📖Multitasking

Feel like Gaius Julius Caesar

Performing several tasks simultaneously is not something extraordinary nowadays, it's often a necessity or a desire to combine work and pleasure. A familiar situation to everyone: tasks such as listening to the music or downloading files from the Internet are performed in the background while you are coding or completing wide spreadsheets in the foreground.

With elementary OS, feel free to manage both windows and workspaces for multitasking.

App Windows

You can move your app windows around your desktop, overlap on each other, and switch between them. Switching can be done by either of the following ways:

• Click or tap the window you want to switch to

• Click or tap the app icon in the Dock

• Press Alt+Tab to cycle through open windows

Do not forget about secondary-click on the window header bar to apply more actions to app windows.

Tiling

The option of tiling windows is not really developed in elementary OS. All you can do is dragging two windows tight to the left and to the right edge of your desktop respectively, so they would share the screen equally.

Workspaces

By default, app windows open on your current workspace. However, you can use multiple workspaces to organize your workflow and then navigate through them:

Switching between Workspaces

Navigation

To move left or right through your workspaces:

• Press ⌘+<-- and ⌘+--> on the keyboard, or

• Swipe with three fingers on a touchpad or touch screen.

To jump straight to a certain workspace, press ⌘+1 through ⌘+9.

To jump to a new workspace, press ⌘+0.

To move windows between workspaces:

• Drag them in the Multitasking View, or

• Press ⌘+Alt+<-- or --> respectively.

You can customize these shortcuts in the System Settings (Keyboard --> Shortcuts --> Workspaces).

App windows can be automatically moved onto a new workspace when entering fullscreen or getting maximized. This behavior can be changed in the System Settings (Desktop --> Multitasking).

You can move between workspaces as usual, and closing or un-fullscreening the app will return you to the previous workspace.

Multitasking View

Multitasking View

The Multitasking View shows all open windows and workspaces so you can switch between them. To switch to the multitasking view, do any of the following:

• Select the Multitasking View icon in the Dock (added there by default).
• Press ⌘+↓ on the keyboard.

• Swipe up with three fingers on a touchpad or touch screen.

You can use Hot Corners to activate multitasking actions like the window overview, workspace overview, and more.

Customize hot corners in the System Settings (Desktop → Multitasking).

Multiple Displays

The Panel, Dock, and workspaces appear on your primary display. Any other attached displays act as standalone workspaces.

To manage and rearrange displays, navigate to the System Settings (Displays). Your primary display is marked with a filled-in star (🟊) in the top-left. The settings of each display can be changed from its menu in the top-right.