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The API [1] is an interesting read, as well as this thread from two years ago [2]. I have used Spectacle [3] for years and recently switched to Rectangle [4].

The API [1] is an interesting read, as well as this thread from two years ago [2]. I have used Spectacle [3] for years and recently switched to Rectangle [4]. These two are quite simple in comparison but I barely use all their features. I have seen people using HammerSpoon [5] as well for these type of things. Out of curiosity, what kind of things do people script in a window manager? [1] https://github.com/kasper/phoenix/blob/bfcb684/docs/API.md https://github.com/kasper/phoenix/blob/bfcb684/docs/API.md [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16787836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16787836 [3] https://www.spectacleapp.com/ https://www.spectacleapp.com/ [4] https://rectangleapp.com/ https://rectangleapp.com/ [5] https://www.hammerspoon.org/ https://www.hammerspoon.org/

heavyset_go 7y ago
> Out of curiosity, what kind of things do people script in a window manager? KWin is scriptable, and I use it to change window shading behavior and to do some tiling. At one point I had it send SIGSTOP to processes that I minimized, and SIGCONT when they were raised, to save battery life.
- gigatexal 7y ago
  Oh man that is a nice little life hack!
mtrpcic 7y ago
I've been using Hammerspoon for years, and have been incredibly happy with it. It is still actively maintained, has a large userbase, and has a lot of pre-built solutions for things. Importantly, it's not just for window management. You can do a lot of powerful things with it.
gingerlime 7y ago
Pretty happy with spectacle overall. One thing I sorely miss from i3 however is the ability to switch focus to panes/windows/apps with the keyboard. Even something as next/prev window seems impossible on Mac (or I couldn’t work out a solution). I think you can cycle through apps(?), but not windows/panes in a logical order as far as I’m aware.
- greyskull 7y ago
  Cmd+Backtick (next to 1 key) lets you swap between windows of the same application. Is that what you're looking for?
  - gingerlime 7y ago
    That's as close as it gets, but it's not enough. I mapped it to cmd-shift-right so it does go to the next window. But there's no way that I could find to map going to the previous window... So for example I might have two windows tiled side by side. I want to go cmd-shift-right to focus on the right one, and cmd-shift-left to focus on the left...
    - filleokus 7y ago
      It's not exactly what you want, but have you tried binding "Move focus to next window" to alt+tab? Then you can use alt-tab-shift to cycle focus backwards, at least something. (I always forget where that setting is, it's in Keyboard->Shortcuts->Keyboard).
    - unfunco 7y ago
      If you have two windows the order shouldn't matter? Also, Cmd+` goes to the next window, Cmd+Shift+` goes to the previous window, your mappings having a shift in them might be the issue.
      - gingerlime 7y ago
        > If you have two windows the order shouldn't matter? No. But I don't think it's too much to ask to cycle through more than two, now, is it? :) > Also, Cmd+` goes to the next window, Cmd+Shift+` goes to the previous window, your mappings having a shift in them might be the issue. I'm not sure I understand how having a shift in my mapping affects this, but cmd-shift-` isn't ergonomic at all. To me the arrows are far more logical way to go in a certain direction. Why can I map next window to any key, but there's no way to map another key to the previous window? I find it very strange. For the sake of comparison, i3 makes all those things trivial.
fit2rule 7y ago
I'm using Hammerspoon on MaOS to give me a semi-tileable windows interface. Here is my config: local hyper = {"ctrl", "alt", "cmd"} hs.loadSpoon("MiroWindowsManager") hs.window.animationDuration = 0.3 spoon.MiroWindowsManager:bindHotkeys({ up = {hyper, "up"}, right = {hyper, "right"}, down = {hyper, "down"}, left = {hyper, "left"}, fullscreen = {hyper, "f"} }) -- https://github.com/miromannino/miro-windows-manager This allows me to place any MacOS window in either a horizontal or vertical third, or a quadrant, or a half, perfectly divided in such a way that I can maximise use of my screen while running multiple apps. My most common work environment is to have a terminal on one half of the screen, docs on the other - or two terms on top of each other on one side, docs on the other. This is so useful for me that I yearn to make the same hotkeys work on my Linux machine, but I haven't worked out what window manager I want to use to do it .. probably Awesome of course, but I'd love to be able to use the same Hammerspoon scripts (Lua) somehow ..

