CategoryWindows

Click on the heading to find all pages related to window management in Emacs.

Emacs Windows – the Basics

• Window – what a window is in Emacs
• WindowConfiguration – what a window configuration is
• ModeLine, ModeLinePosition – the mode-line of a window

Windows Navigation (Selection)

Move among windows – alternatives to C-x o (‘other-window’).

• Use arrow keys to choose
  • windcycle
  • WindMove
  • WindowNavigation
• Use a window name or number to choose
  • Ace Window – move to another window by typing the first character of the window’s name
  • Icicles: C-u C-x o in Icicle mode – Cycle/filter/complete window names to choose a window
  • NumberedWindows
  • Switch Window – shows big numbers in each window, you input the number to get where you want to.
  • WindowNumberingMode
• Use a transient keymap to move among windows
  • WinSwitch – a dynamic, transient mode that enables easy, efficient navigation among windows (and frames)
• M-x next-multiframe-window – similar to ‘other-window’ but cycles both through windows and frames.

Resizing, Splitting, … Windows

• DoReMi – Resize windows incrementally, using arrow keys or mouse wheel. Hold Meta key to boost resizing increment.
• GridLayout – how to quickly split the frame into a grid
• HorizontalSplitting – Force Emacs to always use split-window-horizontally instead of split-window for temporary buffers, like C-x C-b and M-x describe-function.
• move-border.el – Resize windows by moving their own border in a given direction
• Multicolumn – improved handling of multiple side-by-side windows in a frame
• OneWindow – Make Emacs always use only one window for whatever it does
• PlaceWindows (place-windows.el) – place active windows according to number of rows, incrementally or with universal argument. Each row height is equal, each column height equal in current row.
• QuickTiling – If you like xmonad, tmux etc., chances are you’ll this too.
• ThreeWindows – Enjoy your work in three windows per Frame. One big and two small.
• ToggleWindowSplit – Toggle between vertical and horizontal split
• TransposeFrame – Transpose windows arrangement in a Frame
• TransposeWindows – Rearrange windows within a Frame
• WidenWindow – Widen the active window
• WindowResize – Resize windows using simple keybindings

Switching Window Configurations

• BFocus (bfocus.el) – Temporarly fill a frame with a window and then change back to previous configuration
• CategorizingInformationManager – Ee-windows for switching between window configurations
• EmacsLispScreen (elscreen.el) – Switch between numbered screens with the C-\ prefix command
• EmacsScreen (escreen.el) – same thing
• LayoutRestore – Save multi-window layout and restore it
• PolicySwitch – Manage lists of window configurations as policies. Persistence across sessions.
• PopWin – Manage temporary windows that pop up, eg *Help* and *Completions* buffer windows, and get them out of the way fast
• RecursiveEditPreservingWindowConfig – Temporarily change the window configuration using RecursiveEdit
• WindowsAndRegisters – Store window configurations in registers
• WindowsMode – Open new configurations, keep track of them, and store them to disk (SessionManagement)
• WinnerMode – Undo and redo changes to the window configuration
• WinRing – Switch between named window configurations (“mail”, “irc”, “gnus” etc.) using prefix key C-x 7.
• WorkgroupsForWindows – A simple window-configuration persistence package

See also:

• CategoryBufferSwitching – Rather than switching window configurations, maybe you just want to switch buffers?

Frame Configurations

To save the current configuration of frames and later restore it, use C-x r f (‘frame-configuration-to-register’) and C-x r j (‘jump-to-register’), respectively. See FramesAndRegisters.

See also:

• DoReMi – Commands to resize and move frames incrementally, using the arrow keys or mouse wheel.
• FrameModes#FrameCommands – Commands to manipulate frames:
  • Iconify/hide all frames and restore them using C-M-z.
  • Resize and move frames incrementally, using the arrow keys.
  • Tile all visible frames horizontally or vertically. Particularly useful before comparing buffers with Ediff.
• Shrink-Wrapping Frames – Commands to resize frames.