Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS • Hacker News Board

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#181

Post by rxhanson » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 1:05 AM UTC

dishsoap wrote: post #150

rxhanson wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

One difference I've noticed is that with Magnet, if you have a window 'maximized' by dragging it into the top of the screen or pressing the shortcut for it, when you start dragging it down from the top of the screen to unmaximize it, it instantly returns to its original size, whereas with Rectangle it stays maximized for some time after you start dragging it which is pretty annoying. Another thing is the way Magnet m…

Good to know! I'm surprised that Magnet has any improvement over Rectangle in these areas, since Rectangle isn't really adding any overhead to the Accessibility API commands, but I'll have to investigate.

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#182

Post by lazerlapin » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 1:08 AM UTC

I have used yabai for a long time now and never had any big issue. It's a set up once and forget solution and honestly I'm surprises I don't see more comment like that. One thing for sure: you got to give it a fair shot to really appreciate what it does to your user experience.

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#183

Post by rxhanson » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 1:10 AM UTC

Bagged2347 wrote: post #91

rxhanson wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Are you the Rectangle dev? I appreciate your work! How did you get into developing tools for macOS? Were you filling your own needs?

Glad you like my software! A long time ago, I had some RSI issues that were alleviated by using the Magic Trackpad, and this led me to create the Multitouch app[0] to add a bit more functionality to the Magic Trackpad. From there I wanted to add in window management, and ended up rewriting Spectacle as Rectangle. I feel really lucky to have people enjoying the things I've built!

[0]https://multitouch.app

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#184

Post by xwowsersx » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 1:31 AM UTC

nbobko wrote: post #168

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…

> I'd be more than willing to try another tiling window manager on Mac if there's one out there that truly works Hello, AeroSpace author speaking :) I'd be happy if you could try AeroSpace (it's and i3-like window manager for macOS) and report me back if it loses track of windows. https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace The architecture of AeroSpace is that on every user input that may change window configuration (n…

Very cool, looks great. Seems to hew pretty closely to i3 from what I could tell in the demo video. Will definitely give this a try. Thanks for your work on this!

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#185

Post by ianyh » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 1:33 AM UTC

Hey, Amethyst dev here. Love seeing this on the front page.

I’ve seen a few comments mention it here and there, but I’m swooping in with my semi-regular reminder that you don’t need to disable SIP to use yabai. It’s a great bsp window manager out of the box, with some optional—and admittedly very cool—extra features that require maneuvering around SIP.

(Also, minor apology to Amethyst users because I haven’t managed to get much time to work on it recently.)

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#186

Post by xwowsersx » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 1:33 AM UTC

pmarreck wrote: post #33

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…

So basically, it's below the "Reliability*Utility" threshold (that's my term for the drastic dropoff in usefulness of a product/service/person when their reliability goes from 100% to 90% or lower) That's too bad. Maybe some unit tests (historically notoriously difficult to implement with GUI's) would help that dev. Fleshing my concept out on a whim (since I am surprised I can't find another reference to this idea on…

> So basically, it's below the "Reliability*Utility" threshold (that's my term for the drastic dropoff in usefulness of a product/service/person when their reliability goes from 100% to 90% or lower)

Useful concept, that's exactly it.

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#187

Post by spike021 » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 1:48 AM UTC

CSSer wrote: post #18

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…

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…

I love magnet as well, have used it probably most of the last few jobs I've worked. The hot keys can be a little tricky to learn at first but after that it's a snap (heh).

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#188

Post by fomine3 » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 1:59 AM UTC

TheRealPomax wrote: post #66

datameta wrote: post #64

Yabai is an interesting japanese word with several distinct composite meanings. https://www.alexrockinjapanese.com/what-does-yabai-mean-in-j... Here it is being used in one context at a beatbox battle between then World Beatbox champion Alexinho and the super innovative Soso. https://youtu.be/OjbYK4rujB0?si=SIn-uNHlh2KexsXc Yabai shout is at 3m23s

It also seems wholly unrelated to anything about this app though, which is a shame, because as someone who knows Japanese, I'm not likely to install something called "yabai" in the same vein that I'm not going to install something called "whoa" or "ohshit". Hopefully that puts me in the minority.

As a Japanese, I just feel that "ah a foreigner adopt a weird word for a product again" and install without worrying.

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#189

Post by rufugee » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 2:00 AM UTC

xwowsersx wrote: post #160

rufugee wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After trying yabai, Amethyst, and many others, I landed on hammerspoon.org + https://github.com/miromannino/miro-windows-manager a few years ago and haven't looked back. I couldn't live on a Mac without hammerspoon tbh.

Can you share your config please? Trying to get a better idea of what's possible and how to get started. Thanks

My full hammerspoon config is a mix of things I've collected/written over the years, but the Miro-specific section is simply:

  -- window management
  hs.loadSpoon("MiroWindowsManager")
  -- set to 0.x for animation, 0 for none
  hs.window.animationDuration = 0.3

  spoon.MiroWindowsManager:bindHotkeys({
    up = { hyper, "k" },
    down = { hyper, "j" },
    left = { hyper, "h" },
    right = { hyper, "l" },
    fullscreen = { hyper, "f" },
    nextscreen = { hyper, "n" }
  })

Re: Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS

#190

Post by rufugee » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 2:00 AM UTC

chaxor wrote: post #153

koiueo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Asahi your daily driver on MBP?

Yes, absolutely. Asahilinux >> MacOS It's wonderful to use the M2 with incredible battery life and performance without having to have a subpar OS.

Is there anything that doesn't work for you?