Show HN: Phoenix – a macOS window and app manager scriptable with JavaScript • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by tsss » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 12:27 PM UTC

athorax wrote: post #9

city41 wrote: post #6

The window api makes me think one could pretty easily create an i3 like window manager. But my past experience with OSX window managers like amethyst has been subpar. Often the sizing/positioning is taken more as a “suggestion” by the window than a command. I also found eventually windows would get into a bad state. Has window management on OSX improved in the past couple years? On Linux with X11, window managers tru…

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

It really doesn't work that well especially on small screens. Spotify for example has a minimum size and will be unusable when the tile is smaller than that because half the window isn't visible. Focus-follows-mouse is also broken when using multiple screens and workspaces.

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

#42

Post by unfunco » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 12:41 PM UTC

gingerlime wrote: post #33

greyskull wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cmd+Backtick (next to 1 key) lets you swap between windows of the same application. Is that what you're looking for?

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...

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.

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

#43

Post by travolter » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 1:00 PM UTC

jrs95 wrote: post #31

> JavaScript Dear god, why? Don’t I have to suffer enough in my day job? For real though this is a cool project despite my own personal JavaScript fatigue.

Sounds like you need another job.

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

#44

Post by travolter » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 1:00 PM UTC

athorax wrote: post #9

city41 wrote: post #6

The window api makes me think one could pretty easily create an i3 like window manager. But my past experience with OSX window managers like amethyst has been subpar. Often the sizing/positioning is taken more as a “suggestion” by the window than a command. I also found eventually windows would get into a bad state. Has window management on OSX improved in the past couple years? On Linux with X11, window managers tru…

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..

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

#45

Post by jonfw » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

ketzo wrote: post #2

Interesting, I need to check this out. I currently use Amethyst[1], and while I like it, it’s definitely got some bugs/performance issues. I’ve also heard people use chunkwm with good results, but haven’t tried it myself. [1]ianyh.com/amethyst

Yabai is the tool that replaced chunkWM, made by the same guy. You'd probably want that one.

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

#46

Post by newscracker » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 2:06 PM UTC

fabiospampinato wrote: post #39

Here's my configuration for Phoenix (with gifs): https://github.com/fabiospampinato/phoenix You might find it useful as a starting point or as a source of inspiration.

I got your link from an older post about Phoenix on HN. It’s really well done (as some replies to you on the older thread said)!

Have you, by any chance, tried Hammerspoon (hammerspoon.org)? That seems to be tool with a broader feature set compared to Phoenix. I was looking for some kind of well analyzed and written comparison.

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

#47

Post by robenkleene » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 2:35 PM UTC

You can do a lot of this stuff without a full app, you just need a way to trigger an AppleScript with a keyboard shortcut. This is my framework for this approach. https://github.com/robenkleene/windowpane

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

#48

Post by Fnoord » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

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/spectacle

[2] https://github.com/swaywm/sway

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

#49

Post by ken » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #38

jrs95 wrote: post #31

> JavaScript Dear god, why? Don’t I have to suffer enough in my day job? For real though this is a cool project despite my own personal JavaScript fatigue.

It could be worse, it could have been AppleScript.

Wouldn't that be better? Anything you can script with AppleScript (OSA) you can also script with JavaScript, but not the other way around.

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

#50

Post by bobwaycott » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

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. :)