Make scrolling layout work on multi-monitor setups

[inayayousfi]

I'm trying to fix that problem because of how dumb it is but from what I seen in the codebase and the way windows handle the API this needs "hacks"

To fix this issue, I am trying to instead of just moving horizontally the windows by literally scrolling, we hide windows that shouldn't be visible in invisible virtual space.

Closes #1643

[LGUG2Z]

Thanks for trying to tackle this ongoing issue!

I have just been running with this briefly and on a single monitor, the thing I notice is that when I focus to the left, and a window is supposed to be revealed, that window animates in from the right side of the screen which is quite jarring (however, if I do the same thing focusing to the right to reveal a window, this works as expected)

[inayayousfi]

Yes sorry I forgot to do that. I don't have an animation right now in my set up and it's getting pretty late for me right now. If you mind testing it, it would be cool but I can do it tomorrow if you don't have the time and thank you for the review.

Oh and also I have multi-monitor on my daily driver so I'll use it tomorrow to test if it all works properly

[inayayousfi]

Also now that I think about it this virtual space approach gives us the ability to give like Niri a way to like visualize all of them and how they are disposed on the scrolling list and even enable vertical scrolling.

And one thing I need to test too is how it adapts to plugging in and unplugging monitors

[inayayousfi]

Okay, if the push from master didn't break anything, I fixed all the bugs and tested it as much as I could and I think it's now ready for review.

[amnweb]

@ZiedYousfi There are some bugs where the window moves from the last monitor to the first one. I slowed down the animation to show you exactly what the problem is

2026-03-24.02-55-20.mp4

[inayayousfi]

@amnweb Just to be sure the problem is when it goes from right to left ? If so what what action did you do (with whkd or ahk) ?

[amnweb]

@amnweb Just to be sure the problem is when it goes from right to left ? If so what what action did you do (with whkd or ahk) ?

komorebic move left, komorebic move right

[inayayousfi]

@amnweb I might look dumb, but I don't understand what is the specific problem you're talking about.

[amnweb]

@amnweb I might look dumb, but I don't understand what is the specific problem you're talking about.

A window is flying over all my screens when scrolling. I moving window on one screen and it comes from another one :p

[inayayousfi]

Okay, thank you a lot for your patience with me. This is honestly the best I could do because of how we go around the problem of scrolling going into the other monitor. The limit is still here so I've added the same kind of work around and from my testing it works now as expected.

[initiateit]

What is the method to navigate between parked and visible windows? ie focus-window or move-window?

[inayayousfi]

What is the method to navigate between parked and visible windows? ie focus-window or move-window?

It's focus window. Technically it's all the same thing as the scrolling layout on one screen.

[CtByte]

I finally had time to test it out and I think it works better with animations than my approach.
It makes my PR obsolete so I will close it :)

[initiateit]

What is the method to navigate between parked and visible windows? ie focus-window or move-window?

It's focus window. Technically it's all the same thing as the scrolling layout on one screen.

Can you show me what komorebi.json you are using?

I get bleeding of windows into adjacent monitor when you resize them and insert windows after.

[inayayousfi]

{
  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi/master/schema.json",
  
  "app_specific_configuration_path": "$Env:KOMOREBI_CONFIG_HOME/applications.json",
  
  "window_hiding_behaviour": "Cloak",
  "cross_monitor_move_behaviour": "Insert",
  "cross_boundary_behaviour": "Monitor",

  "mouse_follows_focus": false,

  "default_workspace_padding": 0,
  "default_container_padding": 4,

  "border": true,
  "border_width": 4,
  "border_style": "System",
  "border_colours": {
    "single": "#ff4ead",
    "stack": "#ff85c8",
    "monocle": "#a78bfa",
    "floating": "#60a5fa",
    "unfocused": "#1a1a1a"
  },

  "monitors": [
    {
      "workspaces": [
        { "name": "1", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "2", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "3", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "4", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "5", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "6", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "7", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "8", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "9", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "10", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } }
      ]
    },
    {
      "workspaces": [
        { "name": "1", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "2", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "3", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "4", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "5", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "6", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "7", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "8", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "9", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "10", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } }
      ]
    },
    {
      "workspaces": [
        { "name": "1", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "2", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "3", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "4", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "5", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "6", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "7", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "8", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "9", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } },
        { "name": "10", "layout": "Scrolling", "layout_options": { "scrolling": { "columns": 2 } } }
      ]
    }
  ],

  "floating_applications": [
    { "kind": "Title", "id": "Picture-in-Picture", "matching_strategy": "Regex" },
    { "kind": "Title", "id": "Helper", "matching_strategy": "Contains" }
  ]
}

[initiateit]

@ZiedYousfi Thanks for that! My observations are as follows:

If you resize any window in the scrolling layout, it ends up breaking by forcing the scrolling layout's overflow into the adjacent monitor. I think the issue is the layout tries to tile all windows and resize to them to fit. Part of the mantra of Niri scrolling is to never resize other windows based on resizing the current window. Here's a video with various scenarios when resizing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfYcP4jz1qI

I have tried (and am still trying) to get a solution, but its very tricky.

