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This extension is for power users who constantly find themselves moving around windows and tabs to maximize usable screen area. The goal is efficiency and reducing RSI.

Why I built Alum

First, I often have multiple tasks going on at a time (email, code search, documentation), only one of which is primary, but I want to glance at my secondary tasks in smaller windows off to the side. Rotation lets me quickly move my secondary tasks into a larger window to focus, when needed, without moving my hands or windows. If you use a tiling window manager you may give all of your windows the same size and level of attention (especially on some ridiculous 30" monitor) or have easier ways to get snap-to window behavior. The use of rotation is keeping focus on one, larger part of the screen.

Second, when I'm dealing with production issues I find myself rapidly switching between a variety of consoles, logs, dashboards, etc. I spawn 5-10 new tabs (following links) within a few seconds, and then I'm overwhelmed trying to remember what's for what. The tab movement/classification part of Alum lets me quickly assign an order to these tabs, so say, cron job info can go in position 2, server info in position 3, application graphs in position 4. And then I can keep looking at high-level dashboards in position 1. When I'm ready to refocus, all I need to do is rotate the smaller positions into the bigger window.

Features

• Open non-overlapping windows to take up full screen area
• Rotate tabs between windows under Alum's control
• Focus stays on primary content window-- never touch your mouse!
• Move tabs between Alum windows for quick webpage classificiation
• Hot-keys for all actions

Known issues

• No support for multiple monitors
• A few screen pixels unaccounted for on Mac OS X

Changelog

• 2010-03-21: Release 0.1.3: Allow open windows when only one slot is left
• 2010-03-21: Release 0.1.2: Fixes shortcuts on some sites; small open windows behavior tweak
• 2010-03-20: First release, 0.1.1

Thanks to the Ion window manager for inspiration!

Please leave feedback in the comments!