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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?

#241

Post by fsckboy »

tangential question: is there some sort of add-on tool-let that would duplicate the

    File-Edit-*-Windows-Help
menu down onto the top of an app's window? Even if it only worked when that window had focus would be good enough for me. I hate going to the top of the screen, only to discover the wrong app has focus

are there a family of little doo-dads like this, and what is the category called?

also, aside, pet peeve: why is New Window always in the File menu, and never in the Window menu, from time immemorial?

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

#242

Post by s3p »

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 "…

That's awful. Instead of windows where you can BAM drag a window to one side and snap it in 0.2 seconds, you have to hover over the window, wait a second, press option, wait .1 second, figure out which option you want, mouse over to it, then finally click it. That's insane.

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

#243

Post by s3p »

alehlopeh wrote: post #170

Can an Ask HN self-post be clickbait? Apple isn’t refusing to do anything. They just haven’t done some minor thing that you personally would like. The fact that you’re “shocked” by something as banal as “lack of window snapping” is kind of funny actually.

Can an Ask HN response comment be off the mark? Apple is a trillion dollar company and no doubt has encountered this issue when their power users (and employees) look to get work done quickly.

They spent countless hours and dollars into making stage manager but don't implement a simple yet powerful feature.

The wrong question is why would someone want this. The right question is why hasn't Apple addressed it.

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

#244

Post by s3p »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #144
guitarbill wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed. Apple can implement this feature easily, and the fact that they have not done so reeks of poor business decisions. To the tune of... calculator for iPad...

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

#245

Post by s3p »

guitarbill wrote: post #160
SamuelAdams wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why not? I dislike the Windows snapping behaviour for halves. Most macOS casual users won't need it. These apps work great and allow a lot of customisability that an OS-level snap might not provide. I'm but sure having it built in would be all upshots.

This is like saying "no we don't need a calculator for iPad, the first thing I do is go to the app store and find my favorite 3rd party calculator. Apple doesn't need to make one. this is fine"

It's not that this is causing people to lose sleep. The issue is that it's an easy, tangible fix which would benefit a lot of power users. Also magnet costs money and window snapping in Win10/11 is free.

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

#246

Post by shortcake27 »

ShadowBanThis01 wrote: post #217
alehlopeh wrote: post #170

Can an Ask HN self-post be clickbait? Apple isn’t refusing to do anything. They just haven’t done some minor thing that you personally would like. The fact that you’re “shocked” by something as banal as “lack of window snapping” is kind of funny actually.

Apple refuses to do things all the time. Aside from the aforementioned window-management gaffes, here's what I think is the most ridiculous design defect of the iPhone, which I reported first as an engineer there and repeatedly as an independent dev: It does not provide audible notifications of MISSED CALLS. I mean... WTF? A 1990s StarTAC (and probably most other phones) provided this obvious feature. So did 1980s an…

If your parents had an emergency why would they call once and only once?

Every person thinks that their missing feature is the most important feature ever and they’re mad Apple hasn’t implemented it yet. You have even resorted to incorrectly labelling a nonexistent feature as a bug. Imagine what iOS would be like if Apple actually implemented the billions of niche edge-case features like this. It would be an absolute disaster.

I’m glad that Apple sticks to their guns instead of bending to loud niche users.

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

#247

Post by rxhanson »

nxpnsv wrote: post #23
victorbohr wrote: post #10

I use Rectangle for this. Works like a charm. https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle

I use magnet^1, should I be using rectangle? ^1: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magnet/id441258766?mt=12

I'm the developer behind Rectangle. There are a handful of features in Rectangle that aren't in Magnet, like being able to repeat shortcuts to achieve different sizes/positions, and being able to modify a lot more of the behavior of the app (there are more settings, and there are terminal commands listed on the readme of the GitHub repo). The main draw is that Rectangle is FOSS, which comes with obvious benefit.

Beyond that, Rectangle Pro (paid, closed source) is where I've put a ton more features. You can find Rectangle & Rectangle Pro at https://rectangleapp.com

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

#248

Post by pjmlp »

ShadowBanThis01 wrote: post #217
alehlopeh wrote: post #170

Can an Ask HN self-post be clickbait? Apple isn’t refusing to do anything. They just haven’t done some minor thing that you personally would like. The fact that you’re “shocked” by something as banal as “lack of window snapping” is kind of funny actually.

Apple refuses to do things all the time. Aside from the aforementioned window-management gaffes, here's what I think is the most ridiculous design defect of the iPhone, which I reported first as an engineer there and repeatedly as an independent dev: It does not provide audible notifications of MISSED CALLS. I mean... WTF? A 1990s StarTAC (and probably most other phones) provided this obvious feature. So did 1980s an…

Apparently one would consider macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS real applications, written by developers.

Or maybe they just appear out of thin air, created by pixie dust.

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

#250

Post by modeless »

derefr wrote: post #129
modeless wrote: post #12

What about that interminable animation every time you fullscreen a window or switch between fullscreen windows? It should be at least twice as fast and there's not even any way to hack it to speed it up. You just have to live with it. ("reduce motion" changes it to a crossfade but doesn't make it faster) While we're at it, the Dock has always been bad. And the top menu bar was good for the original Macintosh with a t…

Maybe it's inherently slow, because it's a "loading transition" like in video games. Takes a second for the new backing virtual desktop to be allocated, and for the window to potentially grab new assets to redraw (think: resizing iMovie window larger ⇒ larger timeline preview ⇒ re-rendering timeline thumbnails); and the animation plays on the old desktop while this is going on in the background on the new desktop, so…

These rationalizations don't justify it. The animation still has ugly pop-in and jerkiness despite being so slow and despite the fact that most apps can relayout and redraw their window in a tiny fraction of the time that animation takes. And screen sharing shouldn't make things slow when you're not using it.

Anyway, I'd trade a bit of pop-in for a faster computer if that was necessary. There's no excuse to not offer that choice even as a power user "defaults write" option.

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