7 ms·
Making macOS Bearable
- slurrpurr 10mo agoAll of this "getting productive" with window managers, especially in the context of macOS is just yakshaving and, unless you enjoy doing it a waste of time. The point of macOS is to have a system with tasteful defaults.
- sleepybrett 10mo agoI just use phoenix with some special hotkeys to move windows into positions and tile them. Macos has recently added some 'tiling' controls in, but they aren't as flexible. I wrote this phoenix config at least 10 years ago and I just keep it in my dropbox to copy onto the latest work laptop. So while it is 'yak shaving' it's a yak i shaved 10 years ago, amortized over the lifetime i've been using it I would guess it's costing me under a tenth of a second per day at this point.
- leidenfrost 10mo agoI have macOS shortcuts hot branded in my brain. I'd prefer to adopt a few of these programs than having to configure i3 and use ctrl for everything
- seg6 10mo ago"Getting productive" wasn't really my goal when configuring my system. I spend a lot of time in front of the computer and simply prefer using it this way because it feels natural. But, of course, you're entitled to your opinion :)
- slurrpurr 10mo agoWell then even better - if you have fun, perfect
- cosmic_cheese 10mo agoIt's one of the reasons I still get my work done with macOS, despite some of the more questionable decisions it's been subject to lately. Despite it all, the defaults are by far closest to what works for me. In less than 30m I can go from a clean install to doing work. It's also why I have a difficult time with Linux. Even the environments that are closest relatives to macOS are still quite distant, and so I end up getting sucked down a black hole trying to tweak my way closer to parity, which of course never works out. Linux only works for me for single-purpose machines where the desktop environment basically doesn't factor in.
- nixpulvis 10mo agoIt's been a long time since Apple was really the home for sane defaults for me. An easy example is how the workspaces rearrange themselves be mort recent use, and worse on iOS there's some seemingly random time interval at which they move themselves after use.
- dzhiurgis 10mo agoI keep wondering why they are not doing a "pro" edition of macOS. Especially focused on creatives vs developers. Already the case with hardware.
- decryption 10mo agoThis is what I am hoping Apple does with iOS and the Mac. iOS becomes the mainstream operating sytem and Mac is the "pro" operating system.
- Hammershaft 10mo agoI really don't find the macOS windowing or application handling defaults to be tasteful or competently designed. In order for me to work using macOS without constantly bemoaning what feel like obvious shortcomings I need aerospace and quite a few scripts.
- eviks 10mo agoAnd since they don't have tasteful defaults, what's your nonyakshaving way out?
- slurrpurr 10mo agoThat is a manner of personal taste. For me, the standard setup is good enough (TM).
- eviks 10mo agoOk, but presumably macos isn't made just for you, so your comment was also not just about yourself???
- slurrpurr 10mo agoYeah, macos works fine for most people. The silent majority just does their work and gets on with their day. Also, no need to become aggressive :)
- eviks 10mo agoMost people face most of these issues every day and suffer from them. Some do that silently, some don't even realize there is a better way, some even go so far as to project their ignorance onto everyone and dismiss improvements as a waste, making up silent majorities supposedly agreeing with them along the way.
- accrual 10mo ago> Of course, I still use the mouse. I’m not a zealot. Just wanted to add a fun anecdote. I had a coworker who seemed allergic to the keyboard. Bound almost every job function to a mouse macro. I joked that I'd come to work one day and all they'd have is a monitor and mouse on their desk, nothing else. They laughed but I got the feeling they'd do it if they could.
- tptacek 10mo agoI'm never going to use a tiling window manager, but I also never touch Mission Control (or Spotlight). I use Alfred.app to call things up; before Alfred.app, all the way back into the early aughts, I was using Quicksilver.app, which does the same thing. CMD-Space, type a couple letters, blam.
- chamomeal 10mo agoI am not a serious computer power user but raycast (also cmd + space + couple letters), cmd + tab, and cmd + ‘ get me around quick enough!
