3

I have a dual-display setup, and I have many open windows on each of my displays. When I disconnect the display and reconnect it, all the windows are positioned on my native display in an unordered fashion.

To avoid having to continually redistribute my open windows among my two displays after disconnecting the external one, I'd like to have two "profiles," one for when the display isn't connected and one for when it is, such that all windows have a state associated to one profile and they are automatically changed back to that state when that profile becomes active.

Does anyone know of an app that can do this?

Note: I'm looking for an alternative to Stay; it didn't work properly for me.

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

I do use Stay and am happy with it :)

But I also use another app that I really like called Slate ( https://github.com/jigish/slate ). Slate is open source (and free), and does allow to define things like Stay (profiles: layouts of windows - which I think will fit your needs), but also allow move windows with keys combinations, and many other interesting things...

I also have dual display setups and managed to get things working fine with Stay. I have 3 setups two in dual display and one without external display and it works just fine, restoring the windows to their positions when I connect a particular profile (I previously configured... I had to create some simple rules). I use Slate for moving windows around with the keyboard... I think it is a good combination :p

Cheers!

Improve this answer
4
  • Thank you so much for pointing out Slate; it looks totally badass. I'm fiddling around with the config file right now.
    – Will
    Nov 7, 2012 at 23:44
  • Also, I reinstalled Stay and it seems to be working!
    – Will
    Nov 7, 2012 at 23:44
  • Great! I do think Stay is nice (mainly because the automatic setting of profiles)... But Slate is indeed a very nice App, mainly because you can easily move windows around with the keyboard, I love it.
    – emgsilva
    Nov 8, 2012 at 7:52
  • Hmm... seems I spoke too soon. I rediscovered the old issue I was having and pinpointed what it is: Stay has trouble restoring Chrome windows properly :( The developer is aware of this, and hopefully he'll fix it soon.
    – Will
    Nov 8, 2012 at 19:10
1

Try Moom. It does all sorts of window-organizing tasks, but for your specific needs, you can save a specific set up of windows, and have it automatically restore to that arrangement based on your display configuration.

Improve this answer
1
  • Very nice app! Thanks for pointing that out. Unfortunately it doesn't save window states across all desktops; it only saves window states on the currently active desktop. Also, it costs $10 :(
    – Will
    Nov 7, 2012 at 23:45

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .