Amethyst – A tiling window manager for OS X • Hacker News Board

Re: Amethyst – A tiling window manager for OS X

#51

Post by ianyh » Thu, Dec 18, 2014, 7:30 PM UTC

rcknight wrote: post #5

Vecrios wrote: post #4

What's the benefit of using this vs. WMs like SizeUp? I'm asking this question because I'm quite comfortable with SizeUp and don't understand if learning how to use a WM is worth it.

Seems to me that there are 2 big benefits over sizeup (though i'm basing this entirely on their website, i've not used it) 1 - With sizeup you have to manually move your apps around. With this, new windows are automatically tiled (and you can then move things around afterwards with the keyboard shortcuts) 2 - This seems like it supports more complex layouts (with various layouts built in)

That is generally correct. I wrote a longer comment about this but SizeUp is about manually managing windows and Amethyst is about letting software manage windows for you. It's generally a matter of personal preference which you prefer.

Re: Amethyst – A tiling window manager for OS X

#52

Post by ajorgensen » Thu, Dec 18, 2014, 7:31 PM UTC

shawn-furyan wrote: post #22

I've been using Amethyst as my WM for a couple months now, and have used XMonad for significant stretches in the past. Amethyst tries to bring the XMonad experience to OSX. I think it does an admirable job, but there are some distinctions. Amethyst is simpler to set up, and is more forgiving to newcomers. It has a GUI for configuration, and an easily accessible list of commands. It also works on top of OSX's WM, so i…

When I had a linux machine I used i3 and loved it. After moving to OSX I search around for a solution and finally found Amethyst. Gave it a solid try for ~6 months or so but recently have moved to using BetterTouchTool with some custom key shortcuts for moving and resizing windows. I've found this works the best for my workflow. I would love to use a tiling window manager for OSX but in the end found Amethyst to be a little sluggish and, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, buggy for full screen apps. I think ianyh has done an amazing job at working around a system that wasn't meant to be extended in this way, but that puts it at a dis-advantage right off the bat unfortunately.

Re: Amethyst – A tiling window manager for OS X

#53

Post by AndrewHampton » Thu, Dec 18, 2014, 7:36 PM UTC

ianyh wrote: post #37

bnycum wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minus Mjolnir, I've tried the rest and still prefer Slate[1] but it hasn't been updated since Feb 2013. Actually I had never heard of Mjolnir before now. I like Slate's ability to define a config file that is just a little more powerful than the competition, plus it's easy to sync across machines. I haven't updated to Yosemite, but Slate works wonderfully on Mavericks. [1]: https://github.com/jigish/slate

I would 100% recommend Mjolnir as an actively-developed Slate alternative. sdegutis has a solid history of writing great window management stuff.

Mjolnir isn't actually under active development anymore. A few months ago sdegutis decided to write a closed source alternative which has not yet been released.

The mjolnir community does have an actively developed fork though called hammerspoon. http://www.hammerspoon.org/

I would recommend either of them, but hammerspoon has a smoother onboarding process.

Re: Amethyst – A tiling window manager for OS X

#54

Post by nchuhoai » Thu, Dec 18, 2014, 7:51 PM UTC

I've used BetterTouchTool's tiling functionality for the most part, but I just got a 4K monitor and most granular most tiling managers can do is quarters. I wish there was an out-of-the-box solution that allows me to just tile my space more granularly

Re: Amethyst – A tiling window manager for OS X

#55

Post by Semiapies » Thu, Dec 18, 2014, 7:57 PM UTC

ianyh wrote: post #31

I'm the Amethyst developer. I'm happy to answer any questions people have. I'm hopping on a cross-country plane flight in about an hour, but I have a layover. I'll try get back to people as soon as I can.

Just wanted to say that I liked your donation section. You don't often see one where someone says Here are some things that you'd might rather donate to than my project.

Re: Amethyst – A tiling window manager for OS X

#56

Post by tjl » Thu, Dec 18, 2014, 7:58 PM UTC

bombtrack wrote: post #7

I posted this yesterday in the thread about the Rust-written window manager, but it's relevant here as well. There are plenty of apps that provide varying levels of window-manager functionality to OS X. I would try a couple out and see which feels right to you. I have tried most of them, and personally prefer Moom. http://manytricks.com/moom/ http://mizage.com/divvy/ http://ianyh.com/amethyst/ http://spectacleapp.com…

My preference at the moment is Optimal Layout.

http://most-advantageous.com/optimal-layout/

but, I haven't spent much time with Mjolnir.

Re: Amethyst – A tiling window manager for OS X

#57

Post by tjl » Thu, Dec 18, 2014, 8:00 PM UTC

0942v8653 wrote: post #32

bnycum wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minus Mjolnir, I've tried the rest and still prefer Slate[1] but it hasn't been updated since Feb 2013. Actually I had never heard of Mjolnir before now. I like Slate's ability to define a config file that is just a little more powerful than the competition, plus it's easy to sync across machines. I haven't updated to Yosemite, but Slate works wonderfully on Mavericks. [1]: https://github.com/jigish/slate

Mjolnir might still be worth trying. I'm not sure how you got Slate to work with Mavericks, but Mjolnir is very similar, under active development, and has Lua instead of JS as its scripting language.

Unfortunately, the lead developer has decided to work on a closed-source alternative to Mjolnir so a new fork has been made.

Re: Amethyst – A tiling window manager for OS X

#58

Post by gngrwzrd » Thu, Dec 18, 2014, 8:00 PM UTC

it's ok, I prefer to be able to set windows where I want them and assign keyboard shortcuts. I was the original author of Breeze, now autumn apps has it available - http://autumnapps.com/breeze/index.html

Re: Amethyst – A tiling window manager for OS X

#59

Post by punjabisingh » Thu, Dec 18, 2014, 8:02 PM UTC

0942v8653 wrote: post #32

bnycum wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minus Mjolnir, I've tried the rest and still prefer Slate[1] but it hasn't been updated since Feb 2013. Actually I had never heard of Mjolnir before now. I like Slate's ability to define a config file that is just a little more powerful than the competition, plus it's easy to sync across machines. I haven't updated to Yosemite, but Slate works wonderfully on Mavericks. [1]: https://github.com/jigish/slate

Mjolnir might still be worth trying. I'm not sure how you got Slate to work with Mavericks, but Mjolnir is very similar, under active development, and has Lua instead of JS as its scripting language.

There are some minor issues, but Slate generally works under Mavericks and Yosemite. Check out: https://github.com/jigish/slate/issues/405

Re: Amethyst – A tiling window manager for OS X

#60

Post by tekknolagi » Thu, Dec 18, 2014, 8:17 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #19

bombtrack wrote: post #7

I posted this yesterday in the thread about the Rust-written window manager, but it's relevant here as well. There are plenty of apps that provide varying levels of window-manager functionality to OS X. I would try a couple out and see which feels right to you. I have tried most of them, and personally prefer Moom. http://manytricks.com/moom/ http://mizage.com/divvy/ http://ianyh.com/amethyst/ http://spectacleapp.com…

Is Moom any better than Spectacle?

I don't think so. I went from Moom to Spectacle something like a year ago and haven't looked back.