- AppleBananaPie 10mo ago+1 for Alfred I personally use a tiling window manager when I feel like it but also get how it's personal preference :)
- seg6 10mo agoI love and do the same thing with Raycast! But mostly with apps that do not have a designated "workspace". Most of the time, I only have Spotify, chat clients, my browser, and the terminal open. And I do prefer every one of them just having a fixed place behind a shortcut, which at this point is just muscle memory.
- brcmthrowaway 10mo agoSo you have a workspace for each of those? Do they persist after reboot? Do you use iTerm2 or Terminal.app, and tmux?
- seg6 10mo agoYes, exactly, a workspace for each one of those. A snippet from my Aerospace config: [[on-window-detected]] if.app-id = 'com.microsoft.teams2' run = 'move-node-to-workspace 7' [[on-window-detected]] if.app-id = 'com.hnc.Discord' run = 'move-node-to-workspace 8' [[on-window-detected]] if.app-id = 'com.spotify.client' run = 'move-node-to-workspace 9' They're 'persisted' in the sense that when I open them, they automatically open in their relevant workspace. You can also make them auto-start, so when your system boots up, they'll be in the right place.
- sleepybrett 10mo agoThere is a mission control swipe for 'just show me the focused apps windows' coupled with command-tab this solves his problem. But myself I just use quicksilver with a lot of features turned off.
- mrgoldenbrown 10mo agoThe goal is to be able to switch to a specific window without needing to see the screen. If his setup means cmd+1 takes him to the terminal every time, it's easier than cmd-tabbing through all n windows. Think of it as the difference between constant time and linear time.
- sleepybrett 10mo agobut in macos terminal can have multiple windows. if cmd-1 takes him to terminal, thats only half the problem
- bix6 10mo agoWhy do you need aerospace? I have browsers on desktop 1, music on 5, etc. I can jump to each numbered desktop with key binds. What am I missing? Same with raycast, is that just a command space replacement? Command tab / shift tab are huge favs for me when I’m cycling 2-3 apps. Vimium looks cool gonna try that out.
- Hammershaft 10mo agoI don't need aerospace but I find Mac windowing to have a lot of cumbersome design shortcomings. Long animations between spaces, fullscreen creating a new window at the end of the list (??), slow processes to tile windows and efficiently use space, a lot of shortcomings with multi monitor setups, lots of dragging via touchpad to move and size windows across spaces.
- smileson2 10mo agoIt's so silly and simple but when I use a mac the only thing I really want that's missing is the ability to have a dock on on each monitor when docked
- vorpalhex 10mo agoMake sure dock is on the bottom, right click, "show on each display".
- GolDDranks 10mo ago"But for 90% of web browsing, lifting my hand to the mouse is unnecessary friction" By this point, I realized that the OP uses a normal mouse. The MacBook trackpad is so good that I feel weird using a mouse these days. Also, the travel between the keyboard and trackpad is much smaller.
- daveidol 10mo agoI agree but barely ever use my MacBook not docked to my external monitor and keyboard. So for me I just stick to the Magic Trackpad in such cases.
- vardump 10mo agoMacbook trackpad is weird. On the other hand, it's excellent for most desktop tasks. But I just can't play almost any mouse-requiring game with it.
- seg6 10mo agoI really love the trackpad on the MacBook; it's been the best experience by a long shot coming from other laptops. The problem is, most of the time the MacBook is docked and I prefer to use my external keyboard and display. And Vimium is just very fun to use, especially if you're using Vim/Neovim/Helix.
- Spartan-S63 10mo agoFor that reason, my default docked setup uses a Magic Trackpad 2 alongside my keyboard so I can have the best of both worlds. I know it’s excessive, though, and not for everyone.
- johnthedebs 10mo agoThanks for sharing your process and config! I went on a pretty similar journey, though I've been on macOS the whole time. I've gotta say, Aerospace is one of my favorite pieces of software. It really makes it so much less tedious to move around my computer. I tried vimium and homerow too, and I liked them, but lately I've been using mouseless more (https://mouseless.click https://mouseless.click) and overall would recommend it.
