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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

#21

Post by vidarh »

andrewla wrote: post #9
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?

For what it's worth, I don't think there's a lot of value in these. I hate the MacOS environment as much as anyone, but all the attempts to create tiling managers have resulted in strange unusable quirky behavior. You're better off just sucking it up and using the native UI until you get sufficiently familiar with it that it rarely gets in your way too much. Meanwhile keep lobbying your employer (assuming that you ar…

Fully agree with this.

Used Yabai at first last time I was forced to use a Mac. Hated it with a passion. It was "close", but not close enough, and so I felt I was fighting it all the time.

Ended up running most applications full-screen instead, and relying on tiling in iTerm2 or the applications most of the time instead. It helped that I was connected to a second monitor most of the time.

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

#22

Post by tanelso217 »

happymellon wrote: post #15
wizhi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been there, being forced to use it for work.. I tried both Yabai and Amethyst and, frankly, neither provide a clean experience. Yabai requires disabling some OS security feature iirc, which may or may not be an issue for you. I seem to recall having issues with it, and switching to Amethyst pretty soon after. It might also only support BSP layout, which I dislike - stacks all the way. Amethyst feels a little hal…

> It also doesn't support things like moving windows between workspaces It's been a while since I used Amethyst as the Mac is now on complete corporate lockdown, but I remember that being the biggest feature I used on Amethyst. MacOS doesn't support it, but Amethyst did.

I lost my Amethyst due to corporate lockdown rebuild a few weeks ago. MacOS window management is obnoxious without it and I'm much less productive due to losing my tools.

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

#23

Post by jwells89 »

happymellon wrote