8 ms·

All I want is an app that can fix the "broken window" focus management. Like when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app, and

All I want is an app that can fix the "broken window" focus management. Like when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app, and when an app (say, Finder) has no window open currently, bringing it to front also unaskedly manipulates the stacking order such that other app's windows become the top most one, completely destroying the visual context. Also, back in the days I used Expose a lot to navigate, but it has completely lost any spatial determinism and usefulness for me. These issues are very noticable, and feel gross and like a team of ignorants has messed around; it's very irritating that nobody is speaking about it.

soulofmischief 2y ago
I'll never get over the fact that I had to pay $8 just to have two windows split side-by-side without using the obtuse and intrusive fullscreen mode.
- TrappedInCorner 2y ago
  Made an account just to reply. I use https://rectangleapp.com/ https://rectangleapp.com/ on Mac and it's great. I mostly use shortcuts Left Half and Right Half, and also Maximize (Not the fullscreen mode thank God) Might as well recommend enabling moving windows around with by clicking anywhere on the window with a keybind just like in most Linux desktop environments https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/321918/move-window-by-clicking-on-any-part-as-on-linux/365860#365860 https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/321918/move-window...
  - wiredfool 2y ago
    I (personally) forked rectangle a few years back to give me thirds of a window, for a 32" display running in 4k@1x. I use (basically) left, middle, right, and top half/bottom half.
    - cbm-vic-20 2y ago
      Rectangle supports thirds, "two-thirds", fourths, "three-fourths", and sixths (top/bottom * thirds).
      - wiredfool 2y ago
        Must have happened after I made my changes. Would have been roughly 2020, based on when I got the monitor.
        gaws 2y ago
        Rectangle had those options before 2020.
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    I appreciate that! When I switched to MacOS, I demoed both Rectangle and Magnet and found that, despite being paid software, Magnet offered a much more intuitive experience. I'm happy to pay for software anyway, but after spending $4000 on a computer I expected such basic desktop manager features, which have been common since the 90s, to come with the package. This is not something extensions are supposed to do. This kind of crap is why I ditched GNOME.
- chrisweekly 2y ago
  $14 for Divvy (from Mizage) is beyond worth it, IME.
- mFixman 2y ago
  Back when I was forced to use a Mac I used BetterTouchTool for this. It's a fantastic tool in general, and the window management is sensible.
tacker2000 2y ago
Yea I also hate that. If i have two terminals on two screens then click on one, all the terminals are now in the foreground and blocking the IDE/whatever…
- y1n0 2y ago
  Maybe this is something that was changed on recent versions of macos but I can't reproduce this. I've tried terminal, iterm, browser windows, etc.
  - tacker2000 2y ago
    It only happens when you click on the dock icon, not the app itself, i remembered it incorrectly.
lelandfe 2y ago
> when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app https://imgur.com/a/mr1E2sW https://imgur.com/a/mr1E2sW
- vladvasiliu 2y ago
  tannhaeuser presumably talks about clicking the corresponding button in the dock. Although, granted, that's the "app" button.
  - drusepth 2y ago
    It's been many years since I used a mac, but I feel like the alt+tab (mac+tab?) menu had this behavior also.
lwouis 2y ago
You may be interested in https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/
- oweiler 2y ago
  This is the first thing I recommend to new Mac users.
- klu_ 2y ago
  You made my day! This is one of the things that've been bugging me since I moved to Macos.. THANK YOU
- sdgluck 2y ago
  Thank you for sharing this!
- greatgib 2y ago
  I can recommend you to also use "Rectangle" app with that.
LeChuck 2y ago
Are you looking for this? https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/ https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/ Found it further down the comments.
- tannhaeuser 2y ago
  Yeah pretty much. I'm quite sure the behavior described as "modern" is what Mac OS X used to do when I had my first Mac ca 2003-2010.
  - tannhaeuser 2y ago
    On a second reading, that app is for switching on the "classic" behavior of bringing all windows to the top. There's something odd going on here as half the commenters, including me, complain about exactly that as undesired and what their Mac OS is doing without that app. Now which is it? Maybe is has to with using multiple monitors, like I'm doing? I've got to investigate more.
tgv 2y ago
> when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app I don't have that, and I can't remember having done anything to stop it.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- TheKarateKid 2y ago
  On Ventura here, and it only does that if you click the app icon on the dock or use Alt-Tab to switch apps. If you just click a window it does not bring all of the other windows from that app to the front.
danielvaughn 2y ago
I just want a Finder that actually works. It’s pretty incredible just how bad Finder is. It’s by far the worst piece of software I’m forced to use on a daily basis.
- reddalo 2y ago
  I honestly think that Explorer on Windows 11 is way worse than Finder. But I'd love a FilePilot [1] for macOS... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43091466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43091466
  - nottorp 2y ago
