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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

#111

Post by peatmoss »

nextos wrote: post #88
andor wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Hmm... Even 5 hours is pretty low compared to what I get under OSX with normalish usage on my MBA 11". I've also found that I get markedly better battery life when I connect to my Apple-branded wifi base station than when I connect to wifi just about anywhere else. This makes me wonder if Apple doesn't have some proprietary power scaling stuff with the wifi. Still, 5 hours is good enough that I might consider a more thorough checking out.

EDIT: I should add that I've only spent time in 10.9 on this MBA 11 2013 model. I've been told the battery life in 10.9 really is quite a lot better than in 10.8.

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

#113

Post by sdegutis »

c141charlie wrote: post #112

Can we stop naming software "Hydra"? At my company alone there are several tools and libraries that go by the name of Hydra. Each time someone refers to Hydra, you have to clarify which tool/library they are talking about.

Naming things is the hardest part of writing software. Really it is.

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

#114

Post by gurkendoktor »

m_t wrote: post #43
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…

I can't find the minimum OSX version on the Spectacle site or github. Do you have any idea which one it is?

I haven't tried Spectacle, but I'm happily running Divvy and Cinch on my 10.5 PPC Mac. :)

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

#115

Post by nextos »

peatmoss wrote: post #111
nextos wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Hmm... Even 5 hours is pretty low compared to what I get under OSX with normalish usage on my MBA 11". I've also found that I get markedly better battery life when I connect to my Apple-branded wifi base station than when I connect to wifi just about anywhere else. This makes me wonder if Apple doesn't have some proprietary power scaling stuff with the wifi. Still, 5 hours is good enough that I might consider a more…

Well, with comparable usage I was getting perhaps 20 extra min on OS X. It's very good I think. It's pretty clear when you check sensor temperature: both machines are equally cold.

In the old (and not so old) times, laptops with horrid Linux power management would be extra warm due to all components being powered up all time. Far from it right now, if you cherry pick hardware. There's still room for improvement, though.

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

#116

Post by Yetanfou »

sdegutis wrote: post #113
c141charlie wrote: post #112

Can we stop naming software "Hydra"? At my company alone there are several tools and libraries that go by the name of Hydra. Each time someone refers to Hydra, you have to clarify which tool/library they are talking about.

Naming things is the hardest part of writing software. Really it is.

Nah, not really. Just get yourself a Swahili dictionary and you're set for a whole bunch of projects. They'll have similar names to mine (Rafiki, Nena, Chombo, Sanduku, Ramani, ...) but they'll be easily pronounceable, well-sounding and with a bit of luck even still available in .com/.net/.org/.two-letter-country-code-du-jour.

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

#117

Post by weavie »

omaranto wrote: post #15
weavie wrote: post #7

This looks great. Will try it out. It has always surprised me how OS X has such a poor window placement story given how much emphasis apple seems to place on User Experience.

I don't there is anything too surprising about this. "User Experience" isn't something you can measure on a single line, there are different aspects to it. I'm not an expert but I think the following are some of the things that users can appreciate: 1. That things work smoothly. 2. That things look pretty. 3. That it's easy to figure out what a program does when you first use it. 4. That it's possible to control the…

Maybe its just because I came from Windows, but I generally expect hitting the maximize button to take the app to take up the whole screen space. On OS X, some apps do and some don't.

This violates #3 for me.

Another one is minimizing a window and then Alt-Tabbing to it (whatever the Mac equivalent is..) doesn't bring that window back up.. You are just left staring at the same app.

This violates #1 for me.

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

#118

Post by saidajigumi »

Walkman wrote: post #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]:…

I'll second the motion for Moom. Great app, but I'm really glad to see some viable OSS solutions in this space. Environment hacking FTW.

I'll also mention a feature I adore from FlexiGlass[1]: the ability to map - to move the window under the mouse. For example, I use - for this mapping. No mouse click & hold required, and the entire window is the "hit zone". FlexiGlass can also resize similarly, but I tend to just use my Moom bindings to snap windows where I want them.

I find this to be incredibly pleasant to use for window moves because it's a very immediate experience, more like arranging paper on your desk. Even better, the window being moved doesn't have to be in the frontmost application. This makes it even faster to move background windows. The usual window movement via titlebar or window snapping app requires the moved window be frontmost/focused, so there's a switching back and forth required. Between the giant, whole window, hit area and less focus switching, FlexiGlass' approach is a huge win IMO. I still feel a bit self-conscious about having this app installed for one feature, but it's really that good.

[1] http://nulana.com/flexiglass/

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

#120

Post by coreyja »

Yetanfou wrote: post #116
sdegutis wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naming things is the hardest part of writing software. Really it is.

Nah, not really. Just get yourself a Swahili dictionary and you're set for a whole bunch of projects. They'll have similar names to mine (Rafiki, Nena, Chombo, Sanduku, Ramani, ...) but they'll be easily pronounceable, well-sounding and with a bit of luck even still available in .com/.net/.org/.two-letter-country-code-du-jour.

That's actually really good advice, thanks.
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