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Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

arhan.sh

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Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#241

Post by plufz »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #237
harrall wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?…

The thing / issue at this point is though: how much is Jobs still responsible for Apple's ongoing success? He died 15 years ago, two years after Apple introduced "flat design" (to much criticism at the time but people got used to it). But after his passing, Apple's market value went from ~500 billion to ~4 trillion today, more than an 8-fold multiplication. I find it hard to believe that his influence was so strong t…

I guess that depends on what you put into the word "success". I dont believe that great design work or great products and high market cap has ever been that related to each other.

With that said I dont think Steve built Apple alone either. And i think they have done some great things after his death as well.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#242

Post by nixosbestos »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #179
AaronFriel wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh that's a surprising interaction. I use dark mode themes, is there something I haven't noticed?

Specific extension I use that became unusable (black text on black). However, if you look closely, you’ll see a lot of differences in look and feel that don’t seem “animation” related.

Pretty sure that's from another setting in the same panel

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#243

Post by submeta »

modernerd wrote: post #233

> Pay for a license for BetterTouchTool. Enable “Move Right Space (Without Animation)” and “Move Left Space (Without Animation)”. I did not know BTT supported this until today! You can just set up the trackpad 4-finger swipe actions globally: https://cleanshot.com/share/P0K1PGC1 Then in System Settings set "swipe between full-screen applications" to "off" in Trackpad settings under "more gestures" so that BTT's short…

I tried both. BetterTouchTool does support the no-animation left/right space actions, but on my machine InstantSpaceSwitcher felt a bit snappier for actually moving between spaces, so I kept that for my keyboard shortcuts for previous/next space and direct jumps to a specific desktop. I still use BTT for Mission Control / spaces preview. So for me the final setup is: InstantSpaceSwitcher for fast space switching, BTT only where it still adds something.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#244

Post by imgyuri »

xz18r wrote: post #44

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

for ghostty users check out https://ghostty.org/docs/help/macos-tiling-wms

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#245

Post by kinematikk »

testing22321 wrote: post #170
ryanmcbride wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, their damn phone keyboards are so bad I'm 100% confident that Tim only does voice to text on his phone. There's no way that the CEO of a company could use a keyboard that horrible and not want to fix it.

Why are you paying money for something that you find so terrible when there is a perfectly good alternative. Life is too short to waste is using junk you don’t enjoy.

Whats the alternative? Android not, because it's absolutely not perfectly good

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#246

Post by Wilder7977 »

xz18r wrote: post #44

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

Aerospace makes my Mac usable, but it is a looooong way from what i3 offers in my experience. i3 is way snappier, super stable, with good features out-of-the-box (including a status bar) - you forget it exists. Aerospace is slow, has to use that "windows in the corner" hack, it constantly resets whenever I resume the mac from sleep, needs additional tool for a status bar and more.

Much of it is not a fault of Aerospace, it's just what you get using Apple products in a non-sactioned way.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#247

Post by chrisvalleybay »

tern wrote: post #217

I did an exhaustive comparison of window managers and settled on using Raycast for simple resizing (full screen, center, mid-size centered, 1/2, 1/3, 2/3 left/right) + FlashSpace[1], which implements simple virtual spaces with instant switching. You can also use Rectangle or Spectacle or others in place of Raycast. Foolproof with zero magic. [1] https://github.com/wojciech-kulik/FlashSpace

+1 for FlashSpace. I used to be an i3 user and MacOS workspace management drove me mad. For years we had TotalSpaces, but that is no longer being maintained. With FlashSpace I finally have a great setup.

My solution has been binding a key Hyper+[a-z] for my applications. When used in conjuction with FlashSpace I get a usable setup. I also heavily rely on native MacOS binding Cmd+` (backtick) to cycle the currently focused application, and mission control for the current workspace.

Let me know if this is interesting; I've been considering creating a YouTube-video about this setup.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#248

Post by modernerd »

submeta wrote: post #243
modernerd wrote: post #233

> Pay for a license for BetterTouchTool. Enable “Move Right Space (Without Animation)” and “Move Left Space (Without Animation)”. I did not know BTT supported this until today! You can just set up the trackpad 4-finger swipe actions globally: https://cleanshot.com/share/P0K1PGC1 Then in System Settings set "swipe between full-screen applications" to "off" in Trackpad settings under "more gestures" so that BTT's short…

I tried both. BetterTouchTool does support the no-animation left/right space actions, but on my machine InstantSpaceSwitcher felt a bit snappier for actually moving between spaces, so I kept that for my keyboard shortcuts for previous/next space and direct jumps to a specific desktop. I still use BTT for Mission Control / spaces preview. So for me the final setup is: InstantSpaceSwitcher for fast space switching, BTT…

Your blended setup makes sense.

I like that BTT lets you tune the swipe gesture sensitivity too (Settings → Trackpad → Swipes). I made it more sensitive (0.15) and swiping between Spaces feels very snappy.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#249

Post by abustamam »

aylmao wrote: 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…

Wow I never realized I had this problem until now! I never even considered the reason keys would dispatch to the wrong window was because of the animation. I just knew that sometimes when switching workspaces I'd have to wait until whatever window I'm switching to has focus before typing.

Re: Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

#250

Post by jjcosgrove »

[video]

just sharing for sh*ts n' giggles... inspired by this post and a previous annoyance i had around spaces in general... i just 'vibe coded' (don't start) this using codex this morning (built upon InstantSpaceSwitcher's UI)

https://www.jjcosgrove.com/assets/videos/spaced.mp4

basically:

- you can set custom names per space

- you can hotkey-navigate to each space/any space

- it has a visual indicator in menubar (active/vs inactive in case you use mission control)

- you can show a nice grid overlay (to click or arrow-nav to a space)

- it has unified shortcut/name management via UI (rather than needing a seperate util)

names are retained on restarts, spaces are synced if mission control creates any (as best as you can with mac's private apis).

for personal utilities like this, it works quite well and sometimes its good to just have 'fun'

oh and the 'jank' relates to how spaces works (i think), but can be removed/avoided by enabling 'reduce motion' which i think the original post mentions.

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