PaperWM

⚠️ BREAKING CHANGE: we're working towards simplifying the install process for PaperWM, and having it installable from extensions.gnome.org. This requires changing the extension UUID for PaperWM to [email protected]. Because of this change, users will likely need to re-run the install.sh and logout/login.

Note: if you have run into issues, delete any older paperwm@... symlinks from ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions and re-run the install.sh script.

➡️ ATTENTION: we recently set release branch as default. This change aims to provide a more tested and stable experience for most users. You can continue to use develop branch if you want the latest features and fixes as soon as they're available. Changes will be merged into release branch after a week or so of testing in develop branch.

PaperWM is a Gnome Shell extension which provides scrollable tiling of windows and per monitor workspaces. It's inspired by paper notebooks and tiling window managers.

Supports Gnome Shell from 3.28 to 44 on X11 and wayland.

While PaperWM can be installed on a wide range of Gnome versions, new features aren't generally backported to versions NOT targeted for current support (see Installation section). Fixes may be backported on request (please submit a new issue if you've identified a recent fix that should be backported and you can help with testing).

While technically an extension it's to a large extent built on top of the Gnome desktop rather than merely extending it.

We hang out on zulip.

Installation

Clone the repo and check out the branch supporting the Gnome Shell version you're running.

• 42-44 (targeted for current support): https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM/tree/release
• 40-41: https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM/tree/gnome-40
• 3.28-3.38: https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM/tree/gnome-3.38

Then run the install.sh script from the repository. The installer will create a link to the repo in ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions. It will then ask if you want to enable PaperWM.

./install.sh # install, load and enable paperwm

➡️ You will need to restart Gnome shell after installing PaperWM, e.g. logout then login, or restart in place with an alt-F2 and entering r (X11 only).

After logging back in, you will can then enable PaperWM via the Extensions application, or by running the following command from the command-line:

/usr/bin/gnome-extensions enable [email protected]

Uninstall PaperWM

To uninstall simply run ./uninstall.sh.

Running the extension will automatically install a user config file as described in User configuration & development.

Contributing

Users are enouraged to submit issues and Pull Requests!

➡️ Please ensure pull requests are based off, and submitted to, develop branch.

Pull requests submitted to the release branch will not be accepted (but don't worry, if you accidentally submit a PR to the release branch we won't be mad, and will just ask you to change it).

Usage

Most functionality is available using a mouse, eg. activating a window at the edge of the monitor by clicking on it. In wayland its possible to navigate with 3-finger swipes on the trackpad. But the primary focus is making an environment which works well with a keyboard.

All keybindings start with the Super modifier. On most keyboards it's the Windows key, on mac keyboards it's the Command key. It's possible to modify the keyboard layout so that Super is switched with Alt making all the keybindings easier to reach. This can be done through Gnome Tweaks under Keybard & Mouse ⟶ Additional Layout Options ⟶ Alt/Win key behavior ⟶ Left Alt is swapped with Left Win.

Most keybindings will grab the keyboard while Super is held down, only switching focus when Super is released. Escape will abort the navigation taking you back to the previously active window.

Adding Ctrl to a keybinding will take the current window with you when navigating.

Window management and navigation is based around the three following concepts.

Scrollable window tiling

New windows are automatically tiled to the right of the active window, taking up as much height as possible. SuperReturn will open a new window of the same type as the active window.

Activating a window will ensure it's fully visible, scrolling the tiling if necessary. Pressing Super. activates the window to the right. Super, activates the window to the left. On a US keyboard these keys are intuitively marked by < and >, they are also ordered the same way on almost all keyboard layouts. A minimap will be shown when Super is continually being pressed, as can be seen in the above screenshot.

Pressing SuperI will move the window to the right below the active window, tiling them vertically in a column. SuperO will do the opposite, pushing the bottom window out of the current column.

Swiping the trackpad horizontally with three fingers will scroll the tiling (only available in Wayland).

AltTab is of course also available.

PaperWM doesn't handle attached modal dialogs very well, so it's best to turn it off in Gnome Tweaks (under Windows).