heavyset_go 7y ago

> Out of curiosity, what kind of things do people script in a window manager? KWin is scriptable, and I use it to change window shading behavior and to do some tiling. At one point I had it send SIGSTOP to processes that I minimized, and SIGCONT when they were raised, to save battery life.

gigatexal 7y ago
Oh man that is a nice little life hack!

mtrpcic 7y ago

I've been using Hammerspoon for years, and have been incredibly happy with it. It is still actively maintained, has a large userbase, and has a lot of pre-built solutions for things. Importantly, it's not just for window management. You can do a lot of powerful things with it.

gingerlime 7y ago

Pretty happy with spectacle overall. One thing I sorely miss from i3 however is the ability to switch focus to panes/windows/apps with the keyboard. Even something as next/prev window seems impossible on Mac (or I couldn’t work out a solution). I think you can cycle through apps(?), but not windows/panes in a logical order as far as I’m aware.

greyskull 7y ago
Cmd+Backtick (next to 1 key) lets you swap between windows of the same application. Is that what you're looking for?
- gingerlime 7y ago
  That's as close as it gets, but it's not enough. I mapped it to cmd-shift-right so it does go to the next window. But there's no way that I could find to map going to the previous window... So for example I might have two windows tiled side by side. I want to go cmd-shift-right to focus on the right one, and cmd-shift-left to focus on the left...
  - filleokus 7y ago
    It's not exactly what you want, but have you tried binding "Move focus to next window" to alt+tab? Then you can use alt-tab-shift to cycle focus backwards, at least something. (I always forget where that setting is, it's in Keyboard->Shortcuts->Keyboard).
  - unfunco 7y ago
    If you have two windows the order shouldn't matter? Also, Cmd+` goes to the next window, Cmd+Shift+` goes to the previous window, your mappings having a shift in them might be the issue.
    - gingerlime 7y ago
      > If you have two windows the order shouldn't matter? No. But I don't think it's too much to ask to cycle through more than two, now, is it? :) > Also, Cmd+` goes to the next window, Cmd+Shift+` goes to the previous window, your mappings having a shift in them might be the issue. I'm not sure I understand how having a shift in my mapping affects this, but cmd-shift-` isn't ergonomic at all. To me the arrows are far more logical way to go in a certain direction. Why can I map next window to any key, but there's no way to map another key to the previous window? I find it very strange. For the sake of comparison, i3 makes all those things trivial.

fit2rule 7y ago

I'm using Hammerspoon on MaOS to give me a semi-tileable windows interface. Here is my config: local hyper = {"ctrl", "alt", "cmd"} hs.loadSpoon("MiroWindowsManager") hs.window.animationDuration = 0.3 spoon.MiroWindowsManager:bindHotkeys({ up = {hyper, "up"}, right = {hyper, "right"}, down = {hyper, "down"}, left = {hyper, "left"}, fullscreen = {hyper, "f"} }) -- https://github.com/miromannino/miro-windows-manager This allows me to place any MacOS window in either a horizontal or vertical third, or a quadrant, or a half, perfectly divided in such a way that I can maximise use of my screen while running multiple apps. My most common work environment is to have a terminal on one half of the screen, docs on the other - or two terms on top of each other on one side, docs on the other. This is so useful for me that I yearn to make the same hotkeys work on my Linux machine, but I haven't worked out what window manager I want to use to do it .. probably Awesome of course, but I'd love to be able to use the same Hammerspoon scripts (Lua) somehow ..