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microsoft / PowerToys

Windows system utilities to maximize productivity
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Fancy Zones - Snapping a Window to Two or More Zones - Doesn't Work #12845

Open justingolden21 opened 3 years ago

justingolden21 commented 3 years ago

Provide a description of requested docs changes

I recently downloaded power toys, saw fancy zones, and hit win+ backtick (`) to open it.

I checked the documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/fancyzones#snapping-a-window-to-two-or-more-zones

And checked the following under "Window Behavior":

image

And yet hitting win+ctrl+alt+arrows moves the windows, same as win+arrows without ctrl+alt.

justingolden21 commented 3 years ago

This also does not work with two monitors (I'm using the "Priority Grid") as the window is cut off between both monitors.

Also, the scroll wheel does not work inside PowerToys for some reason. This is the only app I've ever used where the scroll wheel does not work.

justingolden21 commented 3 years ago

Can't record my screen with game bar, so I had to download https://www.freescreenrecording.com/, then can't upload videos to github so had to convert: https://ezgif.com/video-to-gif and reduce quality. Hopefully you guys can see this. Half the time I'm pushing win+arrows, the other half I'm pushing win+ctrl+alt+arrows, it does the same thing, and the window gets cut in half only sometimes (it's inconsistent).

ezgif-4-7b949363750d

Love powertoys and think this thing is awesome, many of the features don't seem to work and the interface is clunky. I've probably wasted several minutes alone trying to scroll down or up the settings pages, trying to select or drag the scrollbar, and figure out why I can't scroll.

EDIT: deleted the gif because for some reason it only shows the first 2 seconds of a one min gif... EDIT 2: fixed the problem with the gif, this one should work.

justingolden21 commented 3 years ago

Those docs are the first result for "fancy zones one window multiple zones" and despite hundreds of articles and videos, there is no other source saying any way to do this. Maybe it just doesn't work on my machine?

I've also noticed that in addition to the scroll wheel not working, the scroll bar is super buggy, home, end, page up, and page down are all broken as well. Again, this is the only program on my computer that doesn't work with the scroll wheel.

justingolden21 commented 3 years ago

The docs also say win+ctrl+alt allows the user to quickly switch layouts. This does nothing for me, both with and without the layout editor open.

justingolden21 commented 3 years ago

Also I found one more bug with Fancy Zones in Power Toys:

I have a dual monitor setup, with three zones (1,2,3) on each monitor. The windows snap to monitor 1 zone 1, monitor 1 zone 2, monitor 1 zone 3+monitor 2 zone 1, monitor 2 zone 1, monitor 2 zone 2, monitor 2 zone 3. In other words, the leftmost monitor has the rightmost window split in half between monitors, but the rightmost monitor does not. They both have the exact same layout selected and I have never used a different layout.

Jay-o-Way commented 3 years ago

Wow, that's a lot of information. Let's try and break it into steps.

The docs also say win+ctrl+alt allows the user to quickly switch layouts

justingolden21 commented 3 years ago

Thank you for your quick reply.

I'm sorry for all the spam, just wanted to provide as many details as possible and document what I was seeing to help diagnose and improve.

I have the latest version as far as I know (just got it recently), Windows was last updated a few weeks ago.

Just tried on Notepad and same problem, win+arrow keys and win+ctrl+alt+arrow keys do the same things, also wacky and inconsistent with 2 monitors

Yeah I want to customize FancyZones in the future, but honestly the default focus view is good enough for now. I used to just use win+arrow keys and fiddle with stuff myself, I only downloaded PowerToys because I saw you could use FancyZones to make everything easier.

I have no layouts other than the defaults, but there are multiply layouts by default:

image

I have priority grid selected for both monitors.

I don't see "create zip" anywhere or any tray icons in power tools or the layout editor for FancyZones. Could you please help me find it?

I'm not sure I understand your description enough to agree or confirm, but what is happening is that the win+arrow keys shortcut works correctly to move across different zones, but the shortcut (win+ctrl+alt+arrow keys) does the same thing, rather than adding new zones and letting one app span multiple zones per the docs.

I've been having trouble with my mouse recently. Unfortunately, I only have one mouse, I've tried resetting it and updating drivers but it's still finicky. It's gotten worse over time.

I guess there are really three bugs here:

1) The scrolling bugs

2) The one program multiple zones (lack thereof) bug

3) The zones being buggy with two monitors

PowerToys looks really awesome, I'm excited to eventually use this for my layouts : )

Jay-o-Way commented 3 years ago

No problem, it's not spam. Being specific is good to get to the source of something. Speaking of details, to create the debug file, find the PowerToys icon in the system tray. Right click, and the one I mean should be in the middle. (I'm on my phone right now:) Another simple step: could you make a screenshot of all the settings for FancyZones?

SeraphimaZykova commented 3 years ago

Hi, @justingolden21 let's take a look at the problems step by step. At first, you're right regarding the documentation, it should be updated. Win + Arrow and Win + Ctrl + Alt + Arrow do exact the same thing.

Regarding other problems, a bug report could help us investigate them. You can find it in the menu with right-click on the PowerToys tray button.

image

SeraphimaZykova commented 3 years ago

The docs also say win+ctrl+alt allows the user to quickly switch layouts. This does nothing for me, both with and without the layout editor open.

To use this feature you should first assign keys to custom layouts in the Editor. It doesn't work with templates.

image

Jay-o-Way commented 3 years ago

Did some testing myself now.

