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Show HN: Phoenix – a macOS window and app manager scriptable with JavaScript

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Re: Show HN: Phoenix – a macOS window and app manager scriptable with JavaScript

#51

Post by Fnoord »

bobwaycott wrote: post #50
Fnoord wrote: post #48

Spectacle is another alternative on macOS [1]. There's also Amethyst. I'm not sure which one's best. It is a matter of getting used to the default keybinds IMO. With Spectacle, the default keybinds are using Alt and Cmd as super key. I like that one; I rather keep Caps Lock as Esc (else I'd use it as Ctrl). As for i3, there's a backwards compatible Wayland successor called Sway [2]. [1] https://github.com/eczarny/spe…

> I rather keep Caps Lock as Esc (else I'd use it as Ctrl). Why not both? My caps is esc when pressed alone, but it’s ctrl when pressed in combination with other keys. :)

Yeah, I'm using that, but I find it does not work well under high load.

Re: Show HN: Phoenix – a macOS window and app manager scriptable with JavaScript

#52

Post by zackmorris »

I grew up in the 80s during the era of MacroMaker and QuickKeys, when you could just hit the record button and make macros to play back sequences of mouse and keyboard events. It was especially useful in programs like Photoshop before they added their own macro systems. I'm having trouble finding links about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_6#MacroMaker

http://basalgangster.macgui.com/RetroMacComputing/The_Long_V...

The frontier was to eventually make everything scriptable and deterministic by getting more apps to have hooks that could be controlled directly (so like a specific command to click the close box of a window for example, rather than sending a click event right and down from the top left corner).

Anyway, this whole concept of how to use computers seems to be all but dead today and I can't help but feel that something of tremendous value has been lost. Please, if you ever write macro tools like Phoenix, add a record feature.

Re: Show HN: Phoenix – a macOS window and app manager scriptable with JavaScript

#53

Post by l_t »

zackmorris wrote: post #52

I grew up in the 80s during the era of MacroMaker and QuickKeys, when you could just hit the record button and make macros to play back sequences of mouse and keyboard events. It was especially useful in programs like Photoshop before they added their own macro systems. I'm having trouble finding links about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_6#MacroMaker http://basalgangster.macgui.com/RetroMacComputing/The_Lo…

It does seem like we've realized that GUIs are not really the most automation-friendly way to interact with programs. But there are a lot of nice macro tools out there still.

For Windows, there is a macro scripting language Autohotkey [0], which has powerful recording GUIs built on it [1]. Although it doesn't support application-specific hooks that I'm aware of, it does allow introspection into the rendered GUI of the application, so you can "click a button" instead of "click a pixel".

OS X has Keyboard Maestro [2], which I've heard is good.

Also, many keyboards have macro recording built in. My Ducky keyboard can record and save macros with no custom software/driver needed. (the macros can even include mouse clicks, but that's a little janky.)

As a final note, I think the place I've seen macro recording still used the most is in gaming. In most other areas of computing, it's seen as preferable to make a special-purpose utility to solve a problem instead of building layers of automation on top of a more general-purpose tool.

(btw, this is just based on my personal experience -- I love automation so I've never been far from the macro-space. I'm not trying to argue against your point.)

[0]: https://www.autohotkey.com/

[1]: https://www.macrocreator.com/

[2]: https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/

Re: Show HN: Phoenix – a macOS window and app manager scriptable with JavaScript

#54

Post by OJFord »

Sir_Omnomnom wrote: post #20
athorax wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had a pretty stable setup using yabai[0] for my wm and skhd[1] for my hotkey daemon. Both are by the same dev and I have nothing but good things to say about them. Occasionally windows will get in a wonky state, but I have a hot key to reset them. It is usually stable for a week+ [0] https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai [1] https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd

I've been using yabai and skhd for about a week, I was wondering what you are using for your menu bar? I'm not really sure about a suitable replacement for something like i3bar coming from Linux.

I'm not the user you replied to, but have you tried yabai's built-in one?

I haven't had any issue with it coming from i3bar/polybar, but then I don't really do anything specific with it, just time and battery.

