SetMate

Having too many windows opened on your desktop will never make your life easier, but there are times when this is the exact approach that you have to deal with. Even if navigating through windows has become as instinctive as breathing for you, a lack of some basic order on your screen can only lead to frustration.

This is precisely why a window manager could come in very handy, especially one as well-structured as SetMate.

The application will automatically divide your desktop into a grid, which you can access from the main interface. Clicking on a cell in that grid will automatically minimize the active window to the cell’s size and move it into that selected part of the grid. If you click and drag, you can resize the same window to fit more cells.

Remember that you can only do this for the active window and not for any other windows on your desktop. If you wish to manipulate another window, you must make it active by directly clicking on it. If you’ve never used a window manager before, the main interface may seem counter-intuitive, as will the program’s other options.

It would have been useful if SetMate had some tooltips for its many buttons, but you’ll be able to see them all if you just go to the Settings menu. Actually, this is where things get interesting. You can change the color layout of the interface and also resize the grid by adding or removing rows and columns. But by far the most useful option is assigning shortcuts to any of the program’s functions.

Now is a good time to mention that SetMate starts in the system tray and the shortcuts will work even when its interface does not appear on your screen. You’ll be able to minimize, maximize, pin windows or make them transparent with just a few easy key commands. It’s safe to say that, once you understand the app’s interface and get used to the shortcuts that you assign, SetMate becomes a very useful window manager.