New snap feature idea

[benjer3]

I just had what I thought was a really neat idea for revamping window snapping, and I'm curious what people here think. Here's what I just submitted in the feedback app:

I feel it would really take the snap feature a big step forward if we could easily and intuitively snap windows in any conceivable setup. The screenshots are just a couple simple examples of this, where there are five windows instead of four.

One simple way I could see this being implemented would involve a modifier key while dragging windows, such as Ctrl. For example, in order to get to the first screenshot's layout from having explorer snapped to the top left like normal, one could open Notepad, hold Ctrl, drag Notepad to the right side of File Explorer (which would trigger a visual to show what it would look like if you dropped), and then drop the window, splitting File Explorer's former space between the two. To get to the second screenshot (which obviously isn't really practical on a monitor this size and resolution, but would be on larger monitors), one could do a similar procedure, but drag Notepad to the top middle of File Explorer. Essentially, one would only need to hold Ctrl, drag a window into a space occupied by another, position it on the desired side, and drop it to split the space between the old and new window.

One feature that would definitely make this much more intuitive is mutual edges, where dragging an edge between two apps resizes both rather than just the active window; perhaps this would only occur when holding Ctrl as well. Maybe one could even drag a three- or four-way intersection in order to resize all three or four windows. Another thing that could be implemented is holding Ctrl and dragging to the top of the screen in order to snap a window across the width of the top, rather than making it full screen. Perhaps one could also drag to an edge between two apps in order to split the space between the three.

I feel this would make a big difference when it came to window management. People (including myself) often have one or two main windows as well as a few peripherals, especially in a business environment, but it has always been tedious to get them nice and tidy on the screen. This feature would make such organization quick and intuitive as well as facilitating more than just four windows.​

The screenshots just showed a screen with apps on the right and bottom-left, as well as two apps (File Explorer and Notepad) in the space of the top-left quadrant. The first screenshot had File Explorer on the left and Notepad on the right, while the second had File Explorer on the top and Notepad on the bottom.

If you guys think this is a good idea, it would be great for you to "me too" it when it's available. I'm not sure how long it takes for new feedback to show up on the app.

 

[TechFreak1]

You can already drag and snap, which has been dramatically improved in windows 10 all you need to is move a window to the side, top or corner.

 

[benjer3]

Apparently it wasn't clear what I meant. I'm talking about expanding the snap feature, not creating it. Here's the first snapshot that I gave; the second just has File Explorer and Notepad stacked vertically instead of horizontally:

 

[TechFreak1]

You can already do that in windows 10, so not really sure what you are getting at:sweaty::sweaty:.

Also your first post has no screenshots attached and your second has only one...

Edit: I admit, I missed where you said 5 windows, I can see the use case for your suggestion and to simplify it I would say holding ctrl enables a grid where you can simply snap as many windows you want. Then tapping ctrl would turn it off, however the use case for this would is rather slim and would have been nice to have in Windows 7 / 8. Multiple desktops in Windows 10 negates this and not to mention coding man hours that may be required for such a feature. Would be best spent elsewhere.

Furthermore People who generally have more than 4 windows / applications at a time have either become accustomed to tabbing or have multiple monitors

Lastly most users rarely work on more than two windows at a time, heck given the attention span of most teenagers these days I doubt some would be able to focus on more than one window at a time.....

 

[benjer3]

I realize that this wouldn't commonly be used on personal computers, which is why I mentioned it being particularly useful in a business environment. During a desk job, I usually had a setup similar to this and had to set it up every time I started work. If I remember correctly, I had the company app on most of the screen, another app that I kept large and to the side (I forget what it was), and then the default calculator and another small specialized calculator on the side of the screen. The current snapping wouldn't support this setup, and it's not good at all when you want a couple small peripheral windows, anyway.