Slate: a Mac OS X window manager for power users • Hacker News Board

Re: Slate: a Mac OS X window manager for power users

#11

Post by mauriciogardini » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 1:45 AM UTC

MaysonL wrote: post #2

Am I the only one who hardly sees any value in window managers? About 99% of the time, I'm wanting only one window visible at a time, with others quickly accessible via cmd-tab and cmd=`.

I was discussing this some minutes ago with a friend of mine: if you have a 11" or 13" screen, that's the reasonable way to go (Unless if you are like me, of course, that feels the need to use Slate in a 13" screen)... But, if you can work with bigger screens, splitting your workspace and making more information available at the same time may be a good thing.

Re: Slate: a Mac OS X window manager for power users

#12

Post by trotsky » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 1:47 AM UTC

I use Better Touch Tool to bind keyboard shortcuts to window actions like halves & corners to achieve a similar result.

http://www.bettertouchtool.net/

Re: Slate: a Mac OS X window manager for power users

#13

Post by jacques_chester » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 1:47 AM UTC

MaysonL wrote: post #2

Am I the only one who hardly sees any value in window managers? About 99% of the time, I'm wanting only one window visible at a time, with others quickly accessible via cmd-tab and cmd=`.

Lots of people -- I'm one of them -- find that switching whole windows seems to pop the mental stack.

Whereas turning my head left and right does not do so.

Most programming requires at least 4 logical views, IMO:

1. The code

2. The result of the code (web page, test results etc)

3. Documentation that supports coding

4. A control mechanism (ie, a terminal)

No doubt there will be quibbling that some of these are really the same, blah blah. I don't care, I think 4 is the logical minimum and the physical assignment of those 4 basic information types is a matter for each programmer.

Re: Slate: a Mac OS X window manager for power users

#14

Post by zwily » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 1:51 AM UTC

esolyt wrote: post #8

jfb wrote: post #5

Back in the Dark Ages, before OS X was truly usable, I rocked ion on my FreeBSD machine and MachTEN (to run Emacs) on my Macs. This experience conditioned me to not fight the platform -- slate, as nice as it looks, seems to me a great deal like fighting the platform. Is it?

Maybe so. But I don't see a problem with that. OSX window management currently satisfies average users, but not power users. And since power users are exactly the kind of people who can do something about it, they are doing it.

What, exactly, is your definition of "power user"?

Re: Slate: a Mac OS X window manager for power users

#15

Post by keikun17 » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 1:52 AM UTC

I am currently use optimal layout (with expired trial, but size/tile position hotkeys still work) and have not used other tiling app since, i'll give this one a shot.

Re: Slate: a Mac OS X window manager for power users

#16

Post by tonybaroneee » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 1:54 AM UTC

cwharland wrote: post #9

For a GUI configurable and generally well behaved manager look at Divvy: http://mizage.com/divvy/ It's very customizable and has worked for me across at least three versions of os x.

Yep, I use Divvy on a daily basis and really enjoy it. Only thing I wish it had was a memory of the window size before it is re-sized with Divvy. Here's what I mean: In Windows, you can WinKey+RightArrow something to dock it to the right half (totally possible in Divvy), but then WinKey+LeftArrow returns it to its original windowed size. I use that technique a ton on my Windows box, would love to see an OSX window manager with that feature.

Edit: Hmm, looks like SizeUp has this feature with "snapback". Cool.

Re: Slate: a Mac OS X window manager for power users

#17

Post by stcredzero » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 1:59 AM UTC

For my 13" Macbook Pro I use two 27" screens and Divvy and hot keys:

    +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
    |               |               |
    |       A       |       B       |
    |               |               |
    +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

    +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
    |       |       |       |       |
    |   1   |   2   |   3   |   4   |
    |       |       |       |       |
    +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

    +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
    |   1   |   2   |   3   |   4   |
    +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
    |   5   |   6   |   7   |       |
    +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

I can place a screen in any one of the boxes as above, with a hot-key. A and B are Cmd-Opt-, and Cmd-Opt-. The rest are based on number keys with modifiers. The two 27" screens are 1900x1080, and connected through a DualHead2Go DP edition.

Re: Slate: a Mac OS X window manager for power users

#18

Post by phyalow » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 2:01 AM UTC

Xterm from GNUStep running over X11. All I ever need on OS X.

Re: Slate: a Mac OS X window manager for power users

#19

Post by myared » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 2:01 AM UTC

Since it seems that everyone is posting their favorite flavor, here's mine: http://spectacleapp.com/. Open source and gets you hooked in minutes. I can't imagine using OS X without it.

Re: Slate: a Mac OS X window manager for power users

#20

Post by mauriciogardini » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 2:02 AM UTC

jfb wrote: post #5

Back in the Dark Ages, before OS X was truly usable, I rocked ion on my FreeBSD machine and MachTEN (to run Emacs) on my Macs. This experience conditioned me to not fight the platform -- slate, as nice as it looks, seems to me a great deal like fighting the platform. Is it?

As I say in the "About" section of my site, I like Mac OS X a lot, but it is not perfect. Frequently, I see features in other OSs (Normally, in Linux distros) that appeal to me, but I'm not quite ready to make the jump from Mac OS to Linux yet. So, looking for "workarounds" in my current SO seems like the solution to suffice my needs.

So, yeah... Fighting the platform. Pretty much it. =]