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Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

arhan.sh

131–140 of 341 posts

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#131

I'm still incredibly frustrated by Apple's Mission Control and Full Screen features. The old Expose and Spaces and windows-style maximise would be so much better.

I agree that I miss when spaces could be on a grid in Snow Leopard instead of only in a straight line, but what is wrong with Exposé? From my POV it works the same as it always has.

IIRC Expose is now called Mission Control (four finger swipe up on my system).

My problem with it is that it's useless if you got more than few windows open - the preview is just too small to actually see which window you are after (it's all padded for the looks). IMO if they actually used tiles, potentially grouped by app - it would be so much useful.

Yabai looks cool tho, but requires so much permissions and potentially disabling system integrity protection that IDK if it's a go for me.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of my issues were fixed when I disabled swipe to type. Not all, but most.

I've heard this advice before and I've tried it, and I really didn't notice a difference. I also, unfortunately, use swipe to type a lot. If I'm typing one handed I'm pretty much always using swipe. Sure it barely works, but that's the same as if I was typing normally so feels like a wash.

Keyboard works fine. Always has. iPhone just has so many users that there's going to be a plethora of passionate unpleasable nerds for every single facet of it. Even in your ideal virtual keyboard version, there was an army of people complaining that it wasn't a hardware keyboard.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an insane bug to still have around all these years. Are apple engineers not using macOS?

I think Apple's self-image of being the epitome of design actually acts against them. Leads to monstrosities like Liquid Glass kinda vandalizing random parts of the UI in small ways that I intuitively read as "they are anti-anti-aliasing" not "they added cool refraction effects." It used to be you'd see something in a well-chosen color, now it is just a muddy kind of greyish brownish whatever. I'd like to see them ma…

My pet opinion is that Steve Jobs was an asshole but an asshole that used his own products and used his powers of complaining to steer the whole ship to fix major "this annoys me everyday" bugs.

From my experience, "annoying but not blockers" bugs are often very neglected compared to (1) bugs that actually break things and (2) feature work. Neglecting quality of life issues leads to the "do you even use your product??" kinds of experiences.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#134

I'm new to MacOS, is the thing they're refering to when you swipe left/right with three fingers to switch between different fullscreen apps / desktops? I kinda like the animation, after decades of windows I'm still impressed when switching between programs isn't stuttery.

> I'm still impressed when switching between programs isn't stuttery

It is stuttery when you use the magic touchpad via Bluetooth, same applies to the cursor. It's very noticeable with slow movements.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#135

> it works by simulating a trackpad swipe with a large amount of velocity Damn, that's rather clever.

I'm a little afraid of the failure modes, frankly. Clever, but that seems like it would b likely to exercise some under-tested timing situations. I'm not familiar with that API, so take the hunch with a grain of salt.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who never uses spaces or any window manager, what am I actually missing? What’s wrong with cmd tab and just switching between apps? Is this going to be some Kind of major epiphany?!

Sort of. With proper workspaces you land directly on the full screen program with a single hotkey. No cmd-tab switching needed.

You don't technically need workspaces for this with app/window hotkey assignments via raycast or hammerspoon, for example.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#137
post #102

Stop using MacOS spaces. Never full screen anything. Throw everything around with hotkeys using OSS rectangle. Use shortcat to automatically bring your cursor to anything on your screen and use enter to click and type.

You don’t get it Spaces are not for fullscreen but for basically virtual desktops i3 linux style Here is superior user experience: 1. Install moom. Its keyboard windows arrangement is second to none. Its two-step tiling is a killer. Ie caps-a to show a popup with all the shortcuts, then “a” letter for vertical 1/3 of the screen. Or s for middle 2/3. Or q for top left third — you can assign any letter for any portion…

This is similar to how I use Spaces. I haven't hotkeyed desktops, but each one is designated for a particular task or theme. The concept extends further with a secondary display, with the primary monitors' spaces being assigned "main task" duty while the secondary displays' spaces get "aux task" duty — so e.g. IDEs and browser windows immediately relevant to the task at hand go on a main monitor desktop while secondary display desktops are used for things like chat, music, and documentation.

This is a core part of my workflow and is one of the reasons why I would have a difficult time using Windows as my primary OS: its virtual desktop support is far too weak in comparison. It can't even switch desktops independently per-display.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#138
post #102

Stop using MacOS spaces. Never full screen anything. Throw everything around with hotkeys using OSS rectangle. Use shortcat to automatically bring your cursor to anything on your screen and use enter to click and type.

You don’t get it Spaces are not for fullscreen but for basically virtual desktops i3 linux style Here is superior user experience: 1. Install moom. Its keyboard windows arrangement is second to none. Its two-step tiling is a killer. Ie caps-a to show a popup with all the shortcuts, then “a” letter for vertical 1/3 of the screen. Or s for middle 2/3. Or q for top left third — you can assign any letter for any portion…

I'm really confused - I downloaded Moom because of this comment, but can't find a feature to switch Spaces. Am I missing something?

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#139
I eventually became so frustrated with spaces in OSX, that I essentially try to avoid using them in macOS these days. Seriously, all I want is a way to move windows from one space to another via keybindings. I am not asking for much. In fact, IIRC, I think Snow Leopard had this feature. I know there were various solutions that cropped up, and even currently there are a few hacks. It just... such bullshit that it's not built in.

If one has a disability that hinders his or her ability to use a mouse/trackpad, then I strongly suspect there is no way for such a person to use spaces on macOS well. Though, it seems Apple could not care less.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#140
post #52

I grew up with this animation so I didn't consider it annoying until I bought a new Macbook a couple years ago. I noticed sometimes I would press keyboard shortcuts before my system's focus had switched. Just little stumbles here and there, some inoffensive, some annoying, but who knows maybe I didn't catch enough sleep. Over time it happened often enough that I decided to google it, and it turns out my muscle memory…

Don't know about customizability on MacOS but I've always been very accustomed to animations and recently I just turned them off on Android and Linux and I... Don't miss anything. Turned out they don't add anything other than an initial wow factor.
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