DisplayFusion Triggers are a powerful and versatile way to automate your window management tasks. You can have multiple actions performed whenever certain things happen, like when new a window is created, a window is focused, or when DisplayFusion starts or exits. You can match windows based on their process path, command line parameters, window text (window title), and window class. Let's start with an overview of the different fields in the Trigger edit window.

Trigger Rule Edit Window

• Event: Select what event should trigger this rule. The current options are Window Created (when the window opens), Window Focused (when you click on or Alt+Tab to the window), DisplayFusion Starts (useful for loading a specific Monitor Profile on startup), and DisplayFusion Exits.
• Frequency: Here you can choose whether DisplayFusion will process this rule only once for each instance of this process (goes by process ID), once for only the first instance of this process (goes by process name), once for each window of this process (goes by window handle, useful when using the "Window Focused" trigger), or all windows for this process. In most cases you'll either want to use "Once-per-process ID" or "Always."
• Stop processing triggers if this one matches: Enabling this checkbox will tell DisplayFusion to stop processing the rules on the Settings > Triggers tab if the window matches this rule. If you have a wildcard (*.*) rule after this rule in the list, you'd want to enable this checkbox if you don't want the window to be processed by the *.* rule.
• Process Filename: You can manually enter the path to the application, or click the "Select Application" button to choose it. This option also accepts wildcards (e.g. C:\Applications\*, or *.*).
• Process Command Line Parameters: In some cases, you may only want the rule to match if the program is running with specific command line parameters (e.g. if VLC was started with the --repeat parameter). Enter the parameters exactly in this option. You can view them for a running process by adding the "Command Line" column to the Windows Task Manager. You can also auto-populate this field by dragging the target icon and dropping it on the running program window.
• Window Text: This option will allow you to specify a full or partial window title to match by. You can auto-populate this field by dragging the target icon and dropping it on the window you'd like to grab the title from. This field uses our text query engine, allowing you to specify multiple titles, and exclude certain text as well.
• Window Class: This option will allow you to specify the window class to match. This is generally useful if you want to move only certain windows of an application (e.g. dialogs, settings windows, etc). You can auto-populate this field by dragging the target icon and dropping it on the window you'd like to grab the class from. This field uses our text query engine, allowing you to specify multiple classes, and exclude certain text as well.
• Monitor Profile: This option will allow you to limit the rule to a specific Monitor Profile. This way, you can have rules for the same program, but apply different Actions for different Monitor Profiles.
• Actions: This is where you'll add all of your moving, sizing, and other actions. Aside from moving to specific monitors and locations, and setting specific window sizes, you can also run built-in, custom, and scripted functions. For example, you can have a window be moved to a specific monitor, moved to the top-left corner, and set as "always on top." Actions in the list can be re-ordered by dragging them up or down with the mouse.

Here are a few examples:

Move to Primary Monitor, Maximize, and Dim Non-Primary Monitors

Move to Monitor #3, Only if "3 Monitors" Profile is Active

Highlight the Active Window Red

Move the MS Paint Save As Window to Monitor #3

Trigger rules are processed in the order that they're shown in each section of the list on the Triggers tab. Each Trigger type is separate from the others, so if a window is focused, only the rules in the Window Focused section will be processed. Tip: If you're using a mix of rules with specific match criteria, and rules with wildcard criteria, it's best to move the wildcard rules to the bottom of the list, so that the more specific rules get processed first.

As always, if you run into any issues, or have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to ask!