The workspace stack & monitors

Pressing SuperAbove_Tab will slide the active workspace down revealing the stack as shown in the above screenshot. You can then flip through the most recently used workspaces with repeated Above_Tab presses while holding Super down. Above_Tab is the key above Tab (` in a US qwerty layout). Like alt-tab Shift is added to move in reverse order:

Pressing SuperPage_Down and SuperPage_Up will slide between workspaces sequentially:

The workspace name is shown in the top left corner replacing the Activities button adding a few enhancements. Scrolling on the name will let you browse the workspace stack just like SuperAbove_Tab. Left clicking on the name opens Gnome overview, while right clicking the name lets you access and change the workspace name and the background color:

If you prefer to use another workspace indicator (or prefer none at all), you can hide this workspace name element from Gnome topbar by executing the following command from a terminal:

dconf write /org/gnome/shell/extensions/paperwm/show-workspace-indicator false

Swiping the trackpad vertically with three fingers lets you navigate the workspace stack (only available in Wayland).

There's a single scrollable tiling per workspace. Adding another monitor simply makes it possible to have another workspace visible. The workspace stack is shared among all the monitors, windows being resized vertically as necessary when workspace is displayed on another monitor.

PaperWM currently works best using the workspaces span monitors preference, this can be turned on with Gnome Tweaks under Workspaces. If you want to use workspaces only on primary you need to place the secondary monitor either below or above the primary (with the best result having it below).

Scratch layer

The scratch layer is an escape hatch to a familiar floating layout. This layer is intended to store windows that are globally useful like chat applications and in general serve as the kitchen sink. When the scratch layer is active it will float above the tiled windows, when hidden the windows will be minimized.

Opening a window when the scratch layer is active will make it float automatically.

Pressing SuperEscape toggles between showing and hiding the windows in the scratch layer. Activating windows in the scratch layer is done using SuperTab, the floating windows having priority in the list while active. When the tiling is active SuperShiftTab selects the most recently used scratch window.

SuperCtrlEscape will move a tiled window into the scratch layer or alternatively tile an already floating window. This functionality can also be accessed through the window context menu (AltSpace).

User configuration & development

A default user configuration, user.js, is created in ~/.config/paperwm/ with three functions init, enable and disable. init will run only once on startup, enable and disable will be run whenever extensions are being told to disable and enable themselves.

You can also supply a custom user.css in ~/.config/paperwm/. This user stylesheet can override the default styles of paperwm (e.g. from ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/[email protected]/user.css or /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/[email protected]/user.css), gnome or even other extensions. The same rules as for CSS in the browser apply (i.e. CSS rules are additive).

You can reload the user.css by disabling (turning off) PaperWM and then re-enabling PaperWM (turning on), e.g via Extensions app, or by running Main.loadTheme() in looking glass (i.e. AltF2 lg Return). Note that the latter approach will reload all other .css files (e.g. from other extensions) and user.css needs to already be loaded for this to work. So after initially creating the file you'll need to disable then enable PaperWM (or restart Gnome).

We also made an emacs package, gnome-shell-mode, to make hacking on the config and writing extensions a more pleasant experience. To support this out of the box we also install a metadata.json so gnome-shell-mode will pick up the correct file context, giving you completion and interactive evaluation ala. looking glass straight in emacs.

Pressing SuperInsert will assign the active window to a global variable metaWindow, its window actor to actor, its workspace to workspace and its PaperWM style workspace to space. This makes it easy to inspect state and test things out.

Using PaperWM extension settings (UI) to modify settings

PaperWM provides an extension settings UI to modify many of PaperWM's more prevalent settings. This is available in the gnome-extensions application.

Note: not all PaperWM user-configurable settings are available in the settings UI.

Using dconf-editor to modify settings

You can use dconf-editor to view and modify all PaperWM user settings. You can view all settings by executing the following command from a terminal:

GSETTINGS_SCHEMA_DIR=$HOME/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/[email protected]/schemas dconf-editor /org/gnome/shell/extensions/paperwm/

PaperWM user-configurable settings not available in settings UI

Below is a list of user-configurable settings that are not exposed in the PaperWM settings UI. These can be modified via dconf-editor.