    On Windows you have Total Commander at least :) I've tried some clones for mac os, but they all missed some important (at least to me) functions. Like typing not going to the command line editor, or not having a command line at all. So it's midnight commander from macports for most complex file operations for me.
  - madeofpalk 2y ago
    For the shit people give Finder, it's astonishing how bad Explorer is. I miss Finder's tree view in Explorer so much.
  - zanderwohl 2y ago
    Anyone who thinks finder is the worst file browser hasn't used Windows for 25+ years. Explorer can't even search files on the hard drive of the computer it's running on. Explorer has its thumbnail processor on the same thread as the UI so if you have a lot of pictures in a directory it'll just hang indefinitely. Sometimes if you have too many files it won't display any at all. If explorer crashes, it's the same process as your desktop and taskbar, so that disappears too.
  - cosmic_cheese 2y ago
    I’ve never really understood the love for Explorer in any of its iterations. It was just alright at its best in the Win7 era and somewhere between mediocre and bad in other eras.
nicky0 2y ago
> [Expose] has completely lost any spatial determinism Could you elaborate on that?
- morsch 2y ago
  Not the OP, but I never know where a specific application will show up. Sometimes Chrome is on the left and my IDE is on the top right, sometimes it's the opposite. If it relates to the window location, I can't tell. Always mostly the same set of five or six applications, too.
  - y1n0 2y ago
    Oh, you all mean when expose or whatever it's called shrinks the windows down and spreads them all out? Yeah, I've never found it a useful way to switch apps if I have more than a couple open. Visually searching for the window I want like that isn't fast for me, and if the windows get too small it's not helpful.
- tannhaeuser 2y ago
  Original Expose ca 2003 minimised windows from their live positions on the regular desktop to thumbnails in a quick and smooth animation and would leave minimised thumbnails at different sizes resembling their relative live sizes and aspect ratio.
dwayne_dibley 2y ago
'Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app' - I bloody hate this behaviour.
- nextstepguy 2y ago
  I switched to Windows/WSL because of this!!
- y1n0 2y ago
  I can't reproduce this behavior so maybe it's changed in recent versions.
- TheKarateKid 2y ago
  It only does that if you click the app icon on the dock or use Alt-Tab to switch apps. If you just click a window it does not bring all of the other windows from that app to the front.
dodorama 2y ago
Maybe this app will do https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/ https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/
johncoltrane 2y ago
> Like when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app It doesn't happen here with any of the app currently in use: Chrome, Finder, Terminal, Outlook, or Teams.
Cenk 2y ago
I believe the app “Front and Center” solves this: https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/ https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/
- AlanYx 2y ago
  Thanks! That's an instant purchase for me. Looks like the APIs to permit this have only been available since Ventura.
- tannhaeuser 2y ago
  It seems so, but what the Front and Center app serms specifically created for is switching towards the undesired behavior of bringing all windows to the front on click when that is exactly what my OS does and what I want to get away from. :confused:
  - DavideNL 2y ago
    Fyi, i'm not sure if it does what you want, but make sure to check out 1Piece. It has a ton of options... https://app1piece.com/ https://app1piece.com/
aa-jv 2y ago
I solve this (really nonsense) issue with Hammerspoon and this simple script: 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"} })
frereubu 2y ago
> when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app Do you mean Cmd + Tab? Because this doesn't happen for me at all. When I click on a window, just that window is focused, but if I Alt + Tab to an app all those windows come to the front, which I find annoying too.
- radlad 2y ago
  Hijacking for a quick tip I'm not sure everyone is familiar with. On macOS, most know that Cmd + Tab will cycle through the open apps. Less well-known, Cmd + ` will cycle through windows within an app.
greatgib 2y ago
I guess that it is not what you want to hear, but just use a Linux desktop, like cinnamon! Apple pretend to do ergonomic but their window manager is full of frustration. Using cinnamon is a breeze with everything working well as expected. Even having multi-screens and having apps in menu on the correct screen where they are located. I usually have open multiple Firefox, console, folder, pdf windows and my life under os-x was a nightmare. Impossible to have one bottom icon per window (I tried everything, even U-bar that was my hope is just garbage), to not have all windows of the same app open when you click on the icon like Firefox, having to do right click on the icon all the time to go from one window of console to the other, terminals having tabs and window mixed in the menu bar,...
- tannhaeuser 2y ago
  Yeah thanks, actually I've left Linux for Mac OS, and while I do have Linux (and Windows) notebooks for specific needs I have no plans to return to it as my main machine. The reason is simply that I couldn't stand witnessing mainstream Linux desktop regressing into dysfunctionality for me (as in causing physical pain), and I'm sick of developers fetishizing de-facto proprietary containers, programming languages, system frameworks, or ideologies instead of creating apps I would actually want to use.

soulofmischief 2y ago

I'll never get over the fact that I had to pay $8 just to have two windows split side-by-side without using the obtuse and intrusive fullscreen mode.

