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AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

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Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#11

Post by wizhi »

gray_-_wolf wrote: post #6

I will be getting my first mac soon (I am still sad about it), which means I will need to figure out the WM. Currently I am considering yabai and amethyst. I guess now I should add AeroSpace to the list. If you are actually using tiling WM on mac, could you share which one and why?

I've been there, being forced to use it for work..

I tried both Yabai and Amethyst and, frankly, neither provide a clean experience.

Yabai requires disabling some OS security feature iirc, which may or may not be an issue for you. I seem to recall having issues with it, and switching to Amethyst pretty soon after. It might also only support BSP layout, which I dislike - stacks all the way.

Amethyst feels a little half baked. It works well enough, but configuration is through a GUI and saved in some non text format, making it not difficult friendly. It also doesn't support things like moving windows between workspaces, meaning you need to have additional bindings for that through the MacOS command center or whatever it's called.

Overall, I managed with Amethyst for close to 2 years, so that's the one I'd recommend of the two. Luckily I'm back on a Linux machine and can use river now. :)

Good luck!

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#12

Post by jwells89 »

anonzzzies wrote: post #10

I have been trying this for a few months now. I3 is quite perfect and Aerospace is a nice try, but it’s very far from i3; it’s quite flaky. I guess this is because Mac OS X doesn’t actually allow full control like Unix WMs do? I have not found anything better though, but I will install Linux when it’s working well on Apple Silicon. Only i3 is at least for me enough reason to use Linux as Mac OS X, again imho, is terr…

Having dabbled in some of this for a hobby project (not a window manager, but adjacent), it’s because the official APIs to do these things with are limited. You end up relying a lot on undocumented private APIs and hacks, which are flaky both due to their undocumented internal-use nature and because the OS isn’t designed to play nice with significant meddling with window/process management, which results in the OS and third party app frequently stepping on each others’ toes.

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#13

Post by happymellon »

andrewla wrote: post #9
gray_-_wolf wrote: post #6

I will be getting my first mac soon (I am still sad about it), which means I will need to figure out the WM. Currently I am considering yabai and amethyst. I guess now I should add AeroSpace to the list. If you are actually using tiling WM on mac, could you share which one and why?

For what it's worth, I don't think there's a lot of value in these. I hate the MacOS environment as much as anyone, but all the attempts to create tiling managers have resulted in strange unusable quirky behavior. You're better off just sucking it up and using the native UI until you get sufficiently familiar with it that it rarely gets in your way too much. Meanwhile keep lobbying your employer (assuming that you ar…

Completely agree with this take.

No matter how sophisticated these Mac Window Managers get, MacOS will always mess with the windows because it knows better than you. That's why people buy Macs, and it's not going to change. If you don't like this, then you actually don't like Macs.

It's opinionated, and it's opinions do not match yours. I would have liked window snapping, but instead we have 1/2 baked split screen virtual desktops.

I simply don't understand why people use them for development environments, the "Unix underneath" doesn't help enough in enough scenarios when it's hostile in so many others.

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#14

Post by felixgallo »

avidphantasm wrote: post #8

Can we stop pissing and moaning about notarization? macOS isn’t Linux and this isn’t 1994. Given the cybersecurity threats of the world today, signing by a central authority makes some amount of sense for apps on consumer OSes.

What do you think signing does to prevent against 'the cybersecurity threats of the world today'?

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#15

Post by happymellon »

wizhi wrote: post #11
gray_-_wolf wrote: post #6

I will be getting my first mac soon (I am still sad about it), which means I will need to figure out the WM. Currently I am considering yabai and amethyst. I guess now I should add AeroSpace to the list. If you are actually using tiling WM on mac, could you share which one and why?

I've been there, being forced to use it for work.. I tried both Yabai and Amethyst and, frankly, neither provide a clean experience. Yabai requires disabling some OS security feature iirc, which may or may not be an issue for you. I seem to recall having issues with it, and switching to Amethyst pretty soon after. It might also only support BSP layout, which I dislike - stacks all the way. Amethyst feels a little hal…

> It also doesn't support things like moving windows between workspaces

It's been a while since I used Amethyst as the Mac is now on complete corporate lockdown, but I remember that being the biggest feature I used on Amethyst. MacOS doesn't support it, but Amethyst did.

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#16

Post by JZL003 »

I use yabai pretty heavily, for the past 5 macos versions without disabling SIP on a work computer. I really like it, the tiling is flaky only maybe once every few days (I am doing yabai commands probably once a minute at least) so I bound a keystroke to `yabai --restart-service` and it always comes back immediately

So I find it really pretty reliable and pretty great. Multimonitor is hard and I don't use it much, but having stacks and fast 'full-screen' to minimize is so great

On some version upgrades, work antivirus thinks it's a virus so disables it for 24 hours, and I hate using my computer those days, it feels so clunky and sad

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#17

Post by torstenvl »

andrewla wrote: post #3

I'm reluctant to try this -- my experience with other attempts to try out tiling window managers on MacOS is that the just don't play nice. Windows get repositioned by normal interactions and the window manager is not able to wrangle them, and connecting external monitors is a disaster, and you end up with a situation where windows are overlapping in odd ways but you can't move them out of the way because the window…

I've never ever had that happen with Rectangle or Magnet.

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#18

Post by namdnay »

gray_-_wolf wrote: post #6

I will be getting my first mac soon (I am still sad about it), which means I will need to figure out the WM. Currently I am considering yabai and amethyst. I guess now I should add AeroSpace to the list. If you are actually using tiling WM on mac, could you share which one and why?

I'm not an expert, but isn't Rectangle the simplest and easiest way to manage this? I love it

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#19

Post by torstenvl »

gray_-_wolf wrote: post #6

I will be getting my first mac soon (I am still sad about it), which means I will need to figure out the WM. Currently I am considering yabai and amethyst. I guess now I should add AeroSpace to the list. If you are actually using tiling WM on mac, could you share which one and why?

It isn't i3-like, more window snapping than fractal tiling, but I really like Rectangle. I used Magnet previously and also liked it.

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#20

Post by jitl »

What is the difference in user experience between this and Yabai? I don’t think the SIP issues for Yabai is a big one, no one I know who uses Yabai disables SIP, and they seem to enjoy it.

Is the i3 stuff the difference?

Personally I use a utility that allows resizing and moving windows with the mouse from anywhere on the window when holding a modifier combination, like Fluxbox. Not as automatic, but also never flaky - more like making floating much easier with less mouse movement than moving to a totally managed style.

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