It would help if we had a set goal as to what we want? If you take resizing out and rely on monocle mode to pick out the window you want to work on - then nothing really needs to be done.

[inayayousfi]

@initiateit Okay I see the problem thank you so much for finding this out. I've got some ideas to fix it but honestly I think this goes out of the scope of implementation and bugs and more into preference side. So I would very much appreciate if @LGUG2Z could tell what do they want the default to be? What should be supported? And how this whole idea would work (because we go very much out of the tiling idea and the architecture of the codebase is not really gilded towards scrolling which I learned through this PR that it's way different from usual tiling managers) So if they could give me some directions on what they want to do so that I don't have to spend time implementing things that would be thrown away, it would be very much appreciated.

[inayayousfi]

@initiateit Could you test it again please

[initiateit]

@ZiedYousfi I didnt have any luck mate, I can make a video if you like but I think its not worth your time. I have been trying myself and its out of my reach in terms of rust.

I can live with columns and just monocle whenever i need larger focus.

Appreciate your work all the same :)

[inayayousfi]

No I don't want to give up after the time I've given to it lmaoo. Could you give me your config so that I can try it on my computer pls?

[initiateit]

@ZiedYousfi don't say I didnt warn ya buddy!

My standard config:

{
    "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi/master/schema.json",
    "app_specific_configuration_path": "$Env:USERPROFILE/applications.json",
    "window_hiding_behaviour": "Cloak",
    "cross_monitor_move_behaviour": "Insert",
    "mouse_follows_focus": false,
    "default_workspace_padding": 10,
    "default_container_padding": 10,
    "border": true,
    "border_width": 5,
    "border_style": "System",
    "border_offset": -1,
    "border_colours": {
        "single": {
            "r": 54,
            "g": 200,
            "b": 255
        },
        "stack": {
            "r": 94,
            "g": 215,
            "b": 90
        }
    },
    "monitors": [
        {
            "workspaces": [
                {
                    "name": "Monitor 2, Workspace 1",
                    "layout": "Scrolling",
                     "layout_options": {
                        "scrolling": {
                             "columns": 3
          }
                }
                },
                {
                    "name": "Monitor 2, Workspace 2",
                    "layout": "BSP"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Monitor 2, Workspace 3",
                    "layout": "HorizontalStack"
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "workspaces": [
                {
                    "name": "Monitor 1, Workspace 1",
                    "layout": "BSP",
                    "layout_options": {
                    }
                },
                {
                    "name": "Monitor 1, Workspace 2",
                    "layout": "VerticalStack"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Monitor 1, Workspace 3",
                    "layout": "HorizontalStack"
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "display_index_preferences": {
        "0": "2KJDQ43",
        "1": "1CJDQ43"
    }
}

[inayayousfi]

I can't reproduce it...

[initiateit]

@ZiedYousfi if you have time, post a video on how it works for you? It would be a good thing if it is my system and config that is the issue!

[inayayousfi]

2026-04-04_16-26-55.mp4

I speak a lot in the video so if you could look at it with sound I would gladly appreciate it

[utaysi]

Just wanted to add a data point in support of this PR. I'm on v0.1.41 with a dual-monitor setup and set the Scrolling layout via the static config, which bypasses the single-monitor guard in change-layout. The result is that scrolled-out columns on my left monitor get positioned past its right edge and render on top of the other display.

Relevant config

Monitors: two 1920x1080 side by side — main at (0,0), secondary to its right at (1920,0).

"layout_defaults": {
  "Scrolling": {
    "layout_options": {
      "scrolling": { "columns": 2 }
    }
  }
},
"monitors": [
  { "workspaces": [{ "name": "I", "layout": "Scrolling" }] },
  { "workspaces": [{ "name": "I", "layout": "Scrolling" }] }
]

With 3+ windows on the main (left) monitor, the third column is placed at x ≈ 1967, i.e. on the secondary display, instead of being hidden.

The scrolling layout is fantastic otherwise, proper multi-monitor support would make it my daily driver. Happy to test builds of this branch on my setup if that helps. Thanks for working on this!

[initiateit]

@utaysi - did you resize any of the windows? The only time I get this effect is when I have resized a window horizontally.