The window tabbing feature allows you to tab windows together, the options to change between windows in the same group can be done by tabs marked outside the window or embedded in the title bar, a menu in the window title bar, or a shortcut.

The windows can be grouped and will be resized to fit in the group. It will also be possible to add effects for actions like changing between tabs in the same group, when the mouse passes over a tab it can display the thumbnail.

This feature would eliminate the need to implement this feature for single applications which will save a lot of work others that want to add tabs to their applications and also it will be a nice feature to have in kwin as some other window managers already have this feature included like Fluxbox, Ion, wmii.

There is a bug report to request this feature, it has more than 1500 votes.

This is an image example from fluxbox website of the window tabbing.

This is a video from youtube showing the window tabbs on fluxbox on the left, and on the right is a beryl plugin which show how the windows can be grouped and change between them with some nice effects.

Jorge Emilio Mata de la Vega

matamax123@gmail.com

mata

San Jose Iturbide, Guanajuato, Mexico.
Gmt -6

Window tabbing

The goal of the project is to have a feature that allows windows from different applications to be grouped, this feature is like what web browsers or other applications do. This feature is already included in other window managers like fluxbox.

This feature will allow:

• Group windows together.
• Having the decoration manage the groups.
• The decoration will display the grouped windows in some way to allow the movement between windows of the same group, like tabs.
• All windows in the group will be resized to the same size.
• Desktop effects when changing betwwen tabs.

How it will work:

• Each window is contained in a group, the group can have one or more windows.
• A window can be added to a group, a group can be added to another group, a window can be removed from a group.
• Each group will know the order of the windows, which window comes first, only the window at the top will be displayed.
• The order of the windows can be changed as the user desires.
• The windows in the group can be showed in tabs at the title bar, or around the window with tabs, this will require to work with the decoration.
• Keyboard shortcuts or the mouse can be used to manage a group, this shortcuts need not to interfere with other other shortcuts or effects.
• Additional effects can be added to improve how the windows are added, removed or tabbed.
• There can be poblems for example when a window change its size to fullscreen, I think that if the group contains more than one window (the current window) it will have to be removed from the group, also when a window is shown in all the virtual desktops special work will have to be done as not all the windows in the group will be shown in all desktops.
• When a window is resized, moved, or it change from virtual desktop all the windows in the group will be affected.

1. Determine decoration API.
2. Write a simple decoration that displays tabs for testing.
3. Group handling in core and sending the correct signals to the decoration.
4. • Until here the basic grouping functions will be working and the simple decoration will help me testing it.
5. Add shortcut actions to allow users to group windows.
6. Make sure all windows in a tabbing group have the same geometry.
7. • In the last two points the shortcuts and the the grouping problems will be resolved.
8. Determine effect API.
9. Fix effect conflicts.
10. Add tabbing support to the Oxygen decoration.
11. • The last three points will add the final decorations, how the tabbs will be showed with Oxygen decoration and the effect conflicts will be resolved.

Optional:

1. Write some new effects to prettify tabbing.
2. Add tabbing support to other decorations.
3. Integration with the Plasma taskbar.

• From now to May 22 to study KWin's code.
• From May 23 to June 5 to determine decoration API, write a simple decoration that displays tabs for testing, group handling.
• From June 6 to June 26 to add shortcut actions to allow users to group windows, make sure all windows in a tabbing group have the same geometry.
• From June 27 to July 17 to determine effect API, fix effect conflicts, add tabbing support to the Oxygen decoration.
• From July 18 to July 31 for writing some new effects to prettify tabbing, adding tabbing support to other decorations, integration with the Plasma taskbar.
• From August 1 to August 17 for testing and fixing bugs.

In may 29 it's the official date of end of course at my school, and on aougust 17 is the next course start. I have no other obligations between the program date.

I'm twenty years old, I'm on my third year at school, my major is computer systems engeneering.

I have good experience programming in C++, and a year ago I started with Qt 4. I have participated in some programming contest from the ACM-ICPC at local and regional stages.

I have a small website at http://www.jmata.co.cc with some small applications I did in the past with Java and C++.