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

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

#81

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…

I also miss awesome, and xnomad wasn't cutting it. Hopefully Amethyst is what I need.

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

#83

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…

If you are already using Alfred, I'd suggest having a look at the new workflows available, in particular layout, which covers a lot of the features of spectacle.

For instance, typing 'layout left' in alfred will push the window the left side, topleft for the corner, etc.

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

#84

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.

I use SizeUp, but I miss the extensibility of xmonad.

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

#85
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 Quickly had a look on all the window manager alternatives mentioned here. Currently I use flexiglass, but I use it for one reason only. It allows me to move windows like in linux. When holding Mouse button 1 + alt anywhere in the window I can move it. I really like this feature, I never use the titlebar to move windows. Do any of the alternatives (or hydra it self) allow me to do this? I'd like to try them out. See…

Shameless plug: https://github.com/jmgao/metamove

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

#87
I tried a ton of window managers (Divvy [1], Spectacle [2], Alfred worflows, scripts) over the years, but the most advanced, most easy to use and fastest solution is Moom [3]. It's extremely flexible, configurable, have nice design and clever tricks. It has far more features that all of the above. I'm not searching the perfect window manager anymore.

[1]: https://mizage.com/divvy/

[2]: http://spectacleapp.com/

[3]: http://manytricks.com/moom/

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

#88
post #80
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in the same position and switched to Arch long ago. Power management in my MacBook Air 11 2013 is as good as in OS X, if not better. This sounds like a bold statement, but mind that it's almost 100% Intel hardware. Intel funded powertop, which is a utility that allows you to track and optimize software and hardware power usage. Even Linus himself used this machine for quite long. He then moved on to a Chromeboo…

How long does your battery last under Linux, with reasonable screen brightness? What's the battery discharge rate indicated by powertop? Are you using a full desktop environment?

I run a very minimalistic environment without a DE. I use XMonad as a WM. My only graphical applications are Firefox and Zathura.

With wireless on, while browsing the web, powertop shows around 5.2W. This is with a pretty bright screen. With reasonable usage, you can go well past 5 hours. Note this machine has a tiny battery in comparison to the 13 inch model.

I believe things could be even better (-0.5W) if I used another driver for the Broadcom wireless card (currently using the stock one in the kernel), as it doesn't support power management. Besides, on X11 the keyboard and the trackpad do not sleep properly.

Best hardware I've seen in this regard was a X220, and a Nokia N9. But the Mac is extremely good. If one cherry picks hardware for Linux like Apple does for OS X, the experience can be very good these days.

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

#89
post #81

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…

I also miss awesome, and xnomad wasn't cutting it. Hopefully Amethyst is what I need.

What is that you prefer from awesome?

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

#90
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 Quickly had a look on all the window manager alternatives mentioned here. Currently I use flexiglass, but I use it for one reason only. It allows me to move windows like in linux. When holding Mouse button 1 + alt anywhere in the window I can move it. I really like this feature, I never use the titlebar to move windows. Do any of the alternatives (or hydra it self) allow me to do this? I'd like to try them out. See…

If BetterTouchTool doesn't let you do some custom key/mouse input, it's probably not possible. :-)

You can use keypress + mouse movement:

http://imgur.com/ZeV8grb

...or just with the mouse alone:

http://imgur.com/JNXYf1q

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