If you have a high-resolution LCD screen or LED screen at home and are not using any split-screen app, then you are wasting a lot of screen time! The best thing about having a high-resolution screen is that you can see multiple windows at the same time, not just one active program at a time.
Of course, you can always switch between programs using ALT + TAB or simply by clicking a program in the taskbar, but in many cases, you need to be able to see multiple programs at the same time. The latest operating system from Microsoft, Windows 10, not only has built-in support for multiple desktops but has also added some nice features to the Snap feature, which has been included since Windows 7.
In this article, I’m going to write about the new features in Windows 10, as well as a couple of free programs that also allow you to split the screen in different ways. If you are not already familiar, read my previous post on how to use the Snap feature in Windows 7 and Windows 8
New Snap features in Windows 10
First, let’s talk about Windows 10 because it has some really nice new features for working with multiple windows on the same desktop. As you already know, you can simply drag a window to the far left or far right of the screen and Windows will automatically resize that window to fill half of the screen.
The same is true for Windows 10, but there is now a new Snap Assist feature that also shows additional windows on the opposite side as thumbnails and allows you to click on them to fill the other side of the screen. On Windows 7 and 8, you also had to manually insert the second window into place.
As you can see above, when I dragged Excel to the right side of the screen, other open windows were automatically displayed on the left side. Clicking on any of the windows will expand it to fill the entire left side of the screen.
Another new option is the 2×2 grid. If you take a window and drag it to any corner of the screen, the window will fill that specific corner or 1/4 of the screen. You can fill every corner with a desktop app or a universal Windows app. In Windows 10, all apps act like desktop apps, so they can be tied anywhere.
As you can see above, I have two attached applications on the right side and one application on the left side. It’s worth noting that the Windows 10 preview also supported vertical snapping, meaning the app ended up halfway down the screen and ran horizontally, but that seemed to have been removed in the final build.
With new Windows 10 snapping options and Virtual Desktop Manager, most people will never need to download a third-party app to manage their windows.
Free apps
There are also two free apps that you can use to split or split your screen into multiple parts and therefore work more efficiently. I wrote earlier about SplitView, which allows you to split the screen, but it costs $ 39! Why pay when you can get something better for free?
WinSplit Revolution is a very small utility that helps you organize all of your open windows by tiling, resizing, and positioning them so that they efficiently use all of your desktop space.
Using WinSplit Revolution, you can quickly split the screen into two halves, thirds, quarters, etc. You can resize any window and move it to the left half of the screen, top, bottom, corner, etc.
Then, using the virtual numeric keypad or predefined hotkeys, you can quickly bring the window to full-screen mode or switch to another window.
The program is beautifully implemented and has many useful features:
- Automatically handles window resizing, moving, closing, etc. < / li
- Quick access using global hotkeys and virtual numeric keypad
- Auto start and update
- Drag and drop windows to different sections
- Merge two windows (separates the two programs vertically and allows you to use the middle bar to adjust the size)
- Mosaic mode – the screen is divided into nine equal parts and one window is placed in each part. If you have less than nine windows open, the mosaic will be resized to make the windows larger.
GridVista is a second program that allows you to split or split your Windows desktop screen into multiple parts. I first mentioned WinSplit because it seems to have more features than GridVista
You can use it again to split the screen into halves, thirds, etc. Just like WinSplit, but it doesn’t have a virtual keyboard. Just drag the window to any of the sections and it will expand to the full size of that section.
Then you can expand any of the sections to full screen by clicking the mouse or pressing the hotkey. So if you have a large monitor over 20 inches, you should definitely try any of these programs.
Overall, both programs work well on Windows XP, Vista, and 7, so you can play with both and see which one works best for you. The only downside to these free apps is that they are old and no longer being developed. For example, Mexico actually replaced WinSplit, but I don’t think it’s worth it. Free apps work but are not as useful on newer operating systems like Windows 8 and 10. Enjoy!
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