Utility: WinSplit Revolution
So I was at work today with my 24″ LCD thinking, “Man, I wish I had a convenient way to organize/resize my windows such that I could see several at once beyond a generic ‘Tile Windows’ configuration.” So I remembered a little utility that kinda did this with a laptop I bought a couple years back by Acer called “Vista Grid”. But that didn’t quite tickle my fancy so I looked for some better alternatives.
The search led me to WinSplit Revolution (WSR). Yeah, it’s kind of a cheap-sounding name (kinda like www.superantispyware.com, which, by the way, is one of the better free anti-spyware apps out there!), but I really like it, plus it’s totally free!
So here were several requirements which I had for this type of utility:
- It must run on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7
- It must allow me to configure the various “click-to” zones for windows (so I could, for instance, have one window take up 80% of the screen and 2 other windows share the remaining 20%, or something like that)
- It must run nicely on multiple monitors (something that several utilities failed to do)
- It must be free (mostly because there are free options that will be good enough)
How did most of these work?
Well, most of them worked by either doing a special thing with the mouse (such as moving it over a “click-to zone” and hovering in the same place for 5 seconds), or a keyboard shortcut placing the window in focus, or a combination of both. Some of them had special features that allowed you to “auto-tile” all active windows in a grid fashion (not just side-by-side). Some of them had special features similar to Windows 7 with some non-configurable zones. And some of them had some other not-so-important features.
Why did I choose WinSplit Revolution?
WSR wasn’t the flashiest app. It wasn’t even the easiest-to-use app. But it was the best mix of all of the above. This app requires you to type in the locations and sizes for each zone rather than giving you a GUI to configure it with (both good and bad – more flexible but requires actual thought to get it right!). This app misses some of the flashy features that I mentioned above. BUT… This app worked best with a combination of multiple monitors, flexible configuration (even with overlapping zones), and was small and speedy. That was mostly what I was looking for.
So my configuration, for instance, consists of a laptop with a 24″ LCD attached to it above the laptop (this is my “Communication Box” while working). I use it mostly for email, twitter, IM, and feed-reading window. As such, I like to keep Thunderbird in the top screen taking up 2/3 of the screen left-to-right and 100% top-to-bottom. Then the right-most third is shared between a couple Twhirl clients. But sometimes I’ll overlay Thunderbird with other windows when I need to see additional things (PDFs, Word docs, browser windows, etc.). Then on the laptop’s LCD, I mostly just maximize things so it’s not important.
Another configuration I have is a desktop that has a 24″ LCD rotated 90 degrees to the left of a 23″ LCD that’s normal. In this setup, I typically have a couple browser windows open in the rotated LCD, one on top of the other and sometimes maximized. In the main window I’ll often have Visual Studio maximized, two Visual Studios side-by-side, or sometimes a primary Visual Studio on the left half and two Visual Studios sharing the right half (if I need more than 3 instances of Visual Studio, then they move to the left screen, which HAS happened before!).
Anyways, I think you get the point. This utility allows me to make MUCH better use of my high-resolution LCDs whether they’re 19×12 (my 24″ ones) or 20×11 (my 23″ one – yeah, wierd resolution). In the end, it gets two thumbs up! And yes, I realize I posted no screen shots. That’s mostly because there isn’t much to take screenshots of! The most interesting things are textboxes where I type in percentages! If you wanna see, just download and install for yourself. 
-Jax