Scrolling layout

Scrolling layout arranges windows as a horizontal strip of columns. Rift keeps the focused column in view, so many windows can remain open without shrinking every window.

The TOML below is a fragment to add to an existing config; it is not a complete config file.

Behavior

Imagine a long row of columns that can extend past both sides of your display. A column may contain one window or several windows stacked vertically. Moving focus left or right scrolls the row until the selected column is visible; moving up or down changes the selected window within a column.

Multiple displays

With Scrolling, arrange multiple displays in a vertical stack in macOS. Because macOS places all display coordinates in one shared space, side-by-side displays can allow off-screen columns to leak onto another display.

Horizontal mouse warp

If your displays are physically side-by-side, horizontal mouse warp lets the pointer cross between them horizontally while keeping the vertical macOS arrangement recommended above.

macOS arrangement:    Physical arrangement:
┌─────┐              ┌─────┐ ┌─────┐
│  A  │              │  A  │ │  B  │
└─────┘              └─────┘ └─────┘
┌─────┐
│  B  │
└─────┘

Add this under [settings] (not [settings.layout.scrolling]):

[settings]
horizontal_mouse_warp = "top-to-bottom"

With top-to-bottom, higher displays behave as being farther left: moving right through A’s edge enters B, and moving left through B’s edge returns to A. Use bottom-to-top to reverse that order. With more displays, the pointer crosses to the next logical neighbor; it does not wrap from the last display to the first.

Crossing also works while dragging. The pointer keeps its distance from the source display’s top edge, so crossing into a shorter display only works where the corresponding vertical position exists. This changes pointer crossing only; it does not change the macOS display arrangement.

The feature is disabled by default. Remove the setting to disable it again. See horizontal_mouse_warp for the configuration reference.

Set it up

[settings.layout]
mode = "scrolling"

[settings.layout.scrolling]
column_width_ratio = 0.7
alignment = "center"
focus_navigation_style = "niri"

column_width_ratio = 0.7 gives a column 70% of the tiling area’s width. min_column_width_ratio and max_column_width_ratio bound resizing.

preserve_window_sizes = true (the default) keeps each window’s existing width when it enters a scrolling workspace, including at startup and after a workspace move. Widths outside the minimum and maximum column ratios are clamped. Set it to false to use the configured column width instead.

The default niri navigation scrolls only enough to reveal the focused column. Use anchored to place it consistently at alignment: left, center, or right.

Gestures

Scrolling has its own optional horizontal gesture settings. You can enable them under [settings.layout.scrolling.gestures]. With propagate_to_workspace_swipe = true, swiping beyond the end of the strip can continue into the next or previous virtual workspace.

See the Scrolling reference for defaults, resizing limits, and gesture thresholds.