Hyprland Windows

Window handling the way Hyprland does it, on Windows.

• Win + left mouse button — drag a window from anywhere on it, not just by its title bar.
• Win + right mouse button — resize a window from anywhere on it, from whichever corner is closest to the cursor.
• Win + double click — maximize a window, or restore it. The title bar is gone, so the double click that used to be on it now works anywhere on the window; the settings offer other things for it to do.
• Win + middle click — close the window under the cursor. The button, the modifiers and the action are all settings; it can be a key instead, such as Win+Q — even one Windows already uses, like Win+W.
• Ctrl+Alt+H — hide the focused window's title bar; press it again to bring the title bar back.
• Win+Tab — go to the next virtual desktop that has windows on it, at once; Win+Shift+Tab goes back. Task View moves to Win+Ctrl+Tab.

Moving and resizing feel like the real thing: windows still snap to the screen edges, dragging one to the top still offers the Windows 11 snap layouts, and Esc cancels a drag in progress. A window you are dragging fades to slightly translucent while you hold it, the way a Hyprland window does. Hold Ctrl as well and its edges turn magnetic: bring one close to another window or to the edge of the screen and it lines up with it. Hold Shift while resizing to keep the window's proportions.

Title bars can also go away on their own: with hiding by default turned on, every new window opens without one, except the programs on a list of exceptions (Paint and the Snipping Tool to begin with).

Give windows a border color — your own, or accent to follow the Windows accent color — and it fades from one color to the other as focus moves, the way a Hyprland border does. That goes for every window with a frame, or only for the ones whose title bar is hidden, whichever the settings say.

Everything is configurable in the settings — the hotkey, the modifier key, the translucency, the magnet, the border, and how much of the frame goes away with the title bar.

Installing

• Find Hyprland Windows in Windhawk, and click install.

OR from github

1. Download hyprland-windows.wh.cpp from the latest release.
2. In Windhawk, choose Create new mod.
3. Open the downloaded file, copy everything in it, and paste it into the editor, replacing what is already there.
4. Press Compile (Ctrl+B) and the mod is ready.

Good to know

• Apps that draw their own title bar instead of using the system one (Chrome, Electron apps, VS Code, Office) are not affected by the hotkey.
• A window with a classic menu bar (File, Edit, …) can't keep that menu where it is once the title bar is gone, so by default it is hidden along with it and stays reachable from the keyboard with Alt or F10. The settings offer the other choices.
• Win + mouse doesn't work over content drawn with WinUI or XAML — Paint, Windows Terminal, the tabs and address bar of File Explorer: Windows hands those clicks to the app past the point where the mod sees them.
• Win+Tab switches desktops through a part of Windows that Microsoft doesn't publish. It is known for Windows 10 and for Windows 11 from 22H2 on; on a build the mod doesn't recognize, and with only the one desktop, Win+Tab stays Task View.
• The hotkey, and a window shortcut that is a key, are taken everywhere: a program that uses the same keys for something of its own doesn't get them while the mod is on. Pick other keys in the settings if one does.

Conflicts

• AltDrag moves and resizes windows with a key and the mouse as well, and Slick Window Arrangement snaps windows while they are dragged. Running either of them alongside this mod, two mods act on the same drag: use one of them at a time — or, with Slick Window Arrangement, turn this mod's magnetic edges off.

Working on the source

Windhawk compiles one file per mod, so the mod is written as a set of modules and assembled into that single file:

path	what it is
src/metadata.wh	the Windhawk header: @id, @name, the mod's own readme and its settings
src/common.h	shared headers, the settings, and everything that crosses a file boundary
src/settings.cpp	reading and parsing the settings
src/window_info.cpp	which windows the mod may touch, plus window metrics
src/frame_geometry.cpp	non-client layout of a window with a hidden title bar
src/decorations.cpp	border color (and the fade between the two of them) and corner preference
src/titlebar.cpp	hiding/restoring a title bar and the per-window bookkeeping
src/hotkey.cpp	the key bindings: the title-bar hotkey, and the window shortcut when it is a key
src/keyboard.cpp	the mod's keyboard thread: keeping the Start menu shut after a Win + gesture, and the key bindings ahead of Windows' own shortcuts
src/desktops.cpp	Win+Tab through the virtual desktops
src/drag.cpp	Win + mouse move and resize
src/drag_fade.cpp	fading a window to translucent while it is dragged
src/actions.cpp	mouse gestures with the modifier held, and what they do
src/snap.cpp	magnetic edges while dragging, and the aspect ratio while resizing
src/hooks.cpp	the hooked APIs (messages, window creation)
src/mod.cpp	the Windhawk lifecycle entry points
tools/bundle.py	assembles all of the above into build/hyprland-windows.wh.cpp

Every module includes only src/common.h, so each one is a valid translation unit on its own — .\build.ps1 -Check compiles each file separately to prove it. build/ is generated and not committed.

Assembling the single file needs nothing but Python 3:

python tools\bundle.py          # -> build\hyprland-windows.wh.cpp

build.ps1 wraps that and builds the tests around it, which additionally needs Windhawk installed for its bundled clang:

.\build.ps1            # bundle + harness
.\build.ps1 -Bundle    # only build\hyprland-windows.wh.cpp
.\build.ps1 -Harness   # bundle + test\harness.exe
.\build.ps1 -Check     # syntax-check every src\*.cpp on its own
.\build.ps1 -Shell     # bundle + test\desktops_in_shell.exe/.dll

The mod itself is never compiled here: Windhawk compiles the .wh.cpp on the user's machine, so a DLL is not something this project produces.

test\harness.exe includes the bundled mod (with Windhawk's editing stubs), so the bundler is covered too, and drives it against real windows on the desktop: non-client geometry, hit testing, maximize/restore, the unload path, screenshots into test\out\, and the move/resize loops with injected mouse input.

.\test\harness.exe                 # everything (moves the mouse for a few seconds)
.\test\harness.exe --no-input      # skip the mouse-input tests
.\test\harness.exe --dpi-unaware   # run as a DPI-unaware process
.\test\harness.exe --desktops      # only the Win+Tab tests

What Win+Tab does is decided by the shell as much as by the mod, and a harness is not the shell. test\desktops_in_shell.exe loads the bundled mod into Explorer itself and presses the keys, counting how the desktops change — or, with --mod, presses them for the copy Windhawk has compiled. It switches the desktops of whoever runs it; run it elevated for the keys to reach elevated windows as well.

.\test\desktops_in_shell.exe burst 12 110   # Tab again and again, Win held
.\test\desktops_in_shell.exe taps 10 400    # Win+Tab again and again
.\test\desktops_in_shell.exe type 6         # keys typed right after a switch

The other test\*_probe.cpp files are standalone experiments that document platform behaviour the mod relies on.