Thoughts on window sizing

[Ross Smith <myxiplx googlemail com>]

Hey everyone,

I remember reading some discussion about tiling windows, and how that
could be done, but I don't remember any real consensus on a good way
to achieve it.

Might it be possible to make application sizing 'snappy' as a way to
achieve this?

The idea is to allow users to resize programs as normal, but have the
window snap to points every 1/4 and 1/3 of the screen width (possibly
with a graphical overlay appearing as you size the window, showing
snap points in a nice big font - saying 1/3, 2/3, etc...).

Snappy sizing, snappy positioning, and snapping to other window
borders would make it really easy to resize any set of windows in a
way that they tile together.

And if you wanted to make it possible to do this with even less
movement, you could even implement it as a pull out menu from the
title bar.  Have an interface something like the way tables are added
in Word - you just drag out to the size you want.

The idea is that clicking that menu would give you a small
representation of the screen, with lines at the 1/3 and 1/4 marks,
both vertically and horizontally.  You could then just drag the mouse
to the size you want.

To make it visually obvious how the window is split, it might be worth
using alternating shaded backgrounds for each row and column, so:
- at the 1/3, 1/3 mark there's an obvious split into a grid of 3x3,
- at the 1/2, 1/3 mark, you're now selecting the top cell in a 2x3 grid
- at 2/3, 1/2, you've selected the top two cells in a 3x2 grid
etc...

I would also like to suggest 'flicking' as a way to move a window to a
side or corner of the screen.  Instead of having to place the window
exactly, I want to grab it, and quickly flick it to one side or
corner, and release the mouse.  The idea is that if the system detects
that the mouse button is released in motion like this, the system
animates the window being 'thrown' in that direction, snapping to one
the side or corner you aimed at.

How does all that sound?  Am I just nuts?  :-D

Ross