Asking this question I'm having Gnome 4 on Fedora 35 on my mind and it would be nice to have a solution for Gnome but I'm not emotionally attached to it - but first things first, here is the question:
I like to work on large/wide monitors with 2-3 applications which I use together in a given context visible simultaneously. Unfortunately there is LOTS of space wasted this way by screen elements which I don't need all the time (and which are also distracting):
- Gnome top bar
- application title bar
- application menu bar
- in browsers: tab-bar, address bar, bookmark bar
- very often: status bar
And if you're not in the mood to precisely arrange your windows you might also loose space between the windows.
A typical desktop looks like this then:
There are lots of approaches - plugins for browsers, configuring your window manager, using plugins like gTile, configuring your applications, etc.
Nevertheless most applications can be set in fullscreen mode resulting in two things: the application uses the full screen (as the name suggests) and it enters some "zen mode"ish setup: the window manager doesn't show title and menu bars any more and the application might show less stuff like status bars, tool bars, etc.
Fullscreen mode for the browser turns into something like this then:
The problem of this mode is of course that while using most of your screen you can only show one application.
Having two monitors you can have two applications without wasting space on your screen but you have two monitors wasting space on your desk now which you can't use as one monitor if you need it.
And now I'm wondering: isn't it possible for any given window manager to display multiple applications side by side in this fullscreenish mode described above? I.E. I don't want to reconfigure my window manager and all apps I use for this special mode but I want to tell all visible applications to run in fullscreen mode while only using a part of the physical screen.
Like this:
Is this possible? With Gnome4? i3? KDE? Xmonad?
Note: while there might be tiling window managers addressing this need, I'm not asking for just a tiling window manager here: those (at least usually) don't tell applications to run in a special mode using the available space for the important content area only.
I've asked a similar question a while ago, which resulted in gTile (which I use, but it only configures the window dimensions) next to similar Gnome extensions and fakexrandr, which honestly I haven't tried yet but I guess it permanently partitions your screen without the possibility to seamlessly toggle between split- and single-screen mode.
Here is a similar question, with someone recommending i3 but without going into detail.
How do you do it?