Window Modes

Bento Box

Pro Feature

Bento Box is one of three Window Modes. Set a monitor to Bento Box and BetterStage automatically arranges its windows into a non-overlapping grid — rebuilt in 1.0 with direct drag interactions, drop-to-swap, drop-on-edge insert, and live resize previews.

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Chat

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Notes

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Bento Box layoutDrag a handle — neighbors resize togetherDrop a window onto another — they swapDrop on a tile edge — it splits into a new pane

Activating Bento Box

Bento Box is a per-monitor mode. Set a monitor to Bento Box from:

The Snap Wheel → Window Modes submenu
The BetterStage menu bar → Window Modes section
Settings > Window Modes for the default mode applied to new monitors

When a monitor is in Bento Box, snap zones on that monitor are routed through the tiling engine instead of floating windows over the grid.

Direct Interactions

Bento Box in 1.0 reads like a normal window manager. Everything you'd expect to do by dragging just works.

Drag handles

Drag the handle between two tiles to resize the neighboring windows together. Affected panes render as lightweight glass previews during the drag so the layout stays smooth at any size.

Drop-to-swap

Drag one window onto another and release. The two windows swap tiles without disturbing the rest of the grid.

Drop-on-edge insert

Drop a window on the edge of an existing tile to split that tile and insert the new window as its left, right, top, or bottom neighbor.

Cross-monitor drops

Drag a window from any monitor — native, Bento, or tabbed — into a Bento monitor and it lands in the spot you dropped it. Pull one back out and it leaves the layout cleanly.

Live Resize Previews

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Divider drag — glass preview during resize

During a divider drag, the affected panes render as translucent glass previews instead of live windows. Releasing the drag commits the layout in one frame so apps don't resize step by step. Toggle the preview on or off from Settings > Window Modes.

Grid Settings

Configure the grid in Settings > Window Modes > Bento Box.

Grid Dimensions

Set the number of columns and rows. Only even numbers are allowed (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16). The default is 16 × 10.

Gap Size

Pixel gap between tiled windows. A gap of 0 means windows sit edge-to-edge.

Float in Window Modes

Some apps don't play well inside a tiled grid — browser session-restore prompts, color pickers, popovers, and small utility windows. Add them to Settings > Exclude Apps > Float in Window Modes and Bento Box (and Tabbed Layout Mode) will leave them alone. They float freely above the grid.

You can also flip the ignore toggle for the focused app from the Snap Wheel without leaving your flow.

Pinned Displays

Bento Box now works fully on Pinned Displays. Dragging, snapping, maximizing, resizing, and reordering all behave the same as on a regular monitor — and the layout is restored when monitors disconnect, reconnect, or wake from sleep.

Retile

Most of the time you won't need to retile manually — Bento Box reflows whenever windows open, close, or move. If the layout drifts after a sleep, monitor change, or app crash, press Opt+Down to rebalance the BSP tree on the active stage, or pick Retile from the Snap Wheel.

Tabbed Layout Mode