TrappedInCorner 2y ago
Made an account just to reply. I use https://rectangleapp.com/ https://rectangleapp.com/ on Mac and it's great. I mostly use shortcuts Left Half and Right Half, and also Maximize (Not the fullscreen mode thank God) Might as well recommend enabling moving windows around with by clicking anywhere on the window with a keybind just like in most Linux desktop environments https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/321918/move-window-by-clicking-on-any-part-as-on-linux/365860#365860 https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/321918/move-window...
- wiredfool 2y ago
  I (personally) forked rectangle a few years back to give me thirds of a window, for a 32" display running in 4k@1x. I use (basically) left, middle, right, and top half/bottom half.
  - cbm-vic-20 2y ago
    Rectangle supports thirds, "two-thirds", fourths, "three-fourths", and sixths (top/bottom * thirds).
    - wiredfool 2y ago
      Must have happened after I made my changes. Would have been roughly 2020, based on when I got the monitor.
      - gaws 2y ago
        Rectangle had those options before 2020.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  I appreciate that! When I switched to MacOS, I demoed both Rectangle and Magnet and found that, despite being paid software, Magnet offered a much more intuitive experience. I'm happy to pay for software anyway, but after spending $4000 on a computer I expected such basic desktop manager features, which have been common since the 90s, to come with the package. This is not something extensions are supposed to do. This kind of crap is why I ditched GNOME.
chrisweekly 2y ago
$14 for Divvy (from Mizage) is beyond worth it, IME.
mFixman 2y ago
Back when I was forced to use a Mac I used BetterTouchTool for this. It's a fantastic tool in general, and the window management is sensible.

tacker2000 2y ago

Yea I also hate that. If i have two terminals on two screens then click on one, all the terminals are now in the foreground and blocking the IDE/whatever…

y1n0 2y ago
Maybe this is something that was changed on recent versions of macos but I can't reproduce this. I've tried terminal, iterm, browser windows, etc.
- tacker2000 2y ago
  It only happens when you click on the dock icon, not the app itself, i remembered it incorrectly.

lelandfe 2y ago

> when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app https://imgur.com/a/mr1E2sW https://imgur.com/a/mr1E2sW

vladvasiliu 2y ago
tannhaeuser presumably talks about clicking the corresponding button in the dock. Although, granted, that's the "app" button.
- drusepth 2y ago
  It's been many years since I used a mac, but I feel like the alt+tab (mac+tab?) menu had this behavior also.

lwouis 2y ago

You may be interested in https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/

oweiler 2y ago
This is the first thing I recommend to new Mac users.
klu_ 2y ago
You made my day! This is one of the things that've been bugging me since I moved to Macos.. THANK YOU
sdgluck 2y ago
Thank you for sharing this!
greatgib 2y ago
I can recommend you to also use "Rectangle" app with that.

LeChuck 2y ago

Are you looking for this? https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/ https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/ Found it further down the comments.

tannhaeuser 2y ago
Yeah pretty much. I'm quite sure the behavior described as "modern" is what Mac OS X used to do when I had my first Mac ca 2003-2010.
- tannhaeuser 2y ago
  On a second reading, that app is for switching on the "classic" behavior of bringing all windows to the top. There's something odd going on here as half the commenters, including me, complain about exactly that as undesired and what their Mac OS is doing without that app. Now which is it? Maybe is has to with using multiple monitors, like I'm doing? I've got to investigate more.

tgv 2y ago

> when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app I don't have that, and I can't remember having done anything to stop it.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
TheKarateKid 2y ago
On Ventura here, and it only does that if you click the app icon on the dock or use Alt-Tab to switch apps. If you just click a window it does not bring all of the other windows from that app to the front.

danielvaughn 2y ago

I just want a Finder that actually works. It’s pretty incredible just how bad Finder is. It’s by far the worst piece of software I’m forced to use on a daily basis.

