Install, run, and control Astur.

Install

Astur 2.1.1: open the latest stable release and run Astur-Setup-2.1.1.exe. The per-user installer bundles the window manager and Settings GUI, adds a Start Menu shortcut, and can start Astur on login. No admin rights are required for normal windows.

Prefer portable? Download astur-windows-x64.exe from the same release. It contains the full window manager, launcher, menus, desktop tools, bar, and tray, but not the separate astur-settings.exe companion.

Astur Lite 1.0.1: download the minimal console build from the Lite release. One portable exe; no installer, launcher, system menu, tray, or Settings GUI.

Astur is a Windows application. It manages Win32 windows and targets Windows 10/11 x64. macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS cannot run the release exe.

Run as administrator only when you need Astur to manage elevated windows such as Task Manager or admin terminals.

Portable and Lite users can run on login by creating a shortcut in the Startup folder: press Win+R, type shell:startup, and paste a shortcut to the exe there.

Running

Full Astur runs without a console. Its tray icon opens Settings and provides the clean Quit command. Double-click the installed shortcut or portable exe to start it.

Astur Lite uses a console window as its control surface:

Astur running.
  LEFT ALT + left-drag  = move window
  LEFT ALT + right-drag = resize nearest corner (red bracket)
  LEFT ALT is reserved for Astur (apps don't see it);
  Alt+Tab still works. Use RIGHT ALT for normal Alt behavior.

Keep this console window open while using Lite. Closing it stops Lite.

Quitting

Full Astur: right-click the tray icon and choose Quit. Astur Lite: press Ctrl+C in its console. Both paths restore managed windows before exit.

Moving windows

Hold Left Alt and left-click-drag anywhere on a window to move it. You do not need to click the title bar - click the window body, a text field, anywhere.

If the window is maximised, dragging it automatically restores it to a floating size (half the monitor work area) centred under your cursor first.

Resizing windows

Hold Left Alt and right-click-drag anywhere on a window to resize it. Astur finds the corner of the window closest to your cursor and anchors that corner to your drag. The opposite corner stays fixed.

A small red L-bracket appears at the active corner so you always know which corner is being dragged. The bracket disappears when you release the button.

Tiling mode

Astur starts tiled by default. Press Alt+T to toggle tiling mode.

When tiling is enabled, current windows are enumerated and arranged. New windows are added automatically, and minimised windows are excluded from the tile grid.

Press Alt+T again to disable tiling. Workspaces remain tracked, but windows stop snapping to layout positions until tiling is enabled again.

Layout

Full Astur supports five layout modes:

• dwindle - default. Each new tiled window splits the remaining space, spiralling toward a corner.
• master - one master column on the left, with remaining windows stacked vertically on the right.
• columns - equal-width columns across the work area.
• grid - balanced rows and columns.
• monocle - every tiled window fills the work area; the focused window sits on top.

Astur Lite supports dwindle and master.

In master mode, Alt+H shrinks and Alt+L grows the master column. In dwindle mode, those keys adjust the focused window split instead.

Promote the focused window to master position with Alt+M.

Configuration

On first run, Astur writes config files to %USERPROFILE%\.astur\:

• astur.conf - workspaces, five layouts, gaps, focus, animations, popup theme, launcher providers, system actions, desktop tools, rules, persistence, IPC, and hotkeys.
• navbar.conf - bar placement, floating/auto-hide behavior, three widget zones, labels, formats, icons, app buttons, stats, volume, network, and media.

Both files hot-reload on save. You can also override paths with ASTUR_CONFIG and ASTUR_NAVBAR.

Full Astur also ships astur-settings.exe, a native editor that preserves comments and unknown keys while updating both files.

Status bar

Astur can draw a per-monitor bar with workspace pills, the focused window title, app buttons, layout state, clock, date, CPU, memory, battery, network speed, volume, and media widgets across configurable left, centre, and right zones.

Docked bars reserve screen space before tiling. Floating rounded bars support margins and corner radius; auto-hide bars overlay windows and reveal on edge hover. Scroll the volume widget to adjust volume, click it to mute, or scroll elsewhere on the bar to cycle workspaces.

