Desktop split screen

What it is

The desktop window can show up to five things side by side. Hold Alt (Option on a Mac) and click:

• a link inside the Aden web app: the page it points at opens beside the one you are reading, which stays where it was
• a page in the Links sidebar, or one of its pinned tiles: that page opens in a new pane at the end
• a surface in the rail: that surface opens in a new pane at the end

Or drag it there: pick up anything in the rail (System, Aden, Organisations, Admin, Links and your pins) or a page in the Links sidebar, and drop it on the page. A frosted outline shows where it lands before you let go, its label marked with what the drop does (open here, replace, open beside, float):

• the middle of a pane replaces what it shows (on the main pane, it opens in place of the page)
• the left or right third of any pane, the main one included, opens a new pane on that side
• the band along the bottom of the page floats it: it opens in a phone-sized window right there, under the pointer. The band shows as soon as a drag starts ("Drop here to float"), so the zone is there to find

Press Escape mid-drag to call it off: the outline goes, and letting go drops nothing.

A pinned app's chats open in a pane as that app's inbox, where a chat opens inside the pane with back to the list. A pinned file opens in its own app, so it only opens here. With five panes open, a drop replaces one. Drag the dividers to resize.

Every extra pane has a header that names it, with back (where there is history), float, open it in the main pane, and close. On a page, its address sits beside the name, short (instagram/mavesound): click into it for the full URL, type another (or on Aden a /path) and press Enter. A Links page searches the web for anything that isn't an address. The same works in a floating window's top bar.

Floating windows. Float lifts a pane out of the row into a window over the page, like Slide Over on an iPad. It opens phone-sized at the right, so a web page floats in its mobile layout. Its top bar is one line of frosted glass: the name, back, "…" and close. Drag the bar to move the window, resize it from any edge or corner, and double-click the bar to switch between phone and tablet size. "…" zooms what it shows from 50% to 150%, switches size, puts it back beside the page or opens it in the main pane.

Out of the app. A floating window can leave the app for a window of its own: "Open in its own window" in "…", or drag it off the app's edge. It slides off as you drag (a strip always stays in to grab); once most of it is outside it dims, and letting go opens it right where it hangs, at its size, fading in. Outside it still looks like a floating window: the same frost (macOS's own), one bar that drags it, the rounded page under it. "…" there puts it back into Aden as a floating window, and "Open in the main pane" hands it to the app window. System stays inside.

Back into the row. Drag a floating window against the page's left or right edge and the outline of a pane on that side shows; let go and it docks there.

Splits in the rail. While a split is on screen, the rail shows it under Links as its panes in a row of small tiles. Leave it for another surface and it stays in the rail; click it to bring the whole split back. The rail keeps the last four; right-click one to close it.