Traditional layout

Traditional is Rift’s default layout. It organizes windows into a tree of horizontal and vertical groups, so one side of your desktop can hold an editor while the other contains a terminal above a browser.

Choose it when you want to control how windows are grouped. Its tree structure will be familiar if you have used i3 or Sway.

Set it up

Merge this fragment into your existing config:

[settings.layout]
mode = "traditional"

[settings.layout.traditional]
equalize_nodes = true

New windows appear next to the current selection by default. equalize_nodes = true gives a newly inserted node the average sibling weight instead of splitting the selected node’s share. It affects insertion; it does not prevent you from resizing windows afterward.

Work with groups

A group can contain windows and other groups. Moving or resizing a selected group affects its contents together. Start with directional focus and movement, then add group commands as you need them; see Keybindings.

To append new windows at the end of the tree:

[settings.layout.traditional]
window_insertion_point = "end_of_tree"

This overrides the layout-wide insertion setting only for Traditional. See the layout reference for gaps and other shared options.

For a fixed primary area with supporting windows, try Master-stack.