Idea for non-overlapping maximized windows using guidelines

[Andreas Wallberg <andreas wallberg gmail com>]

Hi all!

I often find myself wanting to have a main window taking up about 2/3
of the screen and a second window using the remaining space. I have
not been very impressed with the tiling window managers that I have
tried over the years as they seem to lack the flexibility that I need
to get my work done, like switching between tiling and non-tiling and
defining areas and borders and so on.

While working on an illustration in Inkscape it struck me that Gnome
Shell could perhaps provide a working interface to simple tiling by
borrowing the concept of guidelines. Basically, I suggest having a
window guideline for the X-axis and for the Y-axis of a workspace,
which should be accessible from the "workspace" interface to freely
subdivide a workspace into a maximum of 4 areas. Pressing the maximize
button on a window while in one of those areas would maximize the
window to fit that area. Dropping an application launcher or window in
that area would start it and/or resize it to the area. When looking at
the workspace overview, the windows should retain the position and
dimensions.

I am sure there are some usability aspects of this that needs to be
assessed but I think it is a novel approach to non-overlapping windows
that should be discussed, before it is dismissed :-)

I link to a fugly mockup here:
http://db.tt/DaUaP2Y

Best regards,
Andreas

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