There are a few other recommendations for a non-native option - but my preferred one is Raycast. You get a launcher that does 100 other things plus hot key management of windows.
Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
351–360 of 573 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
#352Can 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.
I am a Mac user for many years now. The first thing I always set up is Magnet. A third party app that allows me to have proper window management. So yes, in my opinion it really is shocking if even Windows manages to have a better user experience in something so basic, for more than 10(?) years.
Alternative options include Rectangle (free and open source) and Raycast which is a Spotlight replacement but also includes window management
Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I would HATE if my phone kept on informing me of missed calls or messages when I’ve put it down somewhere. I’ll check it in my terms; that’s why it’s not in my hand
One of my previous (Android) phones had a red light that would blink if there was a missed call or message. I found it extremely convenient.
Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just a far more opinionated OS. Always "my way or the highway". MacOS doesnt have a good window manager because it was designed for every app to be Fullscreen and then use three or four finger scroll to switch apps. The designers really want you to use their preferred way of managing windows so they make the traditional method suck.
The roots of MacOS UI principles date back to the 1980s. Even the current UNIX based MacOS was created in 1999 based off of the Next OS. Multi-finger gestures were introduced with the iPhone in 2007, and eventually made their way onto laptops. Not only is MacOS 10 / 11 not based on multi-finger gestures, you can only use gestures if you are using a laptop or an Apple touchpad. The default mode of using MacOS is mouse…
Ok? They abandoned their roots and went all in on the trackpad gestures. I'm not saying it's the right choice, it's just the one apple made.
Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
#355Can 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.
Almost everyone I know immediately installs a third-party app to handle windows when they get their Mac. That includes me.
I am extremely confident that this is not true. Either that or you don't know a single person who doesn't work in tech.
Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
#356This appears every now and then on HN. Window management in macOS is superficially similar but profoundly different from Windows or most Linux DEs. It's got a fixed menu bar which windows are independent from. That alone already changes a lot and has deep implications. My advice is to learn how and why it's different instead of trying to make it behave as something it's not. Waiting for Apple to turn it into a chimer…
Different enough, fine! Would you please kindly provide a reference to a guide explaining the right way to operate macOS windows, preferably with some explanation of the concepts behind it. and the advantages it offers over the established practices known from elsewhere? E.g. vi navigation is pretty different from Notepad's, but it's relatively easy to make a case when it shows certain advantages. What are the superp…
The current iteration of macOS was designed to make heavy use of spaces and Fullscreen apps. Notepad/finder/settings haphazard on a desktop space or 2 and everything else fullscreen and use the trackpad gestures to switch between them. That's how the designers want you to use macOS. If you prefer windows style tiling you can get one of the third party window managers.
Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you look at old screenshots of how people used desktop computers [1], it was rare to see fullscreen windows, even on the tiny monitors of the day, and when most people used only a single monitor. Today, we all have gigantic monitors, many have more than one, but for whatever reason people want to maximize or tile windows. Maybe it's the influence of the fullscreen only, unitasking paradigm from phones and tablet c…
>Maybe it's the influence of the fullscreen only, unitasking paradigm from phones and tablet computers, but it just doesn't make much sense to me on a desktop computer. Completely the opposite. It's the influence of having computers powerful enough to have massive multitasking. Arranging windows like papers on a desk is easy when you have a handful of simple programs and a couple of browser windows - it's very differ…
Windowing was a core part of classic MacOS applications, the application was decoupled from its windows, since the application was a composition of windows. It's very different from the MS Windows or tablet UI paradigms where an application and its main window are the same thing.
For example, Photoshop, your photo document was contained in a window, your tool palettes were windows, etc. If you were viewing a reference image, you could have that open in a separate window alongside the image you were working on, rather than having to switch tabs or switch windows.
Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
#358Well, 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 "…
Also, there's Magnet which does KDE-like window snapping since ages. It's not expensive, works flawlessly and doesn't tax your system in any way.
Rectangle does the same thing and it's free to use. First thing I install on a fresh Mac.
Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
#359I think this comes down to Apple's envisaged window management paradigm being centered around full-screen windows. In Apple's UX view, it seems like you're meant to maximize windows to "spaces", and switch between workspaces using a few gestures (4 finger swipes mainly) to reveal all windows, and swap between workspaces that way. Rectangle, as others have pointed out, give you the "snap" experience you would expect f…
lol you couldn't be more wrong. Back in the classic Mac days, Apple was so anti-full-screen-environment that most apps had floating toolbars and the document windows were minimal and freestanding. (ircle and office:mac 2000 or older would be my first examples, but I believe photoshop worked the same). MS did it because.. I think Windows used to only support 1 window per program or something. That's why old versions o…
And then in 2010 they came out with macOS 10 and went back on all that.
Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am a Mac user for many years now. The first thing I always set up is Magnet. A third party app that allows me to have proper window management. So yes, in my opinion it really is shocking if even Windows manages to have a better user experience in something so basic, for more than 10(?) years.
I also use Magnet - it's great and I would hate to be without it. But at this point it's bizarre that I still have to install a third party app to get such a basic UI feature.
I actually prefer that they don't build it in. I just wish that the APIs for working with windows were a bit more robust so we could get better performance out of applications that do something less trivial than moving a window to the left side of the screen.
Things like Amethyst and Yabai are really slow, especially when you compare it against auto tiling wms in linux. I don't even want auto tiling, I just want a more performant way to perform window movements and to query the state of the space so you can swap windows around or move directionally between windows on the screen.
When the OS starts creating new shortcuts that cannot be altered, it becomes a headache. I'd point out the majority of Windows' winkey shortcuts, like one to activate the gaming menu or to bug you about microsoft office as examples.
No operating system has a complete, sane stack when it comes to dealing with window management, but I do appreciate that the choice for window management apps in MacOS is extensive and diverse.