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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?

#141

Post by lloeki »

Well, because it has?

Hover over the green stoplight, you get a popover with fullscreen options.

Press Option and the fullscreen options mutate into snap left/snap right/zoom.

These can also be found in the Window menu. Again, press option to mutate the fullscreen ones to snap.

And since these are menu options, one can set any keyboard shortcut of their choosing through the keyboard shortcut prefpane+.

So it is not "snapping" in the sense that you drag the window to the left or right side of the screen, and I would 200% agree that it is completely non-obvious to discover, but it is there for any one to peruse without any third party tool.

+ See here for how to achieve that, section "Tiling and snapping" (along with more things to make first party things more sane for a certain crowd) https://lna7n.org/2021/04/16/a-survival-guide-to-macos-from-...

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

#142

Post by gamegoblin »

lloeki wrote: post #141

Well, because it has? Hover over the green stoplight, you get a popover with fullscreen options. Press Option and the fullscreen options mutate into snap left/snap right/zoom. These can also be found in the Window menu. Again, press option to mutate the fullscreen ones to snap. And since these are menu options, one can set any keyboard shortcut of their choosing through the keyboard shortcut prefpane+. So it is not "…

I've used a mac for 10 years now, and TIL

The Windows snapping UI is much more intuitive, though.

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

#143

Post by coolspot »

karlshea wrote: post #130
coolspot wrote: post #126

Same reason why Mac mouse doesn’t have right click and why ~double-click~ [edit: pressing “return”] on a folder is renaming, and why window controls are on a left side of a window and do things unlike MS Windows (not closing, not minimizing, not maximizing). Patents.

> double-click on a folder is renaming Uhh... not on my Mac? Hitting Return is rename, is that what you meant?

Ah, yes.

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

#144

Post by SamuelAdams »

guitarbill wrote: post #128
hartator wrote: post #102

I use Magnet which is sweet. https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/

Also Rectangle, which I moved to from Divvy: https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle

I use this too, but y’all are missing the point. I should not need third party tools like Rectangle and Mos to manage applications for an OS.

I’d much rather have this functionality built in than have a dozen new emojis every year.

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

#145

Post by LecroJS »

guitarbill wrote: post #128
hartator wrote: post #102

I use Magnet which is sweet. https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/

Also Rectangle, which I moved to from Divvy: https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle

+1 for Rectangle. It’s the first thing I install after homebrew on any new Mac. I came from Spectacle after EOL and was pleasantly surprised at the additional features (like window snapping) + support for Spectacle binds. If you want to try it out, it’s as easy as `brew install --cask rectangle`

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

#146

Post by mcluck »

donatj wrote: post #133
ralfd wrote: post #41

My go to example to explain the One True Mac Way of Window management is the “The many windows of John Siracusa” podcast from ATP a few years ago. The relevant discussion starts at 1:33:00 https://atp.fm/episodes/96 Siracusa, who grew up as a (classic) Mac user, explains his tiling and overlapping habits to Arment and Liss, who grew up as Microsoft Windows users and later switched, and they gasp in utter horror, shoc…

Windows users who just maximize everything all the time and get giant empty white bars on the sides of their browser shock me. What an insane waste of space. You see windows users with Ultrawides and a maximized browser where the site is centered and 90% of the width of the screen is serving nothing but site border and it just makes me scream. macOS replacing the “Zoom” stoplight buttons with “Full Screen” as the def…

What kills me about it is I can't find a way to keep my other monitors from blacking out. I usually have at least two screens, I would love to dedicate one completely to code while leaving the other in normal mode for documentation, references, etc.

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

#147

Post by porphyra »

I really wish there was an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS. Yes, I'm aware of Yabai and others, but it's still not quite the same. Tiling apps bolted onto macOS's floating windows still feel sluggish, window decorations take up lots of space and are easy to accidentally click on (ruining the tiling), animations are annoying, focus doesn't follow mouse, keyboard shortcuts sometimes conflict, and so on.

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

#149

Post by wryanzimmerman »

howinteresting wrote: post #124
rr842j wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have to meet anybody that is not at a minimum annoyed by the macos animations. I literally stopped using the spaces feature because of that!. The default animation got me dizzy all the time, but even with that one disabled via accessibility settings they keep a terribly slow fading animation. It's absolutely ridiculous for a professional machine to impose these things on you.

macOS is designed for mainstream users, not power users who want an efficient workflow with minimum distractions. This is why I stopped complaining about macOS and just use Linux.

I’m a power user who wants minimal distractions… OSX provides that just fine, my workflow is nearly identical between OSX and Linux because it’s just a full screen terminal.
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