Re: Show HN: Phoenix – a macOS window and app manager scriptable with JavaScript

#55

Post by OJFord »

travolter wrote: post #44
athorax wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had a pretty stable setup using yabai[0] for my wm and skhd[1] for my hotkey daemon. Both are by the same dev and I have nothing but good things to say about them. Occasionally windows will get in a wonky state, but I have a hot key to reset them. It is usually stable for a week+ [0] https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai [1] https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd

"Usually stable for a week" does not sound great..

Not GP, but that's better than my Mac as a whole. Weird OS issues with the trackpad, login, or fan/cpu/ram usage despite nothing big running necessitate a restart at least once a week.

Re: Show HN: Phoenix – a macOS window and app manager scriptable with JavaScript

#57

Post by bryanrasmussen »

l_t wrote: post #53
zackmorris wrote: post #52

I grew up in the 80s during the era of MacroMaker and QuickKeys, when you could just hit the record button and make macros to play back sequences of mouse and keyboard events. It was especially useful in programs like Photoshop before they added their own macro systems. I'm having trouble finding links about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_6#MacroMaker http://basalgangster.macgui.com/RetroMacComputing/The_Lo…

It does seem like we've realized that GUIs are not really the most automation-friendly way to interact with programs. But there are a lot of nice macro tools out there still. For Windows, there is a macro scripting language Autohotkey [0], which has powerful recording GUIs built on it [1]. Although it doesn't support application-specific hooks that I'm aware of, it does allow introspection into the rendered GUI of th…

For automation I like to have at least something like AutoHotKey or Sikuli, because there will always come up little temporary tasks that are time limited that you don't have the time to learn the apis needed to automate it before the whole task is supposed to be done, but the task itself is still so tedious and time consuming that it might run over time if not automated.

Re: Show HN: Phoenix – a macOS window and app manager scriptable with JavaScript

#58

Post by samatman »

OJFord wrote: post #55
travolter wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Usually stable for a week" does not sound great..

Not GP, but that's better than my Mac as a whole. Weird OS issues with the trackpad, login, or fan/cpu/ram usage despite nothing big running necessitate a restart at least once a week.

I'm in the same boat and it sucks.

I had 240 days of uptime on my G5 Mac Pro at one point.

I doubt we'll ever see that kind of stability in macOS again, and it makes me sad.

Re: Show HN: Phoenix – a macOS window and app manager scriptable with JavaScript

#59

Post by lrizzo »

synthecypher wrote: post #56

What can this do that Spectacle can't? Long time Spectacle user and JavaScript developer here. https://www.spectacleapp.com/

I have been using Spectacle for ages (with a custom javascript config, another post...). The problem is, Spectacle uses a 32bit API that is scheduled to go away and I am afraid that at some point (or 10.15 already?) it will stop working.

Re: Show HN: Phoenix – a macOS window and app manager scriptable with JavaScript

#60

Post by capableweb »

l_t wrote: post #53
zackmorris wrote: post #52

I grew up in the 80s during the era of MacroMaker and QuickKeys, when you could just hit the record button and make macros to play back sequences of mouse and keyboard events. It was especially useful in programs like Photoshop before they added their own macro systems. I'm having trouble finding links about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_6#MacroMaker http://basalgangster.macgui.com/RetroMacComputing/The_Lo…

It does seem like we've realized that GUIs are not really the most automation-friendly way to interact with programs. But there are a lot of nice macro tools out there still. For Windows, there is a macro scripting language Autohotkey [0], which has powerful recording GUIs built on it [1]. Although it doesn't support application-specific hooks that I'm aware of, it does allow introspection into the rendered GUI of th…

> It does seem like we've realized that GUIs are not really the most automation-friendly way to interact with programs. But there are a lot of nice macro tools out there still.

Yeah, in general the opinion seems to be "you want to manually do stuff, use a GUI. If you want automation, use the API of either a server-side backend or CLI tool", but there is a huge segment of users that are between that. Imagine power users that don't know how to program. For them to be able to quickly record > playback some common thing they do, would save a lot of time and be valuable

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