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DK Bose
Asked: 2020-01-01 06:11:58 +0800 CST

Why does Ubuntu not allow keyboard shortcuts for snapping windows horizontally?

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In 19.10, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Mate and Xubuntu all have the ability to make a window occupy the upper half or the lower half of the screen using Meta+Up and Meta+Down respectively. But Ubuntu 19.10, out of the box, doesn't: instead, Meta+Up and Meta+Down maximize and restore windows.

Why is that?

shortcut-keys window-manager window-placement 19.10

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    One possible reason is mentioned in Analyzing GNOME keyboard shortcuts which is one in a series "to analyze keyboard shortcuts in most major DEs". Quoting from there:

    Meta+arrow does not match a full set of tiling like Plasma (in which Meta+Up/Down tiles up and down), that is, it does not match semantically, because GNOME acknowledges that tiling up and down is a waste of vertical space; instead, the more commonly-used maximize+restore is default.

    The next paragraph in the article provides further argumentation citing linguistics and "how Up for maximize and Down for restore feel intuitive".

    I briefly search for any official GNOME documentation justifying the use of Meta+Up and Meta+Down to maximize and restore windows respectively but couldn't find any. This classifies these shortcuts as "System reserved shortcuts" but doesn't provide any reasoning.

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