Split Screen in Linux Mint (MATE)

If you search for how to split screen in a Linux Mint/Ubuntu you will find very fast that this can be done by using the different combinations of the ⊞ Win + , , , key buttons.

But if you are a lucky owner of the MATE edition of the Linux Mint, you will notice that these split-screen keyboard shortcuts don’t work out of the box.

This is because for some reason the split-screen keyboard shortcuts in the MATE edition of the Linux Mint are disabled by default.

This note shows how to split screen in the MATE edition of the Linux Mint.

Cool Tip: “Show Desktop” shortcut ⊞ Win + D in Linux Mint (MATE)! Read more →

Split Screen in Linux Mint with MATE

Search for the “Keyboard Shortcuts” application in the Linux Mint’s “Applications” → “Preferences” menu or simply lunch it by executing this command from the terminal:

$ mate-keybinding-properties

In the “Keyboard Shortcuts”, scroll down to the “Window Management” header and search for the shortcuts that start from “Tile window to…” and are “Disabled” by default.

Assign the split-screen keyboard shortcut according to you preferences, for example:

Keyboard Shortcut Split Screen
⊞ Win + or Tile window to east (right) or west (left) side of screen
⊞ Win + ↖︎ Tile window to north-west (top left) corner
⊞ Win + ↗︎ Tile window to north-east (top right) corner
⊞ Win + ↙︎ Tile window to south-west (bottom left) corner
⊞ Win + ↘︎ Tile window to south-east (bottom left) corner
⊞ Win + Toggle maximization state

Note that the ⊞ Win key button in this application is names as “Mod4”:

And also it is worth mentioning that in MATE i didn’t find a way to snap a window to a corner (one-fourth) of the screen with the ⊞ Win + or followed by or shortcuts (that works for Windows), so i’ve decided to use the “NumPad” keys for this, for example the top left corner ↖︎ is ⊞ Win + 7, the top right corner ↗︎ is ⊞ Win + 9 and so on.

Cool Tip: How to fix the not working Ctrl + Shift + <Key> hotkeys in Ubuntu or Linux Mint! Read more →

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