PaperWM Alternatives
PaperWM
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 and recommended 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.
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 static workspaces, this can be turned on with Gnome Tweaks under Workspaces.
Best Free PaperWM Alternatives
You're looking for the best programs similar to PaperWM. Check out our top picks. Below, let's see if there are any PaperWM alternatives that support your platform.
Openbox
FreeOpen SourceLinuxBSDOpenbox is a highly configurable, next generation window manager with extensive standards support.
i3
FreeOpen SourceLinuxBSDA dynamic tiling window manager designed for X11, inspired by wmii, and written in C.
Features:
- Tiling Window Manager
- Lightweight
- Tiling
- X server
Fluxbox
FreeOpen SourceLinuxBSDC++Fluxbox is a window manager for X that was based on the Blackbox 0.61.1 code. It is very light on resources and easy to handle but yet full of features to make an easy...
awesome
FreeOpen SourceLinuxBSDA dynamic window manager for the X Window System developed in the C and Lua programming languages. .
Features:
- Extensible window manager
- Tiling
- X server
Xmonad
FreeOpen SourceMacLinuxxmonad is a dynamically tiling X11 window manager that is written and configured in Haskell. In a normal WM, you spend half your time aligning and searching for windows....
Features:
- Extensible window manager
- Tiling
- X server
dwm
FreeOpen SourceLinuxBSDdwm is a dynamic window manager for X. It manages windows in tiled, monocle and floating layouts. All of the layouts can be applied dynamically, optimising the...
Features:
- Lightweight
- X server
Amethyst
FreeOpen SourceMacAmethyst is a tiling window manager for Mac similar to the xmonad tiling window manager popular on Linux. Amethyst is written in Objective-C and has configurable...
Features:
- Tiling Layouts
- Support for Keyboard Shortcuts
- Tiling
Bluetile
FreeOpen SourceLinuxBluetile is a tiling window manager for Linux, designed to integrate with the GNOME desktop environment. It provides both a traditional, stacking layout mode as well as...
IceWM
FreeOpen SourceLinuxBSDIceWM is a Window Manager for X Window System. It is fast and memory-efficient, and it provides many different looks including Windows'95, OS/2 Warp 3,4, Motif.
Sway
FreeOpen SourceLinuxSway is a tiling Wayland compositor and a drop-in replacement for the i3 window manager for X11.
Features:
- Tiling
- Tiling Layouts
- Tiling Window Manager
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