Loadstone for Windows help

Install

Microsoft Store

Get Loadstone from the Microsoft Store. The Store page hands you a small installer, Loadstone Installer.exe, which fetches the app from the Store and starts it. If you would rather not run a download, open the product page in the Store app and install from there. Either way the Store keeps Loadstone up to date.

Free. Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit.

Build from source

You need: the .NET 10 SDK and Windows 10 or 11.

git clone https://github.com/mortenbrudvik/loadstone-win.git
cd loadstone-win
dotnet run --project src/Loadstone.UI

A build run this way keeps its settings and log in the same place as the Store app, %LOCALAPPDATA%\Loadstone.

The tray icon

Loadstone lives in the notification area, next to the clock. Windows hides icons it has not seen before, so look under the ^ arrow at the left end of the tray, and drag the icon out to keep it in view. Click it to open Settings; right-click it for the full list of layouts, or to quit. Every layout also has a keyboard shortcut.

Optional: Settings → General → Launch at login.

Shortcuts

All of these are Ctrl+Alt unless noted. Change them in Settings → Shortcuts.

The corner keys are a square on the keyboard:

UIJK

Press the Left Half shortcut (Ctrl+Alt+← by default) again on a window that is already in the left half and it moves on to the right half of the display to its left, so repeated presses walk it across your displays one half at a time. Right Half (Ctrl+Alt+→) does the same to the right, and the tray menu items behave the same way. At the outer edge of the desk the window stays where it is, and a display above or below does not count.

Restore puts the window back where it was before Loadstone first moved it, and a window that was maximized then goes back maximized. To step back one move at a time instead, including a drag snap, turn on Settings → General → Restore one move at a time.

On Norwegian, German and most other European layouts, AltGr reaches Windows as Ctrl+Alt, so Ctrl+Alt+E also captures the € key while Loadstone runs. Settings shows “Types € on your keyboard layout” next to any such binding. Rebind it if you type that character.

Layouts

• Halves: left, right, top, bottom.
• Corners: four quarters.
• Thirds: left, center, right, plus two-thirds.
• Maximize, center, restore: restore puts the window back where it was before Loadstone first moved it, maximized again if it was.
• Multi-display: press left or right half again and the window carries on into the display beside it, one half at a time. Or send it to the next or previous display, walking displays left to right as they sit on the desk.
• Custom shortcuts: every chord is editable in Settings → Shortcuts.
• Launch at login: optional, from Settings.
• Portrait displays: the side edges split three ways along their length (corner, vertical third, corner), and the bottom edge gives halves.
• Fixed-size windows: a window that cannot be resized keeps its size and is centred on the tile instead.

Snap zones

Drag a window by its title bar until the pointer reaches an edge or corner of the display. A preview in your accent colour shows the tile; let go to snap. Only a window that is actually moving snaps, so selecting text or dragging a slider to an edge does nothing.

Drag-to-snap is off until you turn it on in Settings → General. Turning it on is what lets Loadstone switch off Windows’ own drag-to-edge snapping while it runs, so the two do not fight. Windows’ setting comes back when you turn it off, when Loadstone quits, or when you sign out.

• Corners: a quarter. The corner zones are 140 px squares, scaled with the display, and win over the edges.
• Left and right edges: a half.
• Top edge: maximize.
• Bottom edge: a third, chosen by where along the edge you let go.
• Portrait displays: the sides give corner, vertical third, corner along their length, and the bottom edge gives halves.
• More than one display: every display has its own zones, including the edge it shares with a neighbour. The pointer does not stop at a shared edge the way it does at an outer one, so slow down there and let go while the preview is showing. The window snaps onto the display the pointer is on, not the one it started on.

The edge zones are 16 px deep at 100 % scaling and extend the same distance past an outer edge, so overshooting still counts.

Troubleshooting

One window will not move.

Windows belonging to programs running as administrator cannot be moved by a program that is not. That is a Windows security rule, not a fault in Loadstone. Some windows are also fixed-size; those are centred in the tile instead of resized. Loadstone beeps and logs the refusal, and everything else keeps working.

A shortcut does nothing.

Check Settings → Shortcuts. A chord already held by another app is captioned “In use by another app”: close that app or rebind. Graphics-driver utilities and file-manager tools commonly hold Ctrl+Alt+arrow chords and are the usual culprits.

Dragging to an edge does not snap.

Turn drag-to-snap on in Settings → General first; it is off by default. Drag by the title bar; the window has to actually move before Loadstone treats the gesture as a drag. On the edge between two displays the pointer passes straight through, so slow down and release while the preview is showing. If Windows’ own Snap Layouts flyout appears at the top edge, turn it off under Settings → System → Multitasking → Snap windows.

Restore does nothing.

Restore remembers where the window was before Loadstone moved it, then forgets once that place is restored. By default that is one jump back to the original spot. With Restore one move at a time on (Settings → General), each press steps back one move until that same spot, and then it forgets. The next Loadstone command starts a new memory. The memory is also dropped when the window closes or when Loadstone restarts.

Next / previous display just beeps.

Only one display is attached.

Pressing Ctrl+Alt+← again does not move the window to the display beside it.

Only a display to the side counts, as arranged in Settings → System → Display; one above or below does not. And the window has to be in that half already: if you have moved it since, or the display’s resolution, scaling or taskbar has changed, the first press puts it back into the half and the next one carries it on.

Windows’ own edge snapping is off after a crash.

Loadstone turns it off while its drag snapping is on and turns it back on when it quits normally. After an unclean exit, simply launching Loadstone again restores it, and signing out and back in restores it too. The Snap windows switch in Settings → System → Multitasking shows as on the whole time, so it will not tell you whether snapping is really on.

Launch at login is on but Loadstone does not start.

Task Manager → Startup apps may have it disabled. Settings shows “Disabled in Task Manager” with a button that opens that page.

Reading the log

Settings → General → Open log folder opens the folder directly; the files are %LOCALAPPDATA%\Loadstone\Logs\Loadstone-<date>.log. The startup summary lists the effective binding and status of every shortcut.