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Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

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Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#71

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #54

I think the Apple Vision Pro is a good example of why snapping makes no sense. In this environment, your screen is basically the entire world around you, it can be as big as you want. Would you want to divide this into neat rectangles filling your entire view ? If your screen is that large, you basically size your windows to fit the content and then arrange them spatially into something that makes sense to you. The d…

i use a linux machine all day (kde neon). like 15 hours a day. i use "maximize" on any program i work with. not fullscreen but maximize so i have access to the taskbar in the bottom without having to go out of full screen. i "sometimes" do snapped windows or quarters but i find it too much information overload and the programs i work with often just dont like in half the screen. anyway, the problem is,

i have tried mac os but they either want you to randomly place windows here and there but that feels "weird".

fullscreen has trouble going in and out and randomly placing windows feels cheating with the work you are doing. mac os doesn;t have the middle ground

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#73

Post by sys_64738 »

rspoerri wrote: post #67
febeling wrote: post #5

Just use Rectangle app https://rectangleapp.com/

I use tiles ( https://www.sempliva.com/tiles/ ). I don't know the difference, but apparently when i setup my computer i found that solution.

Rectangle.app is open source but Not sure about tiles.app

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#74

Post by sys_64738 »

djfdat wrote: post #55

From my relatively short experience but ongoing with Mac, MacOS lacks a lot of features that Windows has. It has many inferior options that people just accept. Some people find third party software or modifying plists to bend the operating system to their will. As much as I hate many many many design choices in Apple's ecosystems, I adjust where I can and move on.

Some of the Windows choices are horrendous. Alt-tab to switch apps actually switches between browser tabs in Edge. It's really confusing. There's a litany of other problems too like virtual desktops move all screens instead of just the screen with the cursor, so it's unusable. There's also a case where certain actions with the mouse cause all the windows to vanish. I mean, what was that. Then there's that window history thing which is baffling to use.

macOS has its demons but Windows just plain is confusing.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#75

Post by sys_64738 »

Windows also struggles with moving windows between a 4K laptop and a 1080p display. The window chugs to reshape into the display resolution but the most bizarre is moving a window to 1080p then clicking maximize but it just to the 4K display in max resolution. I mean WTF is that? How the heck do you easily move the window between different resolutions with it doing the "right" thing, not the stupid thing?

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#76

Post by the-printer »

Productivity-wise, Stage Manager is a step in the right direction in my opinion. I don't think that the macOS desktop environment needs a snapping/tiling window manager. Conceptually however, the best third-party window manager is spoonfish. But Rectangle suffices for certain tasks.

https://github.com/jcs/spoonfish

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#77

Post by djfdat »

sys_64738 wrote: post #74
djfdat wrote: post #55

From my relatively short experience but ongoing with Mac, MacOS lacks a lot of features that Windows has. It has many inferior options that people just accept. Some people find third party software or modifying plists to bend the operating system to their will. As much as I hate many many many design choices in Apple's ecosystems, I adjust where I can and move on.

Some of the Windows choices are horrendous. Alt-tab to switch apps actually switches between browser tabs in Edge. It's really confusing. There's a litany of other problems too like virtual desktops move all screens instead of just the screen with the cursor, so it's unusable. There's also a case where certain actions with the mouse cause all the windows to vanish. I mean, what was that. Then there's that window hist…

Alt-tab to switch between browser tabs in Edge is new, a setting that you can turn off, and in some cases, it's actually very useful, since you can limit the number of tabs. It lets me treat recent tabs the same way as I would treat recent applications, which many websites effectively are. But anyways, that choice is made available to you.

I don't currently use multiple monitors, but I do use virtual desktops, and... that's exactly how I would expect virtual desktops to behave? If it only changed a single monitor, does that mean you'd have to go to each monitor to change to a different virtual desktop? Do you see virtual desktop configurations specific to each screen, or any screen? What happens if your screens are different resolutions. I think that Windows again has the superior implementation here.

Aero shake was pretty terrible, no arguments here.

The window history thing, Timeline, is something that I have disabed, but honestly sounds like an even better version of Recent Files, which is something many people use and might like something more full featured.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#79

Post by jitl »

djfdat wrote: post #69
D13Fd wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what? I use both every day, hard to think of any major features for my usage other than snapping that Mac OS lacks.

- Peek at desktop - Quick hide-all-windows to copy something from your desktop to your clipboard, then bring everything back - Alt-tab, especially when it comes to apps with multiple windows, and windows in different states, such as minimized - A modern/fully-featured default web browser without a locked down extension ecosystem. - A start menu for seeing all your applications - A taskbar with application grouping -…

Desktop peek: Part of “Mission Control”: spread thumb and 3 fingers, or press Fn+F11.

Alt tab: press cmd-tab to cycle applications, then cmd-` to cycle windows of that application. This typically has better number-of-keypress to get the window you want compared to Windows alt-tab which requires iterating over all windows in the worst case.

Browser: Safari is fits your criteria

Start menu to see all apps: this is called “Launchpad”, and is in the Dock by default for new macOS users, but can be removed.

Uninstall vs delete: apps installed from the Mac App Store can be uninstalled from launchpad. Otherwise, isn’t “apps are files, drag to install, cmd-delete or drag to trash to uninstall” objectively simpler than using a wizard to install, and digging around in a control panel to uninstall?

Function key row: you can swap the behavior of the fn row so that the keys send Fn1-Fn12 by default, and needs the fn key held down to send commands like “volume up”.

Settings layout: this one is opinion; I’ve always found Windows settings horribly organized. From 2001-2007, there’s no contest that System Preferences is better organized than Windows XP’s control panel. From 2007-2015, the Vista-era control panel split things awkwardly between the “new style” Vista panels and old-style windows XP/2000/98 panels. Since Windows 10 things are on more even footing in my view, although some details in macOS Network and Displays are annoyingly hidden in some versions.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#80

Post by sys_64738 »

djfdat wrote: post #77
sys_64738 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the Windows choices are horrendous. Alt-tab to switch apps actually switches between browser tabs in Edge. It's really confusing. There's a litany of other problems too like virtual desktops move all screens instead of just the screen with the cursor, so it's unusable. There's also a case where certain actions with the mouse cause all the windows to vanish. I mean, what was that. Then there's that window hist…

Alt-tab to switch between browser tabs in Edge is new, a setting that you can turn off, and in some cases, it's actually very useful, since you can limit the number of tabs. It lets me treat recent tabs the same way as I would treat recent applications, which many websites effectively are. But anyways, that choice is made available to you. I don't currently use multiple monitors, but I do use virtual desktops, and...…

I want all these turned off by default and not need to stumble through trying to figure out how to disable them. Windows now feels like using Android where you need to google first to figure out how to modify something. In terms of virtual desktops, having independent control per monitor is so elementary that it makes the feature pretty useless otherwise.
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