6 ms·

XMonad on OSX

26 points by andreyf 17y ago

tudorachim 17y ago
Yes, but it only works for managing X apps, not the standard ones OSX ships with.
- labria 17y ago
  ... and that makes it completely useless, sadly =( I would love to have a tiling WM for MacOS X, but it seems impossible (unless Apple suddenly makes one themselves =).
  - cschep 17y ago
    http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/ http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/ size up is worth a look, but it's not quite the same if you're used to Xmonad, that's for sure.
    - labria 17y ago
      Yes, I tried it, but gave up after a few days: it provides nothing that manual tiling doesn't (I have a background with a spot in the center, helps tiling 4 terminal windows).
  - pmiller2 17y ago
    What's truly sad is that with the size of the screens on the newer desktop machines, a tiling WM would have a lot of room (literally) to shine. With OSX's standard window management, I end up having to do a lot of manual fiddling to get my windows to the point where they're simultaneously large enough to be useful, while not so large that they overwhelm my visual field. That little green button in the upper left corner really doesn't do what I'd want it to do on a 27" screen when I'm sitting just a couple feet away from it.
    - kpreid 17y ago
      If the effect of the little green button is to fill your screen with the window, complain to the application developer. It's supposed to go to a useful size. (Finder and Safari are examples of good implementations, though Safari's is slightly glitchy.)
  - blownd 17y ago
    I'm working on an app to make window management as easy as possible: http://windowflow.com http://windowflow.com It's about to relaunch with a significantly improved UI and more flexible tiling methods, so check back in a week if you don't like what you see now. Any feedback is appreciated.
archer 17y ago
I switched back to Linux last month after 5 years of OS X usage and XMonad was one of the main reasons. Now, whenever I try using OS X on my 13 inch MBP again, the WM makes it feel really unproductive. Once I have few apps opened moving around is slow. Exposé and Spaces don't help much. It feels like going back to whatever good IDE from Emacs or Vim, not very fun. In contrast, with a tiling manager, even small screens are bearable. I really recommend giving it a shot. Of course not everyone likes it, but I'd say it's not particularly unfriendly. Bindings are very simple. Setup is mostly straightforward.
- look_lookatme 17y ago
  I just have a really hard time grokking haskell. I've been using stumpwm and it's awesome, but it integrates less well with gnome. In the same boat -- 6 years OSX, installed Lucid RC on 13 inch MBP recently -- so far no intention of going back.
  - silentbicycle 17y ago
    dwm is good, too. Sure, C isn't the greatest thing for exploratory programming, but configuring it isn't hard. (One of these days I might really learn X programming and do a tiled WM configured with Lua, but I've got too many projects already.) wmii is also good, and once you get used to using libixp, you can script it in anything. I found wmii's named tabs interfered with muscle memory, though. I used XMonad for a bit, but GHC is a hell of a dependency, and for a while there were problems getting any version newer than 6.6 to build on FreeBSD and OpenBSD. That's a dealbreaker for me.
    - jrockway 17y ago
      Having used OpenBSD as a desktop for a bit, I realized, after waiting 24 hours for Amarok to build, that it is not a desktop OS. It's for your router. Use Linux for your desktop, it's just easier.
      - silentbicycle 17y ago
rosenbergdm 17y ago
After casually trying AwesomeWM on my mac for a short while, I decided to try to make XMonad as usable as possible under OSX without writing any HOC code. It's been an incremental process, but at point I'd call my setup _more_ than adequate. One of these day's I'm either going to update the OSX/Xmonad wiki page with my method with all of the scripts and configurations I am using under the hood... In my opinion, much of the magic of integrating X11/Xmonad with aqua involves 'capturing' key combinations (on the Xmonad side), determining how to respond, then either responding directly or emitting the correct keystrokes using xdotool (http://www.semicomplete.com/projects/xdotool/ http://www.semicomplete.com/projects/xdotool/). For example, I let xmonad capture the keysequence <Command-Tab>. Xmonad keeps track of the MRU-like window list and switches to it. If it is another window in the current workspace, xmonad can switch to it unassisted. If a 'switch' would involve switching to an aqua application, xmonad then uses xdotool to emit the <Command-Option-A> + <Command-Tab> key sequence (popping out of X11).

XMonad on OSX

26 points by andreyf 17y ago

tudorachim 17y ago

Yes, but it only works for managing X apps, not the standard ones OSX ships with.

labria 17y ago
... and that makes it completely useless, sadly =( I would love to have a tiling WM for MacOS X, but it seems impossible (unless Apple suddenly makes one themselves =).
- cschep 17y ago
  http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/ http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/ size up is worth a look, but it's not quite the same if you're used to Xmonad, that's for sure.
  - labria 17y ago
    Yes, I tried it, but gave up after a few days: it provides nothing that manual tiling doesn't (I have a background with a spot in the center, helps tiling 4 terminal windows).
- pmiller2 17y ago
  What's truly sad is that with the size of the screens on the newer desktop machines, a tiling WM would have a lot of room (literally) to shine. With OSX's standard window management, I end up having to do a lot of manual fiddling to get my windows to the point where they're simultaneously large enough to be useful, while not so large that they overwhelm my visual field. That little green button in the upper left corner really doesn't do what I'd want it to do on a 27" screen when I'm sitting just a couple feet away from it.
  - kpreid 17y ago
    If the effect of the little green button is to fill your screen with the window, complain to the application developer. It's supposed to go to a useful size. (Finder and Safari are examples of good implementations, though Safari's is slightly glitchy.)
- blownd 17y ago
  I'm working on an app to make window management as easy as possible: http://windowflow.com http://windowflow.com It's about to relaunch with a significantly improved UI and more flexible tiling methods, so check back in a week if you don't like what you see now. Any feedback is appreciated.

archer 17y ago

I switched back to Linux last month after 5 years of OS X usage and XMonad was one of the main reasons. Now, whenever I try using OS X on my 13 inch MBP again, the WM makes it feel really unproductive. Once I have few apps opened moving around is slow. Exposé and Spaces don't help much. It feels like going back to whatever good IDE from Emacs or Vim, not very fun. In contrast, with a tiling manager, even small screens are bearable. I really recommend giving it a shot. Of course not everyone likes it, but I'd say it's not particularly unfriendly. Bindings are very simple. Setup is mostly straightforward.

look_lookatme 17y ago
I just have a really hard time grokking haskell. I've been using stumpwm and it's awesome, but it integrates less well with gnome. In the same boat -- 6 years OSX, installed Lucid RC on 13 inch MBP recently -- so far no intention of going back.
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  dwm is good, too. Sure, C isn't the greatest thing for exploratory programming, but configuring it isn't hard. (One of these days I might really learn X programming and do a tiled WM configured with Lua, but I've got too many projects already.) wmii is also good, and once you get used to using libixp, you can script it in anything. I found wmii's named tabs interfered with muscle memory, though. I used XMonad for a bit, but GHC is a hell of a dependency, and for a while there were problems getting any version newer than 6.6 to build on FreeBSD and OpenBSD. That's a dealbreaker for me.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    Having used OpenBSD as a desktop for a bit, I realized, after waiting 24 hours for Amarok to build, that it is not a desktop OS. It's for your router. Use Linux for your desktop, it's just easier.
    - silentbicycle 17y ago

rosenbergdm 17y ago

After casually trying AwesomeWM on my mac for a short while, I decided to try to make XMonad as usable as possible under OSX without writing any HOC code. It's been an incremental process, but at point I'd call my setup _more_ than adequate. One of these day's I'm either going to update the OSX/Xmonad wiki page with my method with all of the scripts and configurations I am using under the hood... In my opinion, much of the magic of integrating X11/Xmonad with aqua involves 'capturing' key combinations (on the Xmonad side), determining how to respond, then either responding directly or emitting the correct keystrokes using xdotool (http://www.semicomplete.com/projects/xdotool/ http://www.semicomplete.com/projects/xdotool/). For example, I let xmonad capture the keysequence <Command-Tab>. Xmonad keeps track of the MRU-like window list and switches to it. If it is another window in the current workspace, xmonad can switch to it unassisted. If a 'switch' would involve switching to an aqua application, xmonad then uses xdotool to emit the <Command-Option-A> + <Command-Tab> key sequence (popping out of X11).