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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

#61

Post by philistine »

whatever1 wrote: post #56
creativenolo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This stuff is so divisive. You can find seemingly a roughly equal number of people who passionately think the opposite on many of these very-different-from-windows UX choices. I’m one. The dock tells me what apps are running and available. There are other ways to find the windows, and running apps don’t need windows.

Every single running UI app needs a window. The ones that run in the background and do not need a full fledged window go in the menubar next to the clock.

That's how Windows does it, but macOS just does it differently. Is it better? Depends who you ask.

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

#62

Post by Aurornis »

escapecharacter wrote: post #38
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!

I had this problem with a cheap monitor I had to use at the office for a while.

Not a problem with any other monitor I’ve used.

It’s the monitor taking a long time to wake up.

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

#63

Post by Aurornis »

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…

> 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.

Auto-hide. First thing I turn on when I do a fresh install.

Some keep it as an app launcher and quick switcher. I prefer to only open it when necessary.

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

#64

Post by newdee »

whatever1 wrote: post #56
creativenolo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This stuff is so divisive. You can find seemingly a roughly equal number of people who passionately think the opposite on many of these very-different-from-windows UX choices. I’m one. The dock tells me what apps are running and available. There are other ways to find the windows, and running apps don’t need windows.

Every single running UI app needs a window. The ones that run in the background and do not need a full fledged window go in the menubar next to the clock.

> Every single running UI app needs a window.

I’m sorry, but this is false. The default/conventional behaviour is for apps to keep running even if all their windows are closed.

There’s actually a toggle for this behaviour on the app delegate.[0]

You may be thinking about LSUIElement, which is loosely related, but doesn’t mandate that windowless apps must quit. [1]

0: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsapplicati...

1: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/in...

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

#65

Post by JSR_FDED »

rplnt wrote: post #33
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.

How on earth do “they” make more money that way? The support costs of different users on different window management solutions obliterates any small fraction of application sales they earn on the App Store.

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

#66

Post by wrs »

CharlesW wrote: post #34
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...

I don’t want to assign Safari to a space, I want each Safari window to stay where I put it. It makes no sense for Spaces to assume every window of an app is being used for the same task, especially a browser app.

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

#68

Post by whatever1 »

newdee wrote: post #64
whatever1 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single running UI app needs a window. The ones that run in the background and do not need a full fledged window go in the menubar next to the clock.

> Every single running UI app needs a window. I’m sorry, but this is false. The default/conventional behaviour is for apps to keep running even if all their windows are closed. There’s actually a toggle for this behaviour on the app delegate.[0] You may be thinking about LSUIElement, which is loosely related, but doesn’t mandate that windowless apps must quit. [1] 0: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/n…

Apologies, I was not clear. Obviously in MacOS an app can be open without a window. My question is why?

What is the point of having for example Word or Safari running without a window? If they want to run a background task that requires some user interaction (eg outlook checking email and calendar), the menubar is the perfect place for it.

In the past the argument was that people want their apps warm started so that they open faster. But this is a moot point in 2025 with SSDs of pulling 5gb/s and tons of ram that allow for ample intelligent caching.

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