Hidden Gems in Compiz Window Management

I came across this info on the Ayatana mailing list. Though the post said it worked with Metacity as well, I couldn't achieve this with Metacity, only with Compiz running (using Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx).

With an un-maximized window, you can use different mouse buttons while you click the Maximize button on a window, to achieve different results:

• Right-click the Maximize button to maximize left/right only (the window's height is left unchanged, the width increases to take up the available screen width. Right-click the Maximize button again to return the window to its original dimensions.
• Middle-click the Maximize button to maximize up/down only (the window's width is left unchanged, the height increases to take up the available screen height. Middle-click the Maximize button again to return the window to its original dimensions.

Quite logically, if you have maximized one dimension of the window, and the other is not maximized (for example, you right-click the Maximize button so the window is horizontally maximized, but is not vertically maximized), then left-clicking the Maximize button maximizes the other dimension of the window as well. A second left-click will then return the window to its original dimensions.

Even if you left-click the Maximize button on a newly-opened (and unmaximized) window, you can right-click or middle-click the Maximize (Restore, actually) button on the maximized window to un-maximize only one dimension to that of the original window size.

Takes some getting used to, but could be useful under some circumstances (for example, you want two windows side-by-side, maximized vertically, or you want two windows, one above the other, maximized horizontally).