- mattegan 10mo agoAerospace looks neat - might have to give it a try. However, honestly, 99% of my multitasking pain on MacOS comes from the un-removable ~300ms animation delay when switching spaces. "Reduced Motion" changes the animation to a fade and doesn't solve the problem. If I could instantaneously switch between virtual desktops I'd be so happy. I've wanted this for years.
- seg6 10mo agoAerospace is what you need! The exact reason I decided on sticking with it.
- Hammershaft 10mo agoAerospace solves this, and many other design problems with Mac OS windowing.
- plqbfbv 10mo ago> However, honestly, 99% of my multitasking pain on MacOS comes from the un-removable ~300ms animation delay when switching spaces. "Reduced Motion" changes the animation to a fade and doesn't solve the problem. That's basically why I stopped using them altogether. I'm using COSMIC DE now on my Linux systems, and while it also has animations, it doesn't look nearly as bad as MacOS. On MacOS I resorted to tiling and alt-tabbing my way through because of the delays. I don't want to wait for the window system to draw pointless animations, but I can't disable them. And then in Sequoia they implemented primitive tiling too and of course decided they HAD to add a non-configurable, impossible to disable resizing delay on tiling which nearly brought me to install a VM and use the MacBook as a glorified VM host (before Sequoia it used to be instant).
- namanyayg 10mo agoWhat's the best way to move between multiple windows of the same app? E.g. I have multiple Cursor folders open on different folders.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- smitelli 10mo agoYou mean something other than ⌘+` ?
- eviks 10mo agoThe following two ways should cover everything: 1) (can be visual) you can setup cmd-tab to move between apps and alt-tab to move between one windows within an app (for example with alt-tab app) 2) (non-visual) with your window management prefix key setup two left/right cursor pairs like "JK" and "M," and use one to switch apps and the other to switch windows within an app (or maybe JL and IK in the inverted T cursor unless you're using up/down for something else)
- treetalker 10mo agoTake a look at Witch by Many Tricks: https://manytricks.com/witch/ https://manytricks.com/witch/ Among other features that might solve your problem, it lets you use your keyboard to filter by window title.
- alaq 10mo agoLooks great! Can it find Chrome tabs?
- fainpul 10mo agocmd + ` (customize in Keyboard Shortcuts -> Keyboard -> "Move focus to next window") ctrl + downarrow (customize in Keyboard Shortcuts -> Mission Control -> "Application windows")
- jheriko 10mo ago[dead]
- nomilk 10mo ago> Bypassing the Mouse.. I use Vimium in the browser. Vimium seems great for navigation. Is there any way to get vim keybindings inside text boxes? (I looked at 'wasavi' chrome extension which hasn't been updated in 8 years [0] and the website's down [1]) [0] https://github.com/akahuku/wasavi https://github.com/akahuku/wasavi [1] http://appsweets.net/wasavi/ http://appsweets.net/wasavi/
- wonger_ 10mo agoI've heard of https://github.com/glacambre/firenvim https://github.com/glacambre/firenvim but I've also heard you might run into issues clashing with browser keybinds
- eviks 10mo agoYou could use real vim in there with ghosttext, but it's not a native integration, you'd have a separate editor window Another upside is (if your editor is properly setup to not lose data) that a page crash will never lose your precious long carefully crafted comment since it will persist in the editor
- nomilk 10mo agoAfter a miserable 30 min tussling with python dependencies, finally got it working. But it's very cool! Thank you. This message sent from neovim! :)
- stackghost 10mo ago>This turns navigation into muscle memory. Cmd-2 is not "Switch to Terminal"; Cmd-2 is just the physical reflex of "I want to code." I don't look. I just hit the key combination, and the active workspace changes. What happens when some app (like, say, the browser) binds Cmd+<number>? If I hit Cmd+2 right now it'd switch me to the second tab in firefox. Seems like a pain to have to rebind everything.
