Plumb

There are types of projects which can’t be handled in a single window, so you might use multiple tools to perform them. Since each comes in its own window, the desktop easily becomes a crowded space, especially if you use a single monitor. On the bright side of things, applications like Plumb want to help with their arrangement on screen.

Among the last steps of the installer, there’s an option which brings up the application automatically when setup is over. It usually stays minimized to the tray area, but the configuration window does show up on the desktop so you can get acquainted with the general behavior options, and manage them if needed.

The application comes with several modes, which don’t really require much effort on your behalf. Unfortunately, you don’t find any configurable hotkey commands to send a window to a specific slot, or view a grid of available spots on the desktop for easier management, and arrangement is somewhat automated.

With the autotiling option enabled, the application decides how it’s best to handle active windows, and, in case they’re not maximized, different slots are created on the desktop, while active windows are positioned accordingly, either through horizontal or vertical splits. This, however, might cause a bit of frustration, since positioning is done as soon as you drop a window anywhere on the desktop.

You can choose to manually configure the maximum number of available slots, and even remember window positioning of particular windows. To make this a bit more comfortable, the application allows you to set up items to include or to exclude from automatic positioning.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that Plumb comes with good intentions, but it provides way to little control over window positioning, even though the core feature is to have arrangement automatically performed.