Who Says Penguins Can't Fly?

Work with Userbase is progressing nicely. I wrote some suggestions based on user feedback and my own opinions, and a few days ago there was a small discussion about the future of Userbase on IRC.

However, this post isn’t about Userbase – I hope I’ll find some time to summarize the plans for the wiki here in a few days. Today I want to share another tip that I’ve found and need to remember to add to Userbase: Borderless Maximized Windows.

This option is very useful for devices with small screens, such as netbooks, to give slightly more space to your applications. If enabled, the window border will hide automatically when you maximize a window (and vice versa when unmaximized).

If I remember correctly, this feature was introduced in KDE Software Compilation 4.5 for the Plasma Netbook workspace, where it’s enabled by default. Here’s a short screencast demonstration (what, not an animated GIF!?):

Note that I used double click to maximize the windows. This is configurable in System Settings → Window Behavior → Window Behavior → Titlebar Actions.

Previously I used some window-specific settings to get a similar setup, but it only did it according to some pre-defined rules –  the borders weren’t automatically hidden/shown when a window was maximized/restored.

So how do I enable this in Plasma Desktop?

1. Use you favorite text editor to edit the file
   

   ~/.kde4/share/config/kwinrc

   In some distributions the .kde4 directory is called .kde (or something else like .kdemod4)

2. Add the line
   

   BorderlessMaximizedWindows=true

   under the section [Windows]
   It should look something like this:

   [Windows]
ActiveMouseScreen=true
AltTabStyle=KDE
AutoRaise=false
AutoRaiseInterval=750
BorderSnapZone=10
BorderlessMaximizedWindows=true
CenterSnapZone=0

3. Launch KRunner (Alt+F2) and run the command
   

   kwin --replace

   to restart KWin

4. Go crazy and maximize every window in sight! Remember that you can unmaximize them from the window menu (Alt+F3) or from the task manager in your panel. If quick tiling is enabled (System Settings → Desktop → Screen Edges → Window Management), you can also use Alt+Left mouse button to unmaximize windows by dragging them

Credits this time go to Christian who wrote about this feature in a comment in this blog post. The post also links to a neat widget that’s useful for a setup with borderless windows.