Native Instant Space Switching on macOS • Hacker News Board

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#41

Post by jgauth » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #30

Can’t say that the sliding animation has ever been the bottleneck to my productivity.

I've seen this sentiment often. For example, in a discussion about slow nvm load times: "Does adding 0.5s delay to opening your terminal really affect your productivity?"

I agree that these small things are not bottlenecks to my productivity. I can work just fine despite them. However there is some intangible effect they have on my mindset when I'm working. The more "snappy" my computer feels, the easier it is to enter a sort of flow state. Small bits of friction here and there add up.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#42

Post by ralphc » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

Works on my Intel mac running Sonoma 14.8.2. I use Omakub on my Linux machine and missed this when on my mac.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#43

Post by jiehong » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:09 PM UTC

Outstanding!

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#44

Post by xz18r » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:10 PM UTC

I see yabai mentioned, definitely check out Aerospace. Ive tried multiple WMs after years of i3 on Linux and this is the best one I found (for me) with quite a margin. It just works (tm)

https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#45

Post by wolvoleo » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #20

Clever hack. Now if there were some way to bring back the OS X 10.5/10.6 2D spaces grid… the linear design in place since 10.7 has always felt overly simplistic.

That is indeed the biggest thing I missed so much. When I finally moved from macOS to KDE I got the grid desktops back and I love them so much.

I have 9 virtual desktops and a 3x3 grid is so much easier to navigate than a row of 9. Also, Apple makes them dynamic now. I have each desktop assigned to a specific purpose. It's like having 9 computers at my fingertips.

Almost every release of macOS after 10.6 or so dropped something I used and the replacement if any was rarely good enough. So it started rubbing me the wrong way, more and more with every release. I'm so glad I'm no longer on an opinionated OS but that I have a desktop environment that cherishes configurability and options.

In keeping with this, for the transition animation you can choose several options like a fade and a slide, you can turn them off completely (as this hack does for macOS). You can even set the speed of some transitions. I have it set to slide but faster than normal. So the sliding gives me a little spatial awareness of where I move within the grid, but it still feels snappy. All just by ticking some options. I love KDE <3

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#46

Post by Aaronstotle » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

I think it was iOS 9 that had some glitch where the animations were completely disabled and it was a really awesome experience to click an app and have it instantly open with zero animations.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#47

Post by Cider9986 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

I switched to Fedora Asahi Remix[1] after being affected by this bug[2] after 5 releases of MacOS Tahoe. I am enjoying Asahi Remix with Gnome and it has sensicle window management.

[1] https://asahilinux.org/fedora/ [2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=JjptYWKGVc4

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#48

Post by veber-alex » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

Wow, works great.

I used to use yabai for this but I can't disable SIP anymore on a work laptop.

Also, stuff like this is why I really hate macOS sometimes.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#49

Post by IOT_Apprentice » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:17 PM UTC

A lifetime license for BetterTouchTool with ALL its features is $25. The time the author spent on this is well over that amount.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#50

Post by el_benhameen » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:17 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #34

God damnit I didn't know until 15 seconds ago that the Space-switching animation in macOS was annoying. Thanks a lot!

Just wait until you notice that it’s inexplicably slower on 120hz monitors and that your input devices remain focused on the previous space until the animation fully completes!