Does your DE not allow having 2 windows open at once? Why must the browser include this functionality?
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2025
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It should go without saying that doing this within an app is completely different than at a system level, but since apparently it doesn't: the two things are actually different.
App switching is different.
The resulting user interface is different.
Tab management, like somebody else noted, is different.
I understand that my DE showing two windows side by side is different than my browser showing two windows side by side with one header bar.
I don't understand the workflow that benefits from that difference.
Not everything is for you.
But to answer your question, it’s nice to keep things grouped up by window, especially with a tiling DE, but to still be able to split/tile that workspace within the window and have the system treat it as one entity.
One project or subject per window. I use an extension called Winger in Firefox which essentially allows me to manage windows as tab groups; but it is also sometimes nice to use some kind of tab grouping (and now some split views) on top of that to help organize things within the context of that window.
I used to just be a “one windows with 600 open tabs, GLHF” kinda guy, but that is just a miserable way to live. Like i said, maybe all this stuff isn’t for everyone but when you need it, it’s nice to have - and for some things I appreciate a native implementation that we can extend with extensions instead of relying on every extension author to get right from the ground up.
You're a dumbass if your reply starts with "not everything is for you".
Say you're redoing an image in photopea, you can have a split tab with that image and photopea, so the image you're replicating is only there while you're trying to recreate it, and not visible when you're on any other tab.
I've have 2 windows open for years, I am also confused at what this is meant to solve. Streaming service on one side, articles on the other side, keeps all the tabs tidy.
It's like that, but one window, which is less setup and stays snapped together if you move it to another monitor
I guess if they introduced it to mobile I might see a use case for it.
It'll be handy on Mac where you can easily do split desktop, but can't easily undo it, so it's hardly used.
I mean, that just makes me not want to use Mac, I don't really need every program I use picking up the slack in their own unique way.
I'd prefer it fixed at source too, but I do think there's a case for making it easy to, say fill in a form in one tab side by side with a reference tab if it's a 2 click sort of solution (even windows needs annoying drag and dropping with some randomness thrown in)
I'm forced to use that shit at work.
For window management "Rectangle" helps.
For a better tabbing behaviour I use "AltTab".
For setting the volume of a sound device over HDMI I can recommend "MonitorControl".
Then edit the keymap to be less stupid with Ukelele, use ForkLift instead of Finder, qView instead of Preview for photos, and of course Firefox instead of Safari, and things start getting tolerable.
I'm unfortunately a slave to the three finger swipe (I think if that worked as well on Linux I would swap, tried a few third party things on Mint but it's not as good)
What's forklift bring to the table?
Mainly it doesn't delete network locations from my favourites if they happen to be unreachable. 😅
It was hell, I started a new job with a confusing filing system used by the team, where hundreds of locations feel like they are important, and the damn Finder on the damn macOS kept deleting the favourites. First I worked around it with local symlinks and favouriting those, but it was just way less handy.
I also liked being able to rebind "Move to Trash" to the delete key, and "Delete" to shift+delete.
But I think most people like ForkLift for the dual pane view.
So you mean dragging a window to the side until it conforms to half the screen? And then doing the same with a second window? Why is that difficult to undo? Just drag the windows again, right?
On Mac I have everything maximised, so I have to drag the thumbnail on top of another thumbnail, which then splits them unevenly, so I have to fix that, then to undo it you have to understand maximize one half (and to get back to where you started at least) re maximize and drag it back I to it's position. Plus there are the steps to take an existing tab and make it its own window in the first place.
Compared to like right clicking a tab and "show on the side" or however it will work..
Oh, you use the strange fullscreen mode. That’s beyond maximizing. And it’s not popular, for good reason.
You are intentionally making window management more difficult on yourself by treating it like an old school iPad. But that clarifies why you consider it difficult.
Just for clarity, maximizing a window is scaling it as big as it goes. Putting a window or app into fullscreen mode is different. If the menu bar is hidden, you are not maximizing.
Once I used the three finger swipe I couldnt go back. Being able to just quickly peek at another full screen app was very useful, now it's just muscle memory (and I hate the wasted screen space on the "large but not maximum" windows)
That makes sense. Especially on laptops.
It makes less sense on a 24, 27 or 30 inch monitor.
I have a quad monitor setup, 4x 42" 4k monitors.
I also use AltSnap and FancyZone
This functionality was already available with addon Tiletabs WE
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tile-tabs-we/
But even with all this, there is no way to snap multiple views together reliably.
And actual split window, in the specific cases that it's needed, is useful.
It's just not a thing a regular old normie would need.
Oh this is nice. I use split tabs with Zen a lot, so it'll be nice to see it show up in FF and the other forks eventually as well.
Sometimes it's just nice to have it all in one browser rather than 2 instances. It's not a big deal either way but it's a nice QoL for specific use cases.
[raises eyebrow from tiling window manager]