[FancyZones] Auto resizing of windows placed side-by-side

[joergbattermann]

Summary of the new feature/enhancement

Windows (10?) comes with a neat feature to allow windows arranged side-by-side to logically snap together so whenever I resize one of them, the other ones resizes accordingly. This is a built-in feature that can be enabled and disabled in the Multitasking settings of Windows 10 (see screenshot below) and it would be quite nice if Powertools' FancyZones supports / respects this setting and enables the same underlying 'snapping' if windows when / where applicable to windows placed side by sides into zones.

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

n.a.

Screenshot of corresponding Windows 10 Settings:

[prenetic]

Since the #1193 was closed referring this one, does #254 cover 3+ borders per the example provided in #1193 (below)? By description I'm uncertain if this covers resizing more than two borders simultaneously.

https://www.nurgo-software.com/images/AquaSnap/GroupSize.gif

[BinaryLoopCode]

Still waiting for some progress on this request. This feature has the potential to dramatically improve my experience in Windows across everything I do.

The text of this issue is a bit more vague than all the really explicit issues that have been merged into this one, but I also hope/expect that with this issue/request, resizing windows on the fly will also temporarily resize the that zone as well. This means if I resize a window (& zone) on the fly (without entering the zone layout editor) and drag another window into that zone to replace the one I resized, it should take the same space as the resized window since the zone was also resized.

The zone should stay at this new size without updating the preset. The user could then either save this setup as a new preset or simply switch to a different preset to discard the on-the-fly zone changes.

Having to enter the Zone editor mode to resize a window is convoluted process and discourages quick on the fly zone size changes to match your current windowing requirement.

It's also difficult to manage multiple similar presets with slightly different window sizes since there is no way to organise them. On the fly zone changes is essential !!!

[isc30]

Is anyone implementing this ATM? It is super important for me since I use a single 43" 4k monitor where I have a massive zone grid.

If noone is working on it, I'm more than happy to help.

I would implement it the following way:

• a window is snapped to a zone
• one side of that window gets resized
• fancyzones should update the current zone in memory to match the new size
• after altering the size, it applies the new sizes to every affected window

It would be possible to reset the zone layout by pressing esc while dragging a window

[NuraliMedeu]

@crutkas, @enricogior, can you please add the ability to simultaneously resize multiple adjacent windows to the PowerToys roadmap? It would be amazing to have this feature in PowerToys FancyZones, because Windows Snap on Windows 10 only supports resizing two horizontally adjacent windows, and the only program that supports resizing any number of windows in any layout is AquaSnap Professional, which is closed-source and pricey. (Thanks to @prenetic for introducing AquaSnap.)

My suggestion is very similar to @BinaryLoopCode's; however, I don't like their idea of asking the user to save new layouts, because that would distract the user from their workflow and clutter up the layouts menu.

Hence, I suggest for all Grid zone layouts to have this feature as a toggle in their layout editors that is enabled by default. There must also be a toggle in a Grid layout's editor to remember the latest zone sizes or to reset them to the sizes defined in the original layout every time all windows are closed. The default should be to remember, to avoid a user's frustration from the repeated readjusting of zones to previous sizes.

Since this feature doesn't make sense for Canvas zone layouts, it must be absent from their layout editors altogether.

Unrelated sidenote: Besides the inability to resize vertically adjacent windows, mentioned in #1193 and in this comment, another reason why some prefer PT FancyZones to the built-in Windows Snap on Windows 10 is that on the latter, some applications' (e.g. Chromium-based browsers) title bars annoyingly go above the screen boundaries after the first press of Win+Arrow, whereas on FancyZones, even those apps' title bars rarely go beyond a zone's boundaries after the same input.

[AngelouDi]

Is anybody working on this?

[crutkas]

This is not currently tracked work

[AltfunsMA]

This is the main feature I am missing from FancyZones. The ability to do an adhoc resizing of side-by-side windows in Windows Snap style would be great, without all the other requirements that have been mentioned affecting the underlying layout, etc. @crutkas, are there any plans to make this work?

[abhiraomallya]

This is an essential feature for me. Very disappointed to not see it get developed yet, but thank you nonetheless for the FancyZones functionality.

[elucidsoft]

+1 this is much needed for FancyZones!!

[joshebosh]

+1, be nice to have this, i came looking for the possibility too I dont necessarily need the zones to resize, just the side by side windows that are snapped together like default Win11 does...

[DominoPivot]

The fact FancyZones conflicts with the Windows 10 native snapping is why I often end up not using it. I do web development, so I resize my browser horizontally all the time while coding.

[magnusfar]

I tried moving from Windows Snap to FancyZones, because FancyZones feels snappier. However, this is too much of an essential feature to leave out. Sad to see it's been over 3 years since people started issuing it.

[aaronedev]

+1 i really need this feature as well

[iggut]

+1 Ideally adding some parts of windows native snapping/resizing -Snap Assist from native -Resizing multiple windows using a native-like bar at the joint

[aferguson-gbw]

+1 This feature would be awesome to have! Really the only thing that I think is missing from FancyZones! Thanks to the dev team

[EnemyBot3]

+1 please I need this feature and would be happy to work on it

[srikanth003]

Any update on this, its been 5 years since the first request :(

[quietboxcrafter]

I would also love to see this feature. It was kind of surprising to me from a UI perspective that it wasn't already implemented. I would see this as nearly essential, since FancyZones works to replace the built-in Aero Snap features of Windows, but better. The fact that it doesn't integrate a valuable feature from Aero Snap makes it seem like an incomplete solution.

[noonien]

This is a critical feature that's missing from FancyZones. Without it, and without https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/3928, working with layouts is more painful than necessary.

How can I help get the ball rolling?