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AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

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Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#121

Post by SxC97 »

msravi wrote: post #104
kcrwfrd_ wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw I have yabai configured for instant desktop switching

That's what I thought I did, but I can't, for example, just move to space 7 or something. I need to create a new space with a number I can't control and switch to that. That new workspace might not be next to the previous space I was working in, so I need to cycle through multiple spaces. Aerospace on the other hand just lets you choose a numbered workspace and work with that. Would love to see your yabairc if you ca…

Not OP, but I also have instant space switching enabled with yabai. Here is my yabairc and skhdrc.

yabairc - https://github.com/SxC97/dotfiles/blob/main/.yabairc

skhdrc - https://github.com/SxC97/dotfiles/blob/5db5e13f894f767722758...

If it's still not working, make sure SIP is disabled and the Scripting Addition is installed and loaded. Here's a link to the instructions as it's a little complicated: https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai/wiki/Installing-yabai-(...

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#122

Post by thisrod »

Avi-D-coder wrote: post #45
maherbeg wrote: post #39

I'd be curious to know how it is different than Amethyst. Amethyst has gotten much more stable recently and I really enjoy using it. The text based config seems pretty nice at a first glance, but I'm not sure if it's worth switching.

in my experience aerospace is way better in most ways. there are a few oddities, and I need to file a couple of bug reports, but it has made macos so much more tolerable than amethyst.

> in my experience aerospace is way better in most ways.

As an Amethyst user, I'm approaching this comparison from the other direction: is there one compelling reason to switch?

The improvement I'd most like to see in Amethyst is more stable window placement when I remove a monitor then add it again (I do that a lot with my laptop).

It would be fantastic to have integration between Amethyst-managed spaces, Firefox windows, and Proton Pass vaults. As in Space 1 knows that new windows should use the Google account in my Work vault, and Space 2 knows that new windows should log out from Google because there is no Google account in my Personal vault. I doubt that's an imminent prospect, though.

In general, I prefer the Amethyst approach of extending the builtin OSX window management to the Aerospace approach of replacing it. Clearly the Amethyst developers weren't convinced that it's impossible to move windows between spaces with hotkeys, because they went ahead and implemented that.

Overall, I'm really happy that these window managers are being written. I use a 42 inch monitor, which would be awkward without them.

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#124

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

namdnay wrote: post #18
gray_-_wolf wrote: post #6

I will be getting my first mac soon (I am still sad about it), which means I will need to figure out the WM. Currently I am considering yabai and amethyst. I guess now I should add AeroSpace to the list. If you are actually using tiling WM on mac, could you share which one and why?

I'm not an expert, but isn't Rectangle the simplest and easiest way to manage this? I love it

I've spent some time evaluating MacOS tiling apps. Rectangle is one of them. I've so far given up on all of them because they lack the ability to directionally reassign focus.

So like if I have windows in four corners, and focus is in the bottom left, I want something like ?-k ?-l to move focus up and then right. Now focus should be in the upper right window. Have I missed it? Does rectangle make this possible?

Amethyst (xmonad inspired) gets close, but I want directionality, not cycles within cycles.

So far my solution is to just use i3 on my desktop and have a bunch of ssh sessions into my macbook, which is fine until I do a clipboard-yank through the ssh session and wonder why I can't paste the contents into the browser on the linux side.

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#125

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

vmladenov wrote: post #87
igorguerrero wrote: post #79

This looks so awesome I gonna dust off my mac mini. As a tiling wm user (Hyprland now) I always wonder how OSX users claim they're that productive with all those alt+tabbin' I meant cmd+tabbin'. Welcome to the 2010s guys!

Can you share any resources on learning to be productive with tiling WMs? I have tried a few times and always bounce off of them. I also find window overlapping to often be more intuitive than forcing them to squeeze into a tile. I internalized the swipe gestures (3 fingers left/right) early on with OS X 10.6 snow leopard and then with the Mission Control update (3 fingers up) I am basically always faster with a trac…

For tiling WM's I think it's rather critical that the hotkey for "move window left" resemble the hotkey for "move focus left". I haven't tried AeroSpace yet, but so far I haven't been able to pull this off with any of the tiling apps on MacOS (if I've overlooked one please let me know).

So my tip for being productive in a tiling window manager is to get a linux machine and use sway.

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#126

Post by pimlottc »

lednax wrote: post #117
idle_zealot wrote: post #67

I daily drive this and my verdict is: it's the best way to manage windows on a Mac, but falls short of i3/sway. In particular, support for re-arranging windows by dragging them to positions relative to one another is extremely limited in that it's not able to create new vertical or horizontal splits the way you can in sway, which forces me to take awkward detours with keyboard commands to get to the window layout I w…

I use spectacle and it’s no longer supported

Another option is the ShiftIt plugin for Hammerspoon:

https://github.com/peterklijn/hammerspoon-shiftit

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#127

Post by primaprashant »

I use yabai and my favorite feature is being able to switch between mostly recently used spaces with a shortcut. It allows me to quickly alter between editor and terminal spaces, or editor and browser, or two browser windows. This feature alone boosts my productivity so much and makes it fun to use my machine. But it required disabling SIP which I can't do on my work machine. Does anybody know if AeroSpace can do this?

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#128

Post by primaprashant »

primaprashant wrote: post #127

I use yabai and my favorite feature is being able to switch between mostly recently used spaces with a shortcut. It allows me to quickly alter between editor and terminal spaces, or editor and browser, or two browser windows. This feature alone boosts my productivity so much and makes it fun to use my machine. But it required disabling SIP which I can't do on my work machine. Does anybody know if AeroSpace can do thi…

Looks like it can using the `workspace-back-and-forth`[1] command. I'm gonna try it.

[1]: https://nikitabobko.github.io/AeroSpace/commands#workspace-b...

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#129

Post by runjake »

lednax wrote: post #117
idle_zealot wrote: post #67

I daily drive this and my verdict is: it's the best way to manage windows on a Mac, but falls short of i3/sway. In particular, support for re-arranging windows by dragging them to positions relative to one another is extremely limited in that it's not able to create new vertical or horizontal splits the way you can in sway, which forces me to take awkward detours with keyboard commands to get to the window layout I w…

I use spectacle and it’s no longer supported

https://rectangleapp.com is the spiritual successor.

Re: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

#130

Post by speedgoose »

bashinator wrote: post #107
speedgoose wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like Hammerspoon and some lua should do: https://www.hammerspoon.org/docs/hs.mouse.html https://www.hammerspoon.org/docs/hs.window.html

Not seeing a way to get the window currently under the mouse pointer, but this is pretty interesting - thanks!

You can get the positions of every windows, the position of the mouse pointer, and you can focus windows.
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