3 ms·

Nobody's stopping you from segmenting one big monitor into different regions; and you get to choose how big those regions are from day to day rather than being

by dmd 2y ago

Nobody's stopping you from segmenting one big monitor into different regions; and you get to choose how big those regions are from day to day rather than being forced into it.

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
That's too much extra work. With multiple monitors you can maximize primary apps while still having manual management of smaller supporting apps on another monitor. You also get more edges for rapid snap to the sides of a monitor.
- r00fus 2y ago
  You're not using the best window managers - most have customizable drag points or keybindings to get exactly what you want.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    Since you seem to know about the best window managers, can you recommend one for MacOS which will let me direct focus to whichever window is left/right/down/up of the currently selected one? i3/sway does this just fine, but my impression is that MacOS's api doesn't allow third party developers to pull it off, but I'd love to be wrong about that.
    - daveungerer 2y ago
      Not the person you were asking, but after years of using i3, AeroSpace is the only way I can use a Mac productively, and does indeed have the feature you're describing.
      - darkteflon 2y ago
        Wow. Thanks for this. I've bounced off a number of tiling WMs on MacOS over the years - Amethyst, Yabai, others I can't remember - but Aerospace is really excellent. Can't believe I've never heard of it before. Love the custom implementation of spaces as a solution to what ails a number of other tiling WMs. I installed it this morning and disabled the mish-mash of Rectangle Pro, Better Touch Tool and OS kb shortcuts I'd been using.
    - choochootrain 2y ago
      the article mentions https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai, which i have been using for a few years to get me to 90% parity with i3. it has quirks and limitations, some of which can be fixed by disabling system integrity protection but it can definitely handle window tiling and navigating with keybindings when you use the companion daemon https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd
    - creakingstairs 2y ago
      I use yabai which does what you say and more pretty well. It also lets you completely remove spaces transition effect but this will require disabling of SIP.
- jrockway 2y ago
  Even Windows has this with PowerToys. I use 3 monitors but would switch to 1 if games respected the dimensions and 8k displays could refresh at 360Hz.
jsheard 2y ago
Although if that big monitor is an OLED, segmenting it into halves or quarters is kind of begging to end up with a line burned in down or across the middle eventually.
- shric 2y ago
  I'm imagining a tiling window manager screensaver that slowly resizes and moves your window boundaries throughout the day
  - John_Cena 2y ago
    Samsung solves this in the TV itself. It can be annoying when the edges of the screen are ever so slightly off, but i'm glad I don't have to worry about it. QCQ90S. I wouldn't recommend it since the tv's gui is glacially slow, but then again all the ones I tried last year were.
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    Many OLED monitors and TVs already do this, it's called pixel shifting.
    - accrual 2y ago
      A Panasonic Viera plasma TV I bought around 2012 also had this feature.
kimixa 2y ago
They tend to be relatively poorly handled by the software, at least out of the box. Every modern major OS now has some level of tiling/splitting on a monitor's edges baked into their window manager by default now. Some can be tweaked to split into smaller subgroups, but that often requires less well tested/polished options (some apps just ignore the hints), or even third party extensions.
- pragmatick 2y ago
  Works great with Display Fusion on Windows.
8338550bff96 2y ago
I am (҂`_´) Continuously micro-manage the layout of individual application windows your window manager is a form of procrastination. Back to work!
qingcharles 2y ago
In theory, that would be the solution. In practice I read about all sorts of weird edge cases and bugs when trying to do that. Some discussions over here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/
ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 2y ago
Anything fullscreen? How are you segmenting sub displays easily in that scenario?
llm_trw 2y ago
I have done this in the past using a tilling window manager and it's still better to use different displays. There is something about our monkey brains that makes 'different physical object = do different things' work better than all having it on the same monitor. I did get it to work for me with thick black bars between the screens, but when you're giving up an inch of screen real estate for every virtual monitor then you might as well get physical ones.

by dmd 2y ago

Nobody's stopping you from segmenting one big monitor into different regions; and you get to choose how big those regions are from day to day rather than being forced into it.

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago

That's too much extra work. With multiple monitors you can maximize primary apps while still having manual management of smaller supporting apps on another monitor. You also get more edges for rapid snap to the sides of a monitor.

r00fus 2y ago
You're not using the best window managers - most have customizable drag points or keybindings to get exactly what you want.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  Since you seem to know about the best window managers, can you recommend one for MacOS which will let me direct focus to whichever window is left/right/down/up of the currently selected one? i3/sway does this just fine, but my impression is that MacOS's api doesn't allow third party developers to pull it off, but I'd love to be wrong about that.
  - daveungerer 2y ago
    Not the person you were asking, but after years of using i3, AeroSpace is the only way I can use a Mac productively, and does indeed have the feature you're describing.
    - darkteflon 2y ago
      Wow. Thanks for this. I've bounced off a number of tiling WMs on MacOS over the years - Amethyst, Yabai, others I can't remember - but Aerospace is really excellent. Can't believe I've never heard of it before. Love the custom implementation of spaces as a solution to what ails a number of other tiling WMs. I installed it this morning and disabled the mish-mash of Rectangle Pro, Better Touch Tool and OS kb shortcuts I'd been using.
  - choochootrain 2y ago
    the article mentions https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai, which i have been using for a few years to get me to 90% parity with i3. it has quirks and limitations, some of which can be fixed by disabling system integrity protection but it can definitely handle window tiling and navigating with keybindings when you use the companion daemon https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd
  - creakingstairs 2y ago
    I use yabai which does what you say and more pretty well. It also lets you completely remove spaces transition effect but this will require disabling of SIP.
jrockway 2y ago
Even Windows has this with PowerToys. I use 3 monitors but would switch to 1 if games respected the dimensions and 8k displays could refresh at 360Hz.

jsheard 2y ago

Although if that big monitor is an OLED, segmenting it into halves or quarters is kind of begging to end up with a line burned in down or across the middle eventually.

shric 2y ago
I'm imagining a tiling window manager screensaver that slowly resizes and moves your window boundaries throughout the day
- John_Cena 2y ago
  Samsung solves this in the TV itself. It can be annoying when the edges of the screen are ever so slightly off, but i'm glad I don't have to worry about it. QCQ90S. I wouldn't recommend it since the tv's gui is glacially slow, but then again all the ones I tried last year were.
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  Many OLED monitors and TVs already do this, it's called pixel shifting.
  - accrual 2y ago
    A Panasonic Viera plasma TV I bought around 2012 also had this feature.

kimixa 2y ago

They tend to be relatively poorly handled by the software, at least out of the box. Every modern major OS now has some level of tiling/splitting on a monitor's edges baked into their window manager by default now. Some can be tweaked to split into smaller subgroups, but that often requires less well tested/polished options (some apps just ignore the hints), or even third party extensions.

pragmatick 2y ago
Works great with Display Fusion on Windows.

8338550bff96 2y ago

I am (҂`_´) Continuously micro-manage the layout of individual application windows your window manager is a form of procrastination. Back to work!

qingcharles 2y ago

In theory, that would be the solution. In practice I read about all sorts of weird edge cases and bugs when trying to do that. Some discussions over here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 2y ago

Anything fullscreen? How are you segmenting sub displays easily in that scenario?

llm_trw 2y ago

I have done this in the past using a tilling window manager and it's still better to use different displays. There is something about our monkey brains that makes 'different physical object = do different things' work better than all having it on the same monitor. I did get it to work for me with thick black bars between the screens, but when you're giving up an inch of screen real estate for every virtual monitor then you might as well get physical ones.