Hydra: A lightweight OS X window manager with a powerful API • Hacker News Board

Re: Hydra: A lightweight OS X window manager with a powerful API

#51

Post by sdegutis » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 2:54 PM UTC

peatmoss wrote: post #50

typicalbender wrote: post #20

I miss my days on Ubuntu with i3 tiling window manager. I currently use an app called Amethyst[1] but find it to be a bit buggy at times and just doesn't live up to i3 or awesome. I wonder if hydra can be used as a launch point to create a better tiling window manager for OSX. I'm not familiar with the APIs that OSX exposes, if any, to do things like window management but it would be awesome to see some more control…

Amethyst is the first tiling window manager I've used for any substantial length of time. I made my desktop transition from NetBSD -> OSX before tiling window managers were really much used. Amethyst gets props from me in being the first that has worked intuitively and stabily such that I've actually stuck with it for any length of time. As for Linux, I realize that I'm personally in a place where leaving OSX would c…

Having emacs-like keybindings by default in all native text fields and text boxes (including this one) is a huge plus for OS X. In Linux, I had to write everything in emacs and copy/paste it into the field in question. Fine for emails, not so great for address bars, impossible for dmenu, etc.

Re: Hydra: A lightweight OS X window manager with a powerful API

#52

Post by bradbatt » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 2:54 PM UTC

I have used Divvy in the past, but now use Keyboard Maestro for window management. (http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/)

You do have to configure things and set them up a bit, but it can do SO much more than just window management.

Just throwing another option out there…For me, Keyboard Maestro is one of those must-have programs like Alfred or Hazel—totally changes how you do things.

Re: Hydra: A lightweight OS X window manager with a powerful API

#53

Post by Justsignedup » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 2:55 PM UTC

I've been using slate, but I must admit the API for it is not that incredible (certain math operations are not very elegant) -- https://github.com/jigish/slate

Re: Hydra: A lightweight OS X window manager with a powerful API

#54

Post by Synergyse » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 3:04 PM UTC

Dirlewanger wrote: post #41

Another amazing OS X WM: Sizeup ( https://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/ ) No config, all shortcuts bound to Ctrl + Option + Command + arrows and a few others. They have an unlimited free trial, but pay for it if you really use it.

+1 for SizeUp, tried most of them and prefer this app.

Re: Hydra: A lightweight OS X window manager with a powerful API

#55

Post by sdegutis » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 3:07 PM UTC

adouzzy wrote: post #49

All I ask for is an awesome wm.

Well played.

Re: Hydra: A lightweight OS X window manager with a powerful API

#56

Post by mrmch » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 3:18 PM UTC

tnorthcutt wrote: post #16

I've been using Slate[1] for a while which may be worth considering as an alternative. Hydra does look pretty slick, though! [0] https://github.com/jigish/slate

I'm another Slate user -- looks like Hydra is a spiritual successor... I'll give it a go.

Re: Hydra: A lightweight OS X window manager with a powerful API

#57

Post by Nemcue » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 3:18 PM UTC

kovrik wrote: post #3

Is it possible to move windows from one desktop to another?

It probably is. I used Phoenix (the JS predecessor to Hydra) and that exact functionality is one of my most used hotkeys:

Capslock + E = Swap currently selected window to other desktop, make that window fullscreen and center the mouse cursor on it

Re: Hydra: A lightweight OS X window manager with a powerful API

#58

Post by mitchell209 » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 3:19 PM UTC

btown wrote: post #8

For the "closed-source-but-non-programming-power-user" alternative to this, I'm a huge advocate of BetterTouchTool ( http://www.boastr.net/ ). You can easily bind window snaps to everything from keypresses, to four-finger-sweeps on the trackpad, to dragging window titlebars to the screen corners. Also it's so much fun to infuriate friends when they try to use my trackpad and it moves windows all over the place.

I absolutely love BTT. I've setup my mouse buttons and trackpad gestures to do so many different things in my apps that I'd be lost without them.

Re: Hydra: A lightweight OS X window manager with a powerful API

#59

Post by andylei » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 3:32 PM UTC

cool!

one thing that kind of bugs me is that when you reload the config file, if there's something wrong with it, it just loads the fallback config. i don't see any error messages, so its hard to figure out what i did wrong in the config.

Re: Hydra: A lightweight OS X window manager with a powerful API

#60

Post by dpeck » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 3:36 PM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #10

If you're looking for a window manager for OSX without having to actually configure anything, you can try using Spectacle: http://spectacleapp.com/ For instance on my imac 27'' I have Option+Command+Left|Right keys mapped to side (similar to windows 7. And I can also have 4 windows open at once using Shift+Option+Command+Up|Down|Left|Right to move them to the different corners. Works really well with less than 2 minu…

Its really nice, I wish it could do some auto-tiling, but all things considered it works quite well