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Agree 100%. And I wrote a book on tmux. I would love something like i3 on my Mac. I can't give up OSX because I need its accessibility features because I'm low

by bphogan 11y ago

Agree 100%. And I wrote a book on tmux. I would love something like i3 on my Mac. I can't give up OSX because I need its accessibility features because I'm low vision. But if you're on Linux and you're not using i3, gosh, you have to give it a try.

microcolonel 11y ago
I'm interested in accessibility; what accessibility features of OS X are most valuable to you? Where are these things lacking or unavailable on linux?
- bphogan 11y ago
  OSX has an unbeatable ability to zoom the full screen without losing mouse focus. No other OS I've tried supports this. Windows Magnifier comes close but it doesn't let me set focus to follow the mouse and it's awkward. I use the full screen zoom and run Windows apps in virtualization. That's how important it is to me. Ubuntu tried to make this work with Compiz a few years ago, and it was terrible as well. Slow and jerky. But this is an absolute necessity for a low vision user like me. Got a Mac for my dad and he also can't live without it now.
  - microcolonel 11y ago
    Hopefully with Wayland coming around, this will all be simpler. The reference Wayland compositor (Weston) has a built in fullscreen zoom feature which is basically identical to OS X's (hold down key, scroll). In fact, the default implementation in Weston is, better in my opinion, and also enabled by default. Instead of having to go to the edge of the screen to move the region, it moves the region with the cursor in the same position relative to the screen as the region. Of course, for those with dyslexia or some other psychovisual disability; it may be worthwhile to have an option to go the OS X route. Thanks for the input, I'll maybe put it on the GNOME bugzilla if it isn't already there. :-)
    - bphogan 11y ago
      The OSX zoom has the option to follow the mouse and is what I use (and require) so I can track what I'm reading. It's not default, but it exists and works incredibly well even under heavy graphics use. Seeing something like that work well on something other than OSX would be great. But every other attempt has bee spotty at best. I look forward to seeing this work, but I worry about the hardware requirements that will be imposed. I have a 2007 white macbook that zooms flawlessly. If I need a high-end video card to zoom as smoothly it will be a problem.
      - simoncion 11y ago
        KDE 4 and 5 have a magnifier that follows the mouse and has worked just fine in any situation I've thrown at it. It's enabled by default, but you do have to assign keyboard shortcuts to "Kwin zoom in/out/restore-to-actual-size".
      - microcolonel 11y ago
        For some information, it is unfailingly buttery smooth even on integrated graphics hardware from one generation before Intel HD graphics. I.e. a lenovo Core Duo machine from 2006 I dug out of my closet the other month. This is all probably thanks to Wayland being properly composited to begin with; they just need to scan out part of the final framebuffer texture.
        bphogan 11y ago
        This is really exciting. Link me to more information please?
  - tremendo 11y ago
    I use full-screen zoom in Ubuntu (14.04) and Macintosh everyday. In Ubuntu I can alt-tab between apps and the zoomed window will follow me to the top-most application, not so on the Mac which will switch apps but leave me viewing the wrong portion of the screen. Both will follow the mouse equally well. On the other hand I prefer the Mac's ctrl-scroll-up/down to zoom-in/out. On Ubuntu I use a couple of key-combinations as I haven't figured out how to do it with the mouse. I guess I'm suggesting to give Ubuntu another chance.
lucahammer 11y ago
I wonder if you know TouchZoomDesktop. While it focus on touch input, it can be used with mouse/keyboard as well and offers easy zooming of the whole screen. I use it in presentations. http://www.lovesummertrue.com/touchzoomdesktop/en-us/ http://www.lovesummertrue.com/touchzoomdesktop/en-us/
recraft 11y ago
I've had success with kwm[0], it works more like bspwm than i3 but has been the best tiling experience I've found on OS X. (And has focus follows mouse!!!!) [0] https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm
- bphogan 11y ago
  I tried this but experienced random crashes and stuff so I gave up. I plan to look at it when it's a little more along.
jez 11y ago
Have you looked into Amethyst[1]? It's a tiling window manager for OS X. It's based on xmonad, not i3, but simply having something that tiles my windows is amazing, especially on larger Thunderbolt displays. [1]: https://ianyh.com/amethyst/ https://ianyh.com/amethyst/
uxcn 11y ago
You're book is great for getting up to speed with tmux basics. The intro to tmuxinator was also pretty helpful. One of the bigger things I think people miss is copying text into and out of tmux panes, including to the clipboard. This saves me a lot of time switching between windows often, especially using the vi keybindings. Although one thing I wish tmux did better was handling things like dividers.
- bphogan 11y ago
  Can you elaborate? Does the tmux book need more info on copy/paste/clipboard? And what do you mean about handling dividers?
  - uxcn 11y ago
    I thought the book was great. It's a quick read, but easily increased what I could do with tmux. I can't think of much more it really needs. Maybe cover stuff like if-shell? The true-color patch might also be worth mention. FYI, there's a slight bug with the xclip copy binding, but it's pretty easily fixed (bind C-c run "/usr/bin/tmux save-buffer - | /usr/bin/xclip -i -sel clipboard >/dev/null"). Just using tmux to get more than one terminal was really only a fraction of the stuff I could use it for. My terminal launches in XMonad use tmux by default now. As far as the copy stuff, I'm talking about pipe or line dividers in terminal apps (e.g. mutt, ncmpcpp, etc... If whatever I'm trying to copy covers more than one line, tmux will copy over the divider which is painful.
Myrmornis 11y ago
I bought your book too, thanks for writing it! I found it helpful and it got me started scripting tmux sessions. I plan to try tmuxinator but haven't yet.