Note: experimental, incomplete or deprecated settings may not be listed below.

dconf write /org/gnome/shell/extensions/paperwm/animation-time 0.15

dconf write /org/gnome/shell/extensions/paperwm/default-background '"/home/user/Wallpaper/mars-sunset-2k.jpg"'

dconf write /org/gnome/shell/extensions/paperwm/use-workspace-name false

Setting window specific properties

It's possible to set window properties using simple rules that will be applied when placing new windows. Properties can applied to windows identified by their wm_class or title. The following properties are currently supported:

Window properties can be added using the Winprops tab of the PaperWM extension settings:

The wm_class or title of a window can be found by using looking glass: AltF2 lg Return Go to the "Windows" section at the top right and find the window. X11 users can also use the xprop command line tool (title is referred as WM_NAME in xprop). The match of wm_class and title are with an OR condition; and in addition to a plain string matching, a constructed RegExp() can be used to utilise regex matching. For example, e.g. /.*terminal.*/i would match on any value that contains the word "terminal" (case-insensitive).

Alternatively, you can also define winprops in the user.js configuration file. Below is a few examples of setting window properties for Spotify and Alacritty. The below examples are best placed in the init part of user.js:

    Tiling.defwinprop({
        wm_class: "Spotify",
        title: "Window Title",
        scratch_layer: true,
    });

    Tiling.defwinprop({
        wm_class: "firefox",
        preferredWidth: "900px",
    });

    Tiling.defwinprop({
        wm_class: /alacritty/i,
        preferredWidth: "50%",
    });

Note¹: Winprops defined in the PaperWM extension settings take precedence over Winprops defined using the user.js method.

Note²: if you use the user.js method you will need to restart Gnome shell to have them take effect.

Setting a default window property rule

You can use the functionality defined in the setting window specific properities section to define a default window property rule that will be applied to all windows NOT matched by a more specific window property rule.

You do this by using the special "match all" operator * as an input for wm_class or title. The below image shows setting a default Preferred width value of 50%.

This special operator is at a lower precedence, so more specific properties that match a window will always take precedence and be applied.

New Window Handlers

If opening a new application window with SuperReturn isn't doing exactly what you want you can create custom functions to fit your needs. Say you want new emacs windows to open the current buffer by default, or have new terminals inherit the current directory:

    let App = Extension.imports.app;
    App.customHandlers['emacs.desktop'] =
        () => imports.misc.util.spawn(['emacsclient', '--eval', '(make-frame)']);
    App.customHandlers['org.gnome.Terminal.desktop'] =
        (metaWindow, app) => app.action_group.activate_action(
          "win.new-terminal",
          new imports.gi.GLib.Variant("(ss)", ["window", "current"]));

The app id of a window can be looked up like this:

var Shell = imports.gi.Shell;
var Tracker = Shell.WindowTracker.get_default();
var app = Tracker.get_window_app(metaWindow);
app.get_id();

Available application actions can be listed like this:

app.action_group.list_actions();

Keybindings

Due to limitations in the mutter keybinding API we need to steal some built in Gnome Shell actions by default. Eg. the builtin action switch-group with the default SuperAbove_Tab keybinding is overridden to cycle through recently used workspaces. If an overridden action has several keybindings they will unfortunately all activate the override, so for instance because AltAbove_Tab is also bound to switch-group it will be overridden by default. If you want to avoid this, eg. you want AltTab and AltAbove_Tab to use the builtin behavior simply remove the conflicts (ie. SuperTab and SuperAbove_Tab and their Shift variants) from /org/gnome/desktop/wm/keybindings/switch-group (no restarts required).

