How to make single window fullscreen, without any gap?

[ahloiscreamo]

Hello,

i have smart_gaps on and maximize_if_single true yet on single window it still have tiny gaps, how to fix this.

[dawsers]

Full screen windows can be achieved by using any of the full screen modes:

    bindsym $mod+f fullscreen
    bindsym $mod+Ctrl+f fullscreen layout

Note that you can work in full screen and change focus if you want, or use fullscreen layout, and the full screen container will be integrated in the scrolling layout as if it were a regular window.

If you want maximized windows instead of full screen, you can use:

bindsym $mod+t toggle_size this 1.0 1.0

This will leave the gaps you have configured for your workspace, though. So, even if you are using smart_gaps on, that will affect your workspace or gaps outer value, but you will still be subject to the gaps inner or gap between windows, so you will need to set that to zero if you don't want any gaps at all.

[ahloiscreamo]

so it cannot replicate i3 behaviour, smart_gaps on on i3 still let single window open without gap.

[dawsers]

No, because in the scrolling layout, each window will always have gaps inner applied regardless of whether it is an "internal" window, or at the edge of the viewport. This is to avoid having to resize the content of a window each time it moves, because any window can be at the edge, unlike in sway. In scroll, simply changing focus will move windows, so even if a window has other windows on both sides, it can be temporarily "at an edge", simply because one of the other windows has just moved outside of the monitor.

Applying gaps inner also helps by making every window with the same fraction applied be the same size.

So gaps outer is applied to the workspace, and then each window will have a gaps inner applied on each side. This means you will have both gaps on the edges, and you can only remove gaps outer by using smart_gaps on.

[ahloiscreamo]

I see, thank for the detailed insight. I keep expecting it to behave like tiling which i used too, scrolling is something that i'm getting familiar with, new workflow, new method of managing workspace and window. very excited to learn and explore more.

[dawsers]

I hope you find it interesting. It may take some time getting used to it.

If you like to work in maximized mode, scroll also allows you to move focus when you are in full screen mode, which sway doesn't. See the fullscreen_movefocus option for different things you can do with it (man 5 scroll).

There is also the fullscreen layout mode, that creates a full screen window that is integrated with the tiled windows, so you can move around and the full screen window scrolls too.

jump tiling is very useful when you work in maximized or full screen mode and you want to switch focus quickly.

There are lots of things to explore so you can find a workflow that works for you. I always recommend trying out every command in the default config file to discover little things you may find useful.

[ahloiscreamo]

btw how to disable animation per apps, since i got this behavior on nnn preview (ueberzugpp)

output.mp4

[dawsers]

If you don't want the preview to be animated, you cannot disable animations per app, you can only disable a certain type of animation, but for all applications. In your case I am not sure, but I think ueberzugpp uses layer shell for image display, so if you don't want the animations, you should disable layer_shell animations by modifying your config's animations block to include:

animations {
....
    layer_shell no
....
}

[ahloiscreamo]

thanks for the workaround, it however not using layer shell, after few days tinkering i managed to solve by using sixel output via ueberzugpp. however its not perfect though, this is irrelevant since its not scroll issues anymore.

This past week i learn alot using this wm, the most uses feature are mod+/ a -display all window, now i find using less workspace than before (back then using i3 workspace is so important to get tidy), now i don't needed so much anymore, very simple and efficient.

I do need to ask, why close did not have animation, is this intended?

[dawsers]

Closing windows does not have an animation. This is explained in #222. Basically, the container is deleted as soon as the view is unmapped, so there is nothing left to animate by the time the transaction happens. This is because of how animations were implemented on top of sway's transaction model.

[ahloiscreamo]

Recently, after update to latest build, suddenly many applications stop working properly, eg. inkscape, thunar, telegram, mostly hovering with mouse did not register the click, etc, and enough to make it unusable.
All of them fixed by switching to use xwayland, is this because the patched wlroots? because before this, i don't have this problem.

[dawsers]

Recently, after update to latest build, suddenly many applications stop working properly, eg. inkscape, thunar, telegram, mostly hovering with mouse did not register the click, etc, and enough to make it unusable. All of them fixed by switching to use xwayland, is this because the patched wlroots? because before this, i don't have this problem.

When you say you updated to the latest build, what was the previous version you were using? wlroots has been patched since the beginning of the project, for more than a year, either by forking (since version 1.12 in November 2025) or by overriding certain parts of it (since the beginning).

I am using Inkscape without any problems.

1. Have you downgraded scroll to the previous version to verify it still works well and the problem is with the new version?
2. Have you updated other parts of your system that could also be affecting how those applications behave?
3. Have you tried a different compositor and verified everything is working correctly there?
4. Have you considered there could be some misconfiguration on your system? As I said, of the applications you mention, I only use Inkscape, but it works fine in Wayland mode.

[ahloiscreamo]

I need a time to debug, i will report back with update