reddalo 2y ago
I honestly think that Explorer on Windows 11 is way worse than Finder. But I'd love a FilePilot [1] for macOS... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43091466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43091466
- nottorp 2y ago
  On Windows you have Total Commander at least :) I've tried some clones for mac os, but they all missed some important (at least to me) functions. Like typing not going to the command line editor, or not having a command line at all. So it's midnight commander from macports for most complex file operations for me.
- madeofpalk 2y ago
  For the shit people give Finder, it's astonishing how bad Explorer is. I miss Finder's tree view in Explorer so much.
- zanderwohl 2y ago
  Anyone who thinks finder is the worst file browser hasn't used Windows for 25+ years. Explorer can't even search files on the hard drive of the computer it's running on. Explorer has its thumbnail processor on the same thread as the UI so if you have a lot of pictures in a directory it'll just hang indefinitely. Sometimes if you have too many files it won't display any at all. If explorer crashes, it's the same process as your desktop and taskbar, so that disappears too.
- cosmic_cheese 2y ago
  I’ve never really understood the love for Explorer in any of its iterations. It was just alright at its best in the Win7 era and somewhere between mediocre and bad in other eras.

nicky0 2y ago

> [Expose] has completely lost any spatial determinism Could you elaborate on that?

morsch 2y ago
Not the OP, but I never know where a specific application will show up. Sometimes Chrome is on the left and my IDE is on the top right, sometimes it's the opposite. If it relates to the window location, I can't tell. Always mostly the same set of five or six applications, too.
- y1n0 2y ago
  Oh, you all mean when expose or whatever it's called shrinks the windows down and spreads them all out? Yeah, I've never found it a useful way to switch apps if I have more than a couple open. Visually searching for the window I want like that isn't fast for me, and if the windows get too small it's not helpful.
tannhaeuser 2y ago
Original Expose ca 2003 minimised windows from their live positions on the regular desktop to thumbnails in a quick and smooth animation and would leave minimised thumbnails at different sizes resembling their relative live sizes and aspect ratio.

dwayne_dibley 2y ago

'Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app' - I bloody hate this behaviour.

nextstepguy 2y ago
I switched to Windows/WSL because of this!!
y1n0 2y ago
I can't reproduce this behavior so maybe it's changed in recent versions.
TheKarateKid 2y ago
It only does that if you click the app icon on the dock or use Alt-Tab to switch apps. If you just click a window it does not bring all of the other windows from that app to the front.

dodorama 2y ago

Maybe this app will do https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/ https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/

johncoltrane 2y ago

> Like when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app It doesn't happen here with any of the app currently in use: Chrome, Finder, Terminal, Outlook, or Teams.

Cenk 2y ago

I believe the app “Front and Center” solves this: https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/ https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/

AlanYx 2y ago
Thanks! That's an instant purchase for me. Looks like the APIs to permit this have only been available since Ventura.
tannhaeuser 2y ago
It seems so, but what the Front and Center app serms specifically created for is switching towards the undesired behavior of bringing all windows to the front on click when that is exactly what my OS does and what I want to get away from. :confused:
- DavideNL 2y ago
  Fyi, i'm not sure if it does what you want, but make sure to check out 1Piece. It has a ton of options... https://app1piece.com/ https://app1piece.com/

aa-jv 2y ago

I solve this (really nonsense) issue with Hammerspoon and this simple script: 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"} })

frereubu 2y ago

> when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app Do you mean Cmd + Tab? Because this doesn't happen for me at all. When I click on a window, just that window is focused, but if I Alt + Tab to an app all those windows come to the front, which I find annoying too.

radlad 2y ago
Hijacking for a quick tip I'm not sure everyone is familiar with. On macOS, most know that Cmd + Tab will cycle through the open apps. Less well-known, Cmd + ` will cycle through windows within an app.

greatgib 2y ago

I guess that it is not what you want to hear, but just use a Linux desktop, like cinnamon! Apple pretend to do ergonomic but their window manager is full of frustration. Using cinnamon is a breeze with everything working well as expected. Even having multi-screens and having apps in menu on the correct screen where they are located. I usually have open multiple Firefox, console, folder, pdf windows and my life under os-x was a nightmare. Impossible to have one bottom icon per window (I tried everything, even U-bar that was my hope is just garbage), to not have all windows of the same app open when you click on the icon like Firefox, having to do right click on the icon all the time to go from one window of console to the other, terminals having tabs and window mixed in the menu bar,...

tannhaeuser 2y ago
Yeah thanks, actually I've left Linux for Mac OS, and while I do have Linux (and Windows) notebooks for specific needs I have no plans to return to it as my main machine. The reason is simply that I couldn't stand witnessing mainstream Linux desktop regressing into dysfunctionality for me (as in causing physical pain), and I'm sick of developers fetishizing de-facto proprietary containers, programming languages, system frameworks, or ideologies instead of creating apps I would actually want to use.