User defined keybindings

Extension.imports.keybindings.bindkey(keystr, name, handler, options)

let Keybindings = Extension.imports.keybindings;
Keybindings.bindkey("<Super>j", "my-favorite-width",
                    (metaWindow) => {
                        let f = metaWindow.get_frame_rect();
                        metaWindow.move_resize_frame(true, f.x, f.y, 500, f.h);
                    },
                    { activeInNavigator: true });

See examples/keybindings.js for more examples.

Window Position Bar (colored bar segment in Top Bar)

#476 added a coloured window position bar to the Gnome Top Bar. This allows users to visually identify the current selected window position of the scrollable viewport in the current workspace. This is demonstrated in the following video:

The the window position bar can be disabled from PaperWM extension settings or via dconf, e.g. by executing the following command in a terminal:

dconf write /org/gnome/shell/extensions/paperwm/show-window-position-bar false

You can style both the coloured position bar and the dimmed "position bar backdrop" by overriding the paperwm-window-position-bar and paperwm-window-position-bar-backdrop CSS classes respectively (see user.css in User configuration & development section for more information). The paperwm-window-position-bar will also inherit the selection color (same as window borders) from tile-preview.

Note: PaperWM overrides the default Gnome Top Bar style to be completely transparent so that the dimmed window-position-bar-backdrop andwindow-position-bar elements are visible.

Window Focus Mode

#482 added the concept of window focus modes to PaperWM. A focus mode controls how windows are "focused". For example, the CENTER focus mode causes all windows to be centered horizontally on selection, whereas the DEFAULT focus mode is the traditional PaperWM behaviour.

Focus modes can be toggled by user-settable keybinding (default is Super+Shift+c), or by clicking the new focus-mode button in the topbar:

Setting the default focus mode

The default focus mode is the standard PaperWM focus mode (i.e. not centered). This can be changed according to preference by changing the default-focus-mode setting via dconf or gsettings.

To set the default focus mode to CENTER, execute the following from a terminal:

dconf write /org/gnome/shell/extensions/paperwm/default-focus-mode 1

To undo, or revert to the original PaperWM behaviour, execute the following:

dconf write /org/gnome/shell/extensions/paperwm/default-focus-mode 0

Note: changing this setting during a PaperWM session will set all spaces to the new default focus mode.

Hiding the focus mode icon

Users may also prefer to hide the focus mode icon. You can do so by executing the following command in a terminal:

dconf write /org/gnome/shell/extensions/paperwm/show-focus-mode-icon false

Gnome TopBar opacity / styling

PaperWM by default changes the opacity of the Gnome TopBar. This styling is used for certain PaperWM features. However, this styling may conflict with the TopBar styling of other extensions (that you may prefer have style the TopBar instead).

Users can disable PaperWM's ability to change TopBar styling by executing the following command from a terminal:

dconf write /org/gnome/shell/extensions/paperwm/disable-topbar-styling true

Note¹: you will need to restart Gnome shell after changing this setting, e.g. logout then login, or restart in place with an alt-F2 and entering r (X11 only).

Note²: several PaperWM specific features are dependent on changing the Gnome TopBar to function correctly. If you choose to disable PaperWM's ability to change the TopBar styles (with the setting above), you may also want to disable the Window Position Bar).

Fixed Window Size

See the Winprops section for a way to set the default width of windows identified by their wm_class window property.

Currently it is not possible to have a default fixed window height. Please check the following issues for progress / info:

• #304
• #189
• #311

Recommended Gnome Shell Settings

There's a few Gnome Shell settings which works poorly with PaperWM. Namely

• workspaces-only-on-primary: Multi monitor support require workspaces spanning all monitors
• edge-tiling: We don't support the native half tiled windows
• attach-modal-dialogs: Attached modal dialogs can cause visual glitching

PaperWM manages these settings (disables them) during runtime. It will then restore these settings to their prior values (before PaperWM was enabled).

Recommended extensions

These extensions are good complements to PaperWM:

• Vertical Overview - brings back vertically stacked workspaces
• Switcher - combined window switcher and launcher
• Dash to Dock - a great dock

Prior work

A similar idea was apparently tried out a while back: 10/GUI