Launcher and file search

In Full Astur, Alt+Space opens a fuzzy, MRU-ranked picker over Start Menu and Store apps, custom commands and URLs, open windows, and indexed files. It includes an inline calculator and optional web fallback. Clipboard history and emoji are opt-in prefix providers.

Press Tab for Modified / Size / Path columns, Shift+Enter to reveal a file, and F5 to refresh app and custom entries. File search uses the Windows Search index off the input hook.

System menu

Alt+Shift+Space opens configurable Power and Setup categories: lock, sleep, hibernate, sign out, restart, shut down, Settings, config files, reload, restart Astur, screenshot, and wallpaper actions. Order, confirmation, icons, commands, URLs, scripts, and custom categories are data-driven.

Desktop tools

Optional Full-edition tools include a workspace-aware Alt+Tab picker, Alt+Grave scratchpad, clipboard and emoji launcher providers, workspace-triggered wallpaper, media-title widget, active-workspace and launcher-MRU persistence, and a local named-pipe command API. These features are off by default.

Settings GUI and themes

The Settings GUI edits general behavior, layouts, focus, animations, appearance, launcher, system menu, desktop tools, bar, widgets, hotkeys, and rules. Saving updates the existing config files and applies live through hot reload.

Launcher and menus support dark, light, or automatic Windows-app theme selection. Acrylic blur is experimental and disabled by default.

Focus and swap

Alt+J / Alt+K cycle focus forward/backward through the tiled windows on the active workspace. Focus wraps around.

Alt+Shift+J / Alt+Shift+K swap the focused window with its neighbour in the tile order, then retile.

Floating windows

Press Alt+F to toggle the focused window between tiled and floating. Floating windows are excluded from the tile grid but remain visible on the workspace. You can still Alt-drag them freely.

Switching workspaces

Astur supports up to 10 workspace keys by default. Press Alt+1 through Alt+9, or Alt+0, to switch. Windows on inactive workspaces are hidden; windows on the newly active workspace are shown and the layout is applied.

In shared mode, workspaces are distributed across monitors from the primary monitor outward. In per-monitor mode, each monitor has its own independent workspace set.

Moving windows to a workspace

Press Alt+Shift+1 through Alt+Shift+9, or Alt+Shift+0, to move the focused window to that workspace. Astur follows the window to its destination.

All hotkeys

The letter binds (J K H L M T F W) are rebindable in %USERPROFILE%\.astur\astur.conf via the key_focus_next, key_close_window, etc. keys. Workspace keys, gaps, layout, borders, focus behavior, animations, launcher, menus, desktop tools, and window rules are configured there too. Extra Alt/Shift/Ctrl chords are data-driven.

Build from source

Requires Rust stable (rustup).

git clone https://github.com/Page011/Astur
cd Astur
cargo build --release
# binaries: target\release\astur.exe
#           target\release\astur-settings.exe

cargo build --release -p astur builds only the window manager. Rust dependencies are compiled into native binaries; no third-party runtime is required.

How it works

Astur installs two Windows low-level hooks at startup:

• WH_MOUSE_LL - intercepts every mouse event system-wide before it reaches any application.
• WH_KEYBOARD_LL - intercepts every keyboard event. Left Alt is swallowed so applications never see it and it cannot trigger menus or system shortcuts.

Alt+Tab is preserved by synthesising injected key events: when the physical Alt+Tab is swallowed, Astur injects a synthetic Alt down + Tab down/up so the system task switcher still operates normally.

Hooks enqueue lightweight commands to the manager. During Alt-move and Alt-resize, Astur previews the window through a DWM thumbnail overlay, with an outline fallback, and commits the real window position once on release. Slow application repainting therefore stays out of the per-frame input path.

The tiling manager runs on its own thread too, receiving lightweight commands from the hooks via a queue. Workspace switches happen immediately underneath a private compositor overlay; slide, spring, and fade are cosmetic. Window glide uses a separate per-window snapshot overlay. Failed or dropped animation work cannot prevent the real switch or tile.