Stacks and floating apps

A zone doesn’t have to hold a single app. Several apps can share a zone as a stack, and some apps can float over the zones instead of taking one.

Stacks

To make a stack, add more than one app to the same zone: hover over the zone in the preview and click +, or click Add app in Apps and choose the zone under Add to. For example, Firefox and Slack stacked on the right, next to your editor on the left.

• The apps in a stack share the zone’s frame, with the same spacing on all four sides, and the border when borders are on.
• The first app of the stack, marked Front in the preview, is in front after Launch and Reapply. After a workspace switch, the window you used last is in front. To bring another app of the stack forward, click its icon in the Layout bar, or use ⌘Tab with the window switcher turned on.
• Stacked windows overlap on purpose, so they never trigger the overlap warning.
• Launching the workspace opens the apps in the stack’s order, and places one window of each app in the zone.

In the preview, a stack lists its apps, one row each, in order. Drag a row up or down to change the order, or right-click it and choose Move to Front. A zone too small for its rows shows up to three overlapping app icons instead, and the first app’s name with the number of others, such as “Firefox +1”. In Apps, each app of the stack has its own row, and the menu next to its name shows the zone’s name with a stack icon. To take an app out of the stack, drag its row to another zone or onto the floating strip, or choose another zone, Floating, or Remove from Workspace in that menu.

There’s no shortcut to cycle through a stack yet. See Known limitations.

Floating apps

A floating app isn’t tied to a zone. Launching the workspace opens it over the zones, with all of its windows. Simulator is a typical floating app, over an editor and a browser.

To add one, click Add app in Apps and choose Floating. In a workspace without zones, Add app adds a floating app right away. To make an app of a zone float, open the menu next to its name in Apps and choose Floating under Place in. That menu reads Floating for every floating app.

Set where it opens

Over zones, a floating app opens at its own size and position until you give it one. Until then, it waits under the screen in the preview, in the Floating · own position tray.

• Drag its chip onto the screen to choose where the app opens. A card appears where you drop it, at the size of the app’s open window if it has one. Releasing the chip outside the screen changes nothing.
• Or right-click the chip and choose Place on Screen: the card appears in the lower-right corner of the screen.
• Drag the card to move it, and the handle in its bottom-right corner to set its size. Both move in steps of 1% of the screen, and each side stays at least 10%. The card shows its size, such as 30% × 45%.

Once an app has a position, launching the workspace and Reapply, in the editor’s header, put its windows there. After that, the windows are free: you can move them anywhere.

To let the app open at its own size and position again, right-click its card and choose Forget Position, or choose Forget Position in its menu in Apps. The app goes back to the tray. Remove from Workspace, in the same menus and in the chip’s, takes the app out of the workspace.

A Free workspace has no zones, and no tray. There, a floating app without a position is stacked: its card has a dashed outline, covers the preview, and reads “Stacked”. The app opens at full size inside the margin, like the Stacked layout’s zone, even if another workspace gives its window a smaller place. Stacked cards sit under the placed ones. Drag a stacked card to give the app a position; Forget Position stacks it again.

Apps that keep their own proportions

If an app refuses the size you set, the card takes the size the app actually accepted, so the preview shows what really happens. An app that keeps its own proportions, like Simulator, also locks its card’s ratio: a padlock appears on the card, and resizing the card then scales both sides together. Forget Position removes the lock along with the position.

What floating apps don’t do

• Their windows never join the workspace’s New windows zone. See New windows.
• They don’t stay on top. macOS keeps the focused window in front, and Layout can’t pin a window above the others. Click the floating app, or its icon in the Layout bar, to bring it forward.

If the workspace keeps floating windows inside the margin, a floating app’s position is kept inside the margin too.

For an app you use from every workspace, see Wildcard apps: its window comes to the workspace you’re in, and a layout that has it is its home.