- seg6 10mo agoI've solved this (on Arc) by simply binding Prev/Next tab shortcuts to CMD+Shift+j/k, and have been pretty happy with it.
- treetalker 10mo agoIf you're interested in Homerow, check out Shortcat (free).
- bobchadwick 10mo agoI love Shortcat but it's too slow to be usable on my i5-based MacBook Pro. I have been using Wooshy instead, but I'll be checking out mouseless after seeing it mentioned here.
- treetalker 10mo agoStrange, I use it on the same setup and have no issues. I imagine you already know that the delay of the overlays can be reduced and eliminated in the settings. I recently nuked and paved that machine, though, and everything feels like it's running faster than before. I'm not familiar with Wooshy, so I'll have to check that out. Shortcat doesn't receive updates and for years there has been an indication that it would move from beta to licensed software (which I would happily pay for!), so I live in constant fear that it's on the road to abandonware.
- bobchadwick 10mo agoGood to know Shortcat is capable of working well on my laptop! I'll have to mess around with it. I think I have tinkered with the delay, so thanks for the tip on that. Wooshy is alright, but I think I prefer the hint-based approach to selecting a target.
- abuabara 10mo agowould you share your dot moon wallpaper? :)
- eviks 10mo ago> The "Where's Waldo" Problem What's your solution to finding one of 10 widows within an app?
- mathstuf 10mo agoAs someone who probably has a similar setup on Linux to the author: why do you have 10 windows for an app open? For me, grouping by app is terrible. Yes, they may all be "Terminal" or "Firefox" windows, but they are for very different things. I'd rather see things grouped by project regardless of "app". But that is what tagging window managers are for :) . Given that macOS forces that (IMO) braindead tunnel vision paradigm, I think the response should be "Wù".
- eviks 10mo ago> why do you have 10 windows for an app open? For example, because the app restores its state and you have a few "projects" within the app. > I'd rather see things grouped by project Ok, and what if that project is encapsulated in an app window? Why introduce an extra level of indirection for no reason and spend time configuring it? If you frequently need a set of "5 firefox tabs, 2 terminal tabs, 4 text editor tabs, each in a separate app window", sure, spend time tagging it, set it as a WM project and launch/activate it with a key, but not everything is like that.
- mathstuf 10mo agoIf you have projects that fit within an app, sure. I do not. The only "apps" seen on my machines are terminal windows hosting tmux processes and Firefox. Everything else is ephemeral (mpv, dialogs, rofi, dunst). App-centric behavior is just the wrong axis for this setup. I'm saying that given what details are there, I think the author is closer to "my" end of the spectrum than one where the question makes sense at all.
- eviks 10mo ago> I do not Ok, how does that address my initial question (which was not about you) then? Not everyone's setup is so primitive as to only be centered around two apps Though in this case I don't get what is so terrible about app groups if you don't group anything else anyway since it's ephemereal, so wouldn't any grouping work (except for 2 apps)?
- hyperjeff 10mo agoOne can make Spaces deterministic by turning off Automatically rearrange Spaces. Add keyboard shortcuts for quick access to each. On multi-display setups, you can have the whole group of displays work in lock-step on a project by turning off Displays have separate Spaces. These are the first two things I uncheck on a new system. Each Space can be dedicated to different projects using any number of apps instead of trying to correlate Spaces with specific apps. (Sadly, you can only have up to 16 Spaces.) Side plug, I have a utility that lets you associate names with each Space: https://github.com/hyperjeff/NameSpace https://github.com/hyperjeff/NameSpace (Apple should’ve made naming Spaces standard, but no.)
- tga 10mo agohttps://contexts.co https://contexts.co is another good way to jump around windows in macOS. You Cmd-Tab, release Tab but keep holding Cmd, and type the name or shortcut of the window. No preconfiguration necessary, it becomes automatic to just tell it what you want.