RIVERTILE(1) General Commands Manual RIVERTILE(1)

rivertile - tiled layout generator for river

rivertile [options]

rivertile is a layout generator for river(1). It provides a simple tiled layout with split main/secondary stacks. The initial state may be configured with various options passed on startup. Some values may additionally be modified while rivertile is running with the help of riverctl(1).

-h

Print a help message and exit.

-version

Print the version number and exit.

-view-padding pixels

Set the padding around views in pixels. (Default: 6)

-outer-padding pixels

Set the padding around the edge of the layout area in pixels. (Default: 6)

-main-location [top|bottom|left|right]

Set the initial location of the main area in the layout. (Default: left)

-main-count count

Set the initial number of views in the main area of the layout. (Default: 1)

-main-ratio ratio

Set the initial ratio of the main area to total layout area. The ratio must be between 0.1 and 0.9, inclusive. (Default: 0.6)

These commands may be sent to rivertile at runtime with the help of riverctl(1).

main-location [top|bottom|left|right]

Set the location of the main area in the layout.

main-count value

Set or modify the number of views in the main area of the layout. If value is prefixed by a +/- sign, value is added/subtracted from the current count. If there is no sign, the main count is set to value. Note that the main count cannot be decreased below 1.

main-ratio value

Set or modify the ratio of the main area to total layout area. If value is prefixed by a +/- sign, value is added/subtracted from the current ratio. If there is no sign, the main ratio is set to value. Note that the ratio will always be clamped to the range 0.1 to 0.9.

Start rivertile with 4 pixels outer padding and the top main location:

rivertile -outer-padding 4 -main-location top

Increase the main ratio by 0.1 at runtime:

riverctl send-layout-cmd rivertile "main-ratio +0.1"

Set the main count to 3 at runtime:

riverctl send-layout-cmd rivertile "main-count 3"

Maintained by Isaac Freund <mail@isaacfreund.com> who is assisted by open source contributors. For more information about river's development, see https://isaacfreund.com/software/river.

river(1), riverctl(1)

2026-05-07