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Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

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Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#121

Post by bartvk »

nyadesu wrote: post #56
poidos wrote: post #28

I like rectangle [0]. It fits my needs well enough without requiring disabling SIP. I especially like the “repeated key presses resize a window on the same side” feature, so I can get cycle the size of the window on the right side of the screen from 1/2->1/3->2/3 easily. I miss i3 sometimes and this ain’t an identical replacement but it gets the job done! Turns out I don’t move my windows all that often anyways. [0]:…

It's amazing, makes MacOS usable when using big displays, I tried to use Yabai on my work macbook but couldn't install it due to SIP and work environment restrictions

You don’t need to disable SIP

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#122

Post by emgeee »

rxhanson wrote: post #49
CSSer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might try Magnet. It's $10 on the mac app store. I've had zero issues with it, and it has some problems sorted that other tools don't or haven't always, namely correctly tiling across monitors. I used to use Rectangle, which is open source and frankly pretty good but at the time I was using it had some warts. macOS' window management seems to not be entirely transparent. I don't know all the details, but this is…

If you don't mind me asking, what are the warts? I'm always interested in improving the app.

Rectangle Pro user here -- biggest frustration I've had is configuration. While the GUI is nice for seeing all the options and some basic stuff, when it comes to actually configuring App Layouts it's been a nightmare of clicking around. I went so far as to export my config so I could modify it with a text editor and then re-import it but the config itself includes serialized JSON as values so to accomplish what I wanted to I had to de-serialize the json, make the changes I wanted to, re-serialize it, then re-import it back into Rectangle, all while hoping I didn't mess up the re-serialization step. This ended up taking more time than if I had just painfully clicked through the interface.

Personally, I wish Rectangle had the option of storing configuration in a simple dot file in my home dir but I understand that would prevent syncing through icloud, which is a feature I imagine a lot of folks like. Barring that, I wish rectangle could export/import the configuration in a more editor friendly way so I could make these configuration changes much faster and more easily ensure consistency across settings.

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#123

Post by rewgs »

I've tried Yabai multiple times but always bounced off. It's just a little too buggy, a little too opinionated. I've never found a window management system I've actually truly liked. On Linux, I've tried em all, and though in theory I love tiling window managers, but for me automatic tiling with the option to go floating on a per-window basis just ultimately ends up annoying me -- I prefer the reverse. On Windows, PowerToys/FancyZones is as close to my preferred method as possible, but then I'm, you know, using Windows.

This past week I've come up with what is I think my perfect, dream solution:

- Caps Lock is tapped for Escape, held for Cmd+Ctrl+Opt (i.e. "Hyper" or whatever). I'm a Neovim user, so Caps Lock has been mapped to Escape forever already.

- Tapping both Shift keys simultaneously engages Caps Lock for the rare times in which I actually need it.

- Window snapping is handled entirely with Hammerspoon. I have commands for absolute positions (e.g. half, one third, two thirds, quarters), but also can define grids and call them with key commands, and then use another command to snap all windows or just the focused window to the nearest grid box.

It's all defined with code, and thus lives with my dotfiles, and is just a `brew install` and symlink away from totally setting up on a brand new machine.

Also, I set my tmux prefix to Control+p, which I map to Command in my iTerm profile. So, opening up a new tmux "window" (i.e. tab) is Command+t. Navigating to the next "window"/tab is Control+Tab. And so on. Basically it just feels like a browser. This way, whether I switch terminals, or am ssh-ing into a machine, as long as I have my tmux config, those key commands are set.

It's an amazing setup, can't recommend it enough.

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#124

Post by marcomourao »

daggersandscars wrote: post #4
xwowsersx wrote: post #2

Funny to see this at the top of HN after just having uninstalled Yabai. I used Yabai for about 6 weeks. I was so thrilled about having a proper tiling window manager for Mac. I invested a lot of time setting up skhd and fine-tuning my configuration for the most intuitive hotkeys. The problem ultimately, however, is that Yabai just doesn't work well enough. It'll regularly just lose track of windows altogether, which…

This may not be what you’re looking for, but I use Mizage’s Divvy on Mac & Windows and configure Gnome to match on Linux. It can be keyboard or mouse driven — I exclusively use custom keyboard shortcuts.

I've also been using Divvy since as long as I can remember but it hasn't been updated in 4 years, looks like abandonware.

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#125

Post by xwowsersx »

onelesd wrote: post #16
xwowsersx wrote: post #2

Funny to see this at the top of HN after just having uninstalled Yabai. I used Yabai for about 6 weeks. I was so thrilled about having a proper tiling window manager for Mac. I invested a lot of time setting up skhd and fine-tuning my configuration for the most intuitive hotkeys. The problem ultimately, however, is that Yabai just doesn't work well enough. It'll regularly just lose track of windows altogether, which…

try hammerspoon. it isn't a tiling window manager, per se - it's more of an all-purpose desktop extension framework. it is fully customizable, has a well-documented API, and a large community. for window arrangement the hs.grid component is plenty for me. see an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRJ0477KFp8

Do you have a config example I can look at that demonstrates how to set this up?

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#127

Post by edanm »

gdcbe wrote: post #126

Tbh if there was an app that would allow me to move between spaces on all my monitors at once, instead of each monitor to be done one by one, then that would be sufficient for my needs.

There's a setting for that.

I don't remember it but something like separate spaces for displays.

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#128

Post by idle_zealot »

certifiedloud wrote: post #116

If you come from i3 you'll probably find Aerospace[1] to be more what you're after. [1] https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace

Thank you for recommending this. Time for round three of attempting a tiling setup on my mac (after Amethyst and Yabai disappointed).

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#130

Post by certifiedloud »

idle_zealot wrote: post #128
certifiedloud wrote: post #116

If you come from i3 you'll probably find Aerospace[1] to be more what you're after. [1] https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace

Thank you for recommending this. Time for round three of attempting a tiling setup on my mac (after Amethyst and Yabai disappointed).

Same path I took. I'm liking Aerospace so far. I just snagged the "i3-like" config from their docs and it feels like home. Not quite as snappy as i3, but very workable.
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