  • The scrolling bugs

As I said, I would put this to rest until the updated GUI is released. Also: off-topic for this issue.

  • The one program multiple zones (lack thereof) bug

For multiple zones, you have to use the mouse while dragging and use Ctrl to select multiple (consecutive) zones. Or drag a window on the edge of two zones.

  • The zones being buggy with two monitors

I think that there actually is no bug at all. Because the Spotify window has a minimum width of 800px, it will not fit inside the narrow zones on the sides. Top/left will be aligned accordingly. When moving the window left and right, it does go to zone 1, 2, 3 on every monitor - notice they wrap-around between monitors. Also notice that the edge between zones 1 and 2 is right above the blue (Visual Studio) icon on your task bar, so it does get used.

I would dub #doesnt-apply for this issue.

justingolden21 commented 3 years ago

Thank you both for the answers, clarifications, and information. @Jay-o-Way @SeraphimaZ

I right clciked the system tray icon and clicked "report bug" (thank you for the screenshot by the way, that was very helpful), and it seemed to do nothing. I waited a while and tried a few more times. Then after a few seconds, the application force closed and a zip file appeared on my desktop. Attaching that now. Seems like a bad UX for bug reporting if I may provide some feedback there as well.

PowerToysReport_2021-08-23-15-59-39.zip

You mention that Win + Arrow and Win + Ctrl + Alt + Arrow do the same thing, so then how would I go about changing a window to fill multiple zones? That's what I was trying to do in the first place before all this other stuff lol.

Got it, to assign shortcuts to specific layouts I need to edit the layout shortcut in the layout.

As for dragging multiple zones, do you mean to use ctrl with shift, or after I used shift, or by itself? It doesn't seem to work for me either way. Also, dragging windows in general now is super buggy. Just to move the Notepad application anywhere on my screen takes immense effort and more than five minutes. No idea if this is PowerToys or my mouse, but it was never this bad before.

I need to clarify my bug with the two monitors. In fairness, it's hard to expain. Let me try an ugly MS paint mockup:

image

So basically, the left monitor has zone 3 extending to the right, but the right monitor has zone 1 "correctly" only in the right monitor, same as all other zones 1 and 3.

justingolden21 commented 3 years ago

I've got even more bugs!

For some, and only some apps, it's like the screenshot above, but for some the left monitor zone 1 is twice as big and extends well into zone 2.

Right now I have vs code and discord open. VS code goes either to zone 1, 2, or 3 correclty on monitor 1, but VS code goes into zone 1 + half of 2, or 2 + half of 3, or 3 + all of 1 in the right monitor...

justingolden21 commented 3 years ago

Also, creating a custom layout is very difficult. Clicking to delete takes like ten minutes for me to delete a single zone (I just start over every single time) and there is no undo or redo. There should also be a way to manually enter the dimensions. The UI is very good in theory anyway, I love the design.

justingolden21 commented 3 years ago

I found one more minor bug (sorry for the spam, feel like it's helpful to report this stuff real quick)

When opening power toys from the windows menu, it opens fine, but when I create a desktop shortcut from the windows menu and open it, it opens but it's minimized. I'm assuming this isn't intentional behavior.

Jay-o-Way commented 3 years ago

At first, you're right regarding the documentation, it should be updated. Win + Arrow and Win + Ctrl + Alt + Arrow do exact the same thing.

@SeraphimaZ I don't think so. Win+Arrow moves across zones, Win+Ctrl+Alt+arrows expands windows when Override Windows Snap is set On. Docs a;ready say:

To snap a window to multiple zone using only the keyboard, first check the two options Override Windows Snap hotkeys (Win+Arrow) to move between zones and Move windows based on their position. After snapping a window to one zone, use Win+Ctrl+Alt+[arrows] to expand the window to multiple zones.

SeraphimaZykova commented 3 years ago

At first, you're right regarding the documentation, it should be updated. Win + Arrow and Win + Ctrl + Alt + Arrow do exact the same thing.

@SeraphimaZ I don't think so. Win+Arrow moves across zones, Win+Ctrl+Alt+arrows expands windows when Override Windows Snap is set On. Docs a;ready say:

To snap a window to multiple zone using only the keyboard, first check the two options Override Windows Snap hotkeys (Win+Arrow) to move between zones and Move windows based on their position. After snapping a window to one zone, use Win+Ctrl+Alt+[arrows] to expand the window to multiple zones.

Oh, yes, you're right, sorry for the incorrectness. However, for some users, Win+Ctrl+Alt+arrows could be broken https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/13441

justingolden21 commented 2 years ago

I've noticed sometimes that power toys isn't active, and almost every time I turn on or restart the PC I'll have to open and close power toys for it to work. Just my feedback / UX

Thanks for all the work on this. Awesome stuff.

Jay-o-Way commented 2 years ago

Hi, what's the latest status for this issue? Been a number of releases in the mean time...

boberge75 commented 1 year ago

Cannot make the command Win+Ctrl+Alt+[arrows] to work when I connect to a computer via RDP (Windows Remote Desktop). When I'm working on the same computer directly, this works like a charm. I've tried out all three options in RDP before connecting; Tab = Local Resources, Keyboard and setting for Apply Windows key combinations: as follows:

  1. On this computer None of the key combinations work (using FancyZones in PowerToys)
  2. On the remote computer FancyZones work and its key combinations. Win+Ctrl+Alt+[arrows] does not work.
  3. Only when using the full screen FancyZones work and its key combinations. Win+Ctrl+Alt+[arrows] does not work.