tab

Shadows can become glows or shadows depending on the colour.

Parameter	Value
(Active) Shadow Size	60
(Active) Use Custom Colour	#bbaaff
(Active) Shadow Size	30
(Active) Use Custom Colour	#000000

Outlines tab

Parameter	Value
Primary Outline	True
(Active) Outline Thickness	2.00
(Active) Use Custom Colour	#bbaaff
(Inactive) Outline Thickness	0.00

Transparency

In order to know which window I'm currently on at the moment at a glance, I rely on visual queues. The first queue is transparency. The active window will be more opaque compared to inactive ones.

The easiest way to set transparency is under Window Management -> Desktop Effects -> Translucency. However, it doesn't seem to have the option to set the opacity of active windows so I decided to go with Window Rules instead.

• System Settings -> Window Management -> Window Rules
• Add New... -> Enter the following parameters (+ Add Property... for opacity parameters)

Parameter	Value
Window class (application)	Unimportant
Match whole window class	No
Window types	All window types
Active opacity	Force, 90%
Inactive opacity	Force, 75%

Blur

Transparency is nice but can negatively affect readability. This is why I decided to add blur to transparent windows.

Again, the easiest way to set blur is under Window Management -> Desktop Effects -> Blur. However, for some reason it doesn't work so I switched to Better Blur DX. (Blur worked for me in the past so I'm not sure what happened)

• Install kwin-effects-better-blur-dx from the AUR, etc.
• System Settings -> Window Management -> Desktop Effects
• Enable Better Blur DX -> Configure -> Enter the following parameters

General tab

Parameter	Value
Blur strength	8
Noise strength	20
Brightness	100%
Saturation	100%
Contrast	100%
Force Contrast Parameters	Off
Corner Radius	10.00

Match Corner Radius with the values you used for the Rounded Corners effect.

Force blur tab

Parameter	Value
Classes of windows to force blur	Leave empty
Blur all except matching	True
Blur window decorations as well	True
Blur menus	True
Blur docks	True

🛠️ Functionality Configuration

Layouts

Krohnkite offers many layout options. For my use case:

• I usually don't open more than four windows per workspace
• By default I like to split the screen into four corners: top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right
• When I'm on my ultra-wide monitor, I like to split the windows vertically into columns

I opted for the Quarter and Columns layouts, and can switch between them on the fly with keybinds.

The Quarter layout splits the windows into each corner of the monitor

The Columns layout splits the windows to vertical columns. I especially like this on an ultra-wide monitor.

I also noticed that there is another layout called Binary Tree which works similarly to Quarter but also works with more than four windows. However, the windows cannot be resized so that is a dealbreaker for me.

Set layouts by going into Krohnkite settings.

• System Settings -> Window Management -> KWin Scripts
• Krohnkite -> Configure... -> Layouts -> Set all unused layouts' orders to 0 and your used layouts' order from 1 onwards in order (e.g. Quarter on 1 and Columns on 2)

Keybinds

• System Settings -> Keyboard -> Shorcuts

Functionality	Keybind	Explanation
Close Window	Alt+Q, Alt+F4
Maximise Window	Alt+F
Krohnkite: Focus Next	Alt+J	Focus window. Acts like a quick "Alt+Tab". I used to have vim-like directional keybinds with Alt+HJKL but honestly it's too much thinking. I'm only using four windows tops per workspace anyway so I'll just spam this one keybind until I get to the window I want
Krohnkite: Move Left	Alt+Shift+H	Move window around within the workspace. I want exact control of where my windows go so I opted for HJKL for directions
Krohnkite: Move Down/Next	Alt+Shift+J
Krohnkite: Move Up/Prev	Alt+Shift+K
Krohnkite: Move Right	Alt+Shift+L
Krohnkite: Shrink Width	Alt+Y	Resize windows. Using Alt+YUIO which is a row above HJKL
Krohnkite: Grow Height	Alt+U
Krohnkite: Shrink Height	Alt+I
Krohnkite: Grow Width	Alt+O
Switch to Desktop 1	Alt+1	Switch to workspace. Repeat unti Alt+6
Window to Desktop 1	Alt+Shift+1	Move window to workspace. Repeat until Alt+Shift+6
Krohnkite: Next Layout	Alt+/	Switch between layouts

I opted to keep showing window titles so that windows can be dragged and dropped using the mouse, in addition to the aforementioned keybinds.