by bphogan 11y ago

microcolonel 11y ago

I'm interested in accessibility; what accessibility features of OS X are most valuable to you? Where are these things lacking or unavailable on linux?

bphogan 11y ago
OSX has an unbeatable ability to zoom the full screen without losing mouse focus. No other OS I've tried supports this. Windows Magnifier comes close but it doesn't let me set focus to follow the mouse and it's awkward. I use the full screen zoom and run Windows apps in virtualization. That's how important it is to me. Ubuntu tried to make this work with Compiz a few years ago, and it was terrible as well. Slow and jerky. But this is an absolute necessity for a low vision user like me. Got a Mac for my dad and he also can't live without it now.
- microcolonel 11y ago
  Hopefully with Wayland coming around, this will all be simpler. The reference Wayland compositor (Weston) has a built in fullscreen zoom feature which is basically identical to OS X's (hold down key, scroll). In fact, the default implementation in Weston is, better in my opinion, and also enabled by default. Instead of having to go to the edge of the screen to move the region, it moves the region with the cursor in the same position relative to the screen as the region. Of course, for those with dyslexia or some other psychovisual disability; it may be worthwhile to have an option to go the OS X route. Thanks for the input, I'll maybe put it on the GNOME bugzilla if it isn't already there. :-)
  - bphogan 11y ago
    The OSX zoom has the option to follow the mouse and is what I use (and require) so I can track what I'm reading. It's not default, but it exists and works incredibly well even under heavy graphics use. Seeing something like that work well on something other than OSX would be great. But every other attempt has bee spotty at best. I look forward to seeing this work, but I worry about the hardware requirements that will be imposed. I have a 2007 white macbook that zooms flawlessly. If I need a high-end video card to zoom as smoothly it will be a problem.
    - simoncion 11y ago
      KDE 4 and 5 have a magnifier that follows the mouse and has worked just fine in any situation I've thrown at it. It's enabled by default, but you do have to assign keyboard shortcuts to "Kwin zoom in/out/restore-to-actual-size".
    - microcolonel 11y ago
      For some information, it is unfailingly buttery smooth even on integrated graphics hardware from one generation before Intel HD graphics. I.e. a lenovo Core Duo machine from 2006 I dug out of my closet the other month. This is all probably thanks to Wayland being properly composited to begin with; they just need to scan out part of the final framebuffer texture.
      - bphogan 11y ago
        This is really exciting. Link me to more information please?
- tremendo 11y ago
  I use full-screen zoom in Ubuntu (14.04) and Macintosh everyday. In Ubuntu I can alt-tab between apps and the zoomed window will follow me to the top-most application, not so on the Mac which will switch apps but leave me viewing the wrong portion of the screen. Both will follow the mouse equally well. On the other hand I prefer the Mac's ctrl-scroll-up/down to zoom-in/out. On Ubuntu I use a couple of key-combinations as I haven't figured out how to do it with the mouse. I guess I'm suggesting to give Ubuntu another chance.

lucahammer 11y ago

I wonder if you know TouchZoomDesktop. While it focus on touch input, it can be used with mouse/keyboard as well and offers easy zooming of the whole screen. I use it in presentations. http://www.lovesummertrue.com/touchzoomdesktop/en-us/ http://www.lovesummertrue.com/touchzoomdesktop/en-us/

recraft 11y ago

I've had success with kwm[0], it works more like bspwm than i3 but has been the best tiling experience I've found on OS X. (And has focus follows mouse!!!!) [0] https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm

bphogan 11y ago
I tried this but experienced random crashes and stuff so I gave up. I plan to look at it when it's a little more along.

jez 11y ago

Have you looked into Amethyst[1]? It's a tiling window manager for OS X. It's based on xmonad, not i3, but simply having something that tiles my windows is amazing, especially on larger Thunderbolt displays. [1]: https://ianyh.com/amethyst/ https://ianyh.com/amethyst/

uxcn 11y ago

You're book is great for getting up to speed with tmux basics. The intro to tmuxinator was also pretty helpful. One of the bigger things I think people miss is copying text into and out of tmux panes, including to the clipboard. This saves me a lot of time switching between windows often, especially using the vi keybindings. Although one thing I wish tmux did better was handling things like dividers.

bphogan 11y ago
Can you elaborate? Does the tmux book need more info on copy/paste/clipboard? And what do you mean about handling dividers?
- uxcn 11y ago
  I thought the book was great. It's a quick read, but easily increased what I could do with tmux. I can't think of much more it really needs. Maybe cover stuff like if-shell? The true-color patch might also be worth mention. FYI, there's a slight bug with the xclip copy binding, but it's pretty easily fixed (bind C-c run "/usr/bin/tmux save-buffer - | /usr/bin/xclip -i -sel clipboard >/dev/null"). Just using tmux to get more than one terminal was really only a fraction of the stuff I could use it for. My terminal launches in XMonad use tmux by default now. As far as the copy stuff, I'm talking about pipe or line dividers in terminal apps (e.g. mutt, ncmpcpp, etc... If whatever I'm trying to copy covers more than one line, tmux will copy over the divider which is painful.

Myrmornis 11y ago

I bought your book too, thanks for writing it! I found it helpful and it got me started scripting tmux sessions. I plan to try tmuxinator but haven't yet.