Open and tile windows with shell script

Question

I cannot find this answer anywhere. No idea where to start.

How do I open let's say nemo. I know I can set the window size using -geometry. But how do I tile it on a specific monitor/quadrant?

I'm making a shell script that sets up a work space for a given directory.

Answer 1

Found an odd "hacky" way to do it. That is to simulate the keyboard shortcut for tiling on the window (ie super+Left) using xdotool.

# Launch the program (ie nemo)
gtk-launch nemo

# Wait 0.5 seconds for the window to get open
# and then get the window id using xdotool 
sleep 0.5
$WINDOW_ID=`xdotool search --name Home` # "Home" is the title of the nemo window

# Simulate a tiling shortcut (tile left)
xdotool windowactivate $WINDOW_ID
xdotool key super+Left

By all means I hate my own answer. It's very hacky and dirty and not flexable whatso ever. But none the less, does what it needs to.

Answer 2

Have a look at this script: https://github.com/kstenschke/xmchord/blob/master/bin/actions/utils/splitDesk.sh It originally implemented tiling, i extended it to work on My setup of three Monitors.