6 ms·

I think anything that changes macOS UX has a tremendous uphill battle.

• CharlesW 8y ago
  How so? I ask as someone who doesn't consider his macOS install complete without Bartender and Moom, etc.
  • AceJohnny2 8y ago
    Could you elaborate on your "etc"? I'm curious :) I personally use SizeUp instead of Moom, because I was used to using the keyboard and Moom's initial focus on a GUI threw me off. I only discovered later that Moom of course also supports shortcuts. Some of my other additions: - Karabiner-Elements, to swap Fn and Ctrl on the macbook's keyboard. I require Ctrl as my corner key! - Witch, an alternative task switcher (alt-tab), which supports selecting individual app windows (macOS's distinction drives me nuts). Unfortunately it occasionally lags, so I'm iffy about it.
    • 1stcity3rdcoast 8y ago
      Wow, thank you for the Karabiner-Elements lead! I switch between Mac and PC, so having to use the FN button drives me completely batty. And I will have to try Witch as well.
      • kkarakk 8y ago
        before i found karabiner so long ago i was considering returning my macbookpro coz the switch was driving my productivity down(i would mentally go "fuck macOS" everytime i tried to copy something)
    • xfitm3 8y ago
      I use witch, I love it.
  • pvg 8y ago
    Bartender and Moom are enhancements of the existing UI. chunkwm is more like wanting to have your desktop managed by X11 and maths, i.e. turning your Mac into not-a-Mac. This has its adherents but they are fewer than the people who want to stick to the Mac part.
  • philsnow 8y ago
    The thing that always bothers me when I try polishing my hammerspoon config is that none of the available modifiers are dedicated to window management. On all my linux systems, I have a separate Mod4 modifier that is exclusively used for key bindings that my window manager interprets. On Mac, there's control, option/alt, and command, but various programs use various subsets of them, so none of them is available for me to completely commandeer. Karabiner(-Elements) lets you convert a key to be a cmd-control-shift-option modifier, and I might just end up doing that, but whatever key you choose probably isn't going to be under my left thumb like my muscle memory wants. For hammerspoon what I ended up doing is making modal keymaps, but modal keymaps are really different from how I handle it on my other systems, so it hasn't stuck yet.
    • tom_ 8y ago
      I use Ctrl+Cmd+Alt+numpad keys for ShiftIt. If this conflicts with anything, I've never noticed. Who would be silly enough to choose such a combination for something anyway?
    • saagarjha 8y ago
      I use Karabiner-Elements to rebind my Caps Lock key to "Super" (actually, F17).
    • hibbelig 8y ago
      But you can have the initial key show a notification that describes the possible keys to press next. Then if you forget a key combo, you can always look it up.
• 1stcity3rdcoast 8y ago
  As mentioned in a comment I made below, the fact that so many people have to modify and tweak OS X just to make it habitable for a multi-window and multi-instance workflow points to some serious deficiencies relative to Windows. I switch between both interfaces throughout the day and my Mac experience is consistently subpar.
  • porkloin 8y ago
    It really is pretty shocking that at this point Apple hasn't invested the time in a window snapping situation. Their other window management utilities (mission control, hot corners, etc.) are all very nice, but all incredibly pointer/mouse-centric. I'd guess that a lot of macOS users don't care much since the pointer inputs (touchpads, magic trackpad) are really quite nice on Apple hardware. On the other hand, I definitely started using tiling WMs because the trackpads on my Linux laptops were always absolute garbage in the mid-2000s and early 2010s. The first time I used a Macbook touchpad I understood why so many people fell in love with those devices - especially back then, the touchpads felt magic compared to the crap being put out by every other PC manufacturer.
    • eridius 8y ago
      macOS has subtle window snapping already, I think introduced in 10.13 but I'm not certain. Moving and resizing windows tries to snap to edges of other windows, but it's a relatively minor effect (which is good because aggressive snapping is really annoying), and only triggers when you're moving slow enough.
• nukeop 8y ago
  It's always amusing to see the hoops you have to jump through to customize your system on non-Linux machines, and even then you don't have half the expected flexibility. Both Windows and Mac laptops are probably great for people whose customization needs end at changing the wallpaper, but not for professionals with established personal workflows worked out over the course of years or decades.