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Show HN: FlashSpace – fast, open-source, macOS Spaces replacement

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Re: Show HN: FlashSpace – fast, open-source, macOS Spaces replacement

#31

Post by atombender »

wojciech-kulik wrote: post #20
matanrubin wrote: post #19

The biggest pain point with macOS spaces is how it handles multiple windows of the same app. It drives me crazy. What is FlashSpace’s approach for solving this?

Could you explain what you mean? The app only allows assigning the whole app to a specific workspace. So you can't have one window of the same app in workspace A and another in workspace B. It's done this way because it's the most efficient way so far, but of course I understand that sometimes people may want to have multiple windows in different workspaces. I'm going to investigate a possibility to manage apps on a…

Not OP, but the way I use macOS Spaces is to differentiate between work and private. I use Chrome for both, so I have some Chrome windows in my work space, and some in my private space. I do similar things for other apps like iTerm. It's an important feature. I once tried having two different browsers for work/private, but it was a chore to manage which browser I opened links in, so I gave up.

My biggest problem with Spaces is that it never remembers which space anything is in. When I reboot, everything is in the wrong space and has to be moved around.

Re: Show HN: FlashSpace – fast, open-source, macOS Spaces replacement

#33

Post by rplnt »

whatever1 wrote: post #21

This is awesome. But Apple needs to get their act together. Window management, specially in multi monitor/ space setups is unbelievably bad. What is the purpose of the dock? It does not tell you what apps have windows visible, preview these windows or inform you where these windows are. Absolute waste of screen real estate. And to add to the injury they seized another 10% of the horizontal space for the even more use…

They make more money that way, by having terrible desktop ux that needs to be supplemented with dozen of extra apps. Not sure if that was their intention, but they do.

Re: Show HN: FlashSpace – fast, open-source, macOS Spaces replacement

#34

Post by CharlesW »

wrs wrote: post #13

Will this, or anything else, make Safari restore its windows to the spaces they were in when it quit? Chrome does better but only succeeds part of the time. This is so annoying that I’ll consider switching to any browser that does it!

Hey, are you familiar with Spaces' "Assign apps to spaces" feature? It doesn't have an "assign to Space where last used", but it does let you assign an app to any Space (or every Space). https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/work-in-multiple-sp...

Re: Show HN: FlashSpace – fast, open-source, macOS Spaces replacement

#35

Post by doubled112 »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #28
hysan wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every year I spend a month trying out Linux distros to see if it’s in a good enough place to switch back to. Every time I do this, I’m surprised by how few desktop environments supports this. Either it’s not popular or using multiple monitors isn’t common. This isn’t the only reason I haven’t switched back, but it’s one of the more surprising ones because it feels so natural to treat monitors and workspaces like this…

My guess is that among Linux users, multimonitor is unusual. Even most Linux laptop users seem to prefer single monitor clamshell mode vs. keeping the laptop open as a secondary screen. There’s a fair number of Macbook users who do clamshell too but secondary-laptop-screen setups are much much more common in the Mac crowd.

At some point I realized I’d rather one large 4K screen to any multi monitor setup I ever had.

I’m not sure if it’s a coping mechanism for using Linux desktops or not, but it does avoid a few issues.

It also makes window management simpler in the sense I can just sprawl them out and still see everything. Kind of like moving your project from a small desk to a big kitchen table.

I tend to have two workspaces. One for what I’m doing. One for background stuff, like mail and music.

Re: Show HN: FlashSpace – fast, open-source, macOS Spaces replacement

#37

Post by dchuk »

wojciech-kulik wrote: post #20
matanrubin wrote: post #19

The biggest pain point with macOS spaces is how it handles multiple windows of the same app. It drives me crazy. What is FlashSpace’s approach for solving this?

Could you explain what you mean? The app only allows assigning the whole app to a specific workspace. So you can't have one window of the same app in workspace A and another in workspace B. It's done this way because it's the most efficient way so far, but of course I understand that sometimes people may want to have multiple windows in different workspaces. I'm going to investigate a possibility to manage apps on a…

Being able to have windows of the same app assigned to different spaces would be the big unlock for me to able to use your app. Not only do I do things like separate work and personal Chrome profiles (with a window open for each), frequently I'll have a Chrome window open for a specific project with tabs just for that project, so I can switch fully into that context when I want to work on something. I also frequently have sensitive tabs open that I group into a window so I don't risk oversharing something when on a Zoom call for example as I flip through my tabs.

Re: Show HN: FlashSpace – fast, open-source, macOS Spaces replacement

#38

Post by escapecharacter »

whatever1 wrote: post #21

This is awesome. But Apple needs to get their act together. Window management, specially in multi monitor/ space setups is unbelievably bad. What is the purpose of the dock? It does not tell you what apps have windows visible, preview these windows or inform you where these windows are. Absolute waste of screen real estate. And to add to the injury they seized another 10% of the horizontal space for the even more use…

I’m noticing that every single time I wake my (recent) MacBook from sleep, it forgets it’s attached to external monitors for at least 10 seconds. So, a bunch of windows do this confusing jump around and I have to wait for them to settle before I started anything!

Re: Show HN: FlashSpace – fast, open-source, macOS Spaces replacement

#39

Post by wojciech-kulik »

jameschensmith wrote: post #25
wojciech-kulik wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. No 2. Aerospace has significant performance issues with workspaces. The problem has persisted for over a year, and there are no plans to fix it. That's why I started building FlashSpace - to make it blazingly fast. Which limitation is especially interesting to you? FlashSpace addresses the animation lag, the number of workspaces is unlimited, and you can move apps between workspaces with hot keys. 3. FlashSpace al…

Thanks for your response! Regarding question 2, I think my initial understanding of FlashSpace was that it was using the macOS spaces API, which has been known to have its limitations (as documented in the Aerospace docs I shared). Now that I've played around with FlashSpace, I believe it's not using that API. So I think I'm clear on the questions. I really like how FlashSpace plays well with macOS native tabs. One f…

In the video, I think they were manually dragged. But I also use Rectangle Pro for moving windows around with simple shortcuts (many apps have this feature, another one is Raycast). I don't use tiling managers though. Most of the time they cause too many problems and glitches.

Re: Show HN: FlashSpace – fast, open-source, macOS Spaces replacement

#40

Post by wojciech-kulik »

CharlesW wrote: post #36
cyberax wrote: post #14

Super nice! I wish you could add a grid view of the workspaces. I miss TotalSpaces...

I wonder if SpaceCapsule ( https://spacecapsule.app/ ) could work with FlashSpace?

Probably not, because as far as I can see, it relies on macOS spaces. FlashSpace doesn't use native spaces.
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