Multi-Pane Layouts

What Are Panes?#

In Finder, if you want to see two folders at the same time you open two windows and arrange them by hand. It works, but it's clumsy on a laptop and impossible to do consistently — every project starts with the same five minutes of dragging windows around.

Seiz solves this with panes. A pane is a panel inside the Seiz window that shows one folder. You can split your window into two, three, or four panes — each with its own folder, its own tabs, and its own state — and drag files between them. Think of it like the difference between juggling separate browser windows and using browser tabs: same idea, much less mental overhead.

The Four Layouts#

• Single — one pane, full width. Like Finder.
• Dual — two panes, side by side (horizontal) or stacked (vertical). The most common layout for moving files between two folders.
• Triple — one tall pane on the left, two stacked panes on the right. Useful when you have a primary folder and two reference folders.
• Quad — a 2×2 grid of four panes. Power-user territory: source, destination, reference, scratch.

Each layout has a keyboard shortcut: ⌘⌥1 for Single, ⌘⌥2 for Dual, ⌘⌥3 for Triple, and ⌘⌥4 for Quad. You can also pick from the View menu or the Command Bar (⌘K, then type the layout name). Going from Quad back to Single keeps your leftmost pane and discards the others.

Switching the Split Orientation#

For dual layouts, you can toggle between side-by-side and stacked with ⌘⌥D (or View ▸ Toggle Split). Wide monitors usually want side-by-side; portrait monitors look better stacked.

The Active Pane#

Only one pane is “active” at a time — it's the one that responds to keyboard input and shows a subtle accent border. Click anywhere inside a pane to make it active. Most actions (creating a new folder, opening a file, pasting) target the active pane — so a quick click before you hit a shortcut is enough to switch contexts.

Resizing#

Drag the divider between two panes to resize them. Double-click the divider to reset to equal sizes. Pane sizes are remembered between sessions, so the layout you set up on Monday is still there on Tuesday.

Each pane has a minimum width of about 15% of the window — Seiz prevents you from accidentally shrinking a pane to the point of uselessness.

Moving Files Between Panes#

Drag files from one pane to another to move them. Hold ⌥ Option while dragging to copy instead — you'll see a small green + on the cursor confirming it's a copy.

Dragging across panes also works for cut/paste (⌘X then ⌘V) and for triggering uploads and downloads when one pane is local and the other is a remote server (see Remote & Sync).

Tabs Inside Panes#

Each pane can have its own set of tabs, just like a browser. Press ⌘T to open a new tab in the active pane, ⌘W to close one, Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+⇧+Tab to cycle through them, and ⌘⇧P to pin (or unpin) the active tab. Right-click a tab for the full menu: pin, duplicate, close others, close to the right, move to a new window.

Closed a tab by accident? ⌘⇧T reopens it, with its scroll position and selection intact. Seiz keeps the last 10 closed tabs per pane.

Pinned tabs sit at the front of the bar with just an icon (no title), can't be accidentally closed, and survive across app restarts. Useful for the two or three folders you live in every day.

Detaching Tabs Into Their Own Windows#

Sometimes a single Seiz window isn't enough — you want to use a tab on a second monitor, or alongside a video call. Right-click any tab and choose Move to New Window and that tab pops out into its own dedicated window. Drag and drop, keyboard shortcuts, all the regular file manager features still work — it's a fully functional Seiz window with just that one tab.

When you're done, right-click any tab and choose Merge All Windows to fold all the detached windows back into one.

Saving Layouts as Workspaces#

Spent ten minutes setting up the perfect three-pane layout for editing a video project? Save it as a Workspace. From the Workspaces menu, choose Save Current Layout, give it a name, and Seiz remembers everything: which folders are in which panes, the tabs inside each pane, the split sizes, the sort and view settings — all of it.

Switching to a saved workspace is one click. Useful when your day involves wildly different contexts: “Photo editing” restores your photo workflow, “Coding” restores your dev folders, “Personal” jumps you back to Documents and Downloads. See Workspaces for the full rundown.

The Status Bar#

At the bottom of every Seiz window is a thin status bar that shows information about the active pane: how many items are in the folder, how many you've selected (with their total size), the current Git branch if the folder is a Git repository, and how much disk space is free on the volume. When transfers or sync are running you'll see live progress here too.

Next Steps#

• Workspaces — save and restore complete window layouts in one click.
• Command Bar — switch layouts and panes from the keyboard.
• Remote & Sync — local on one side, remote on the other; drag between them.
• Keyboard Shortcuts — full reference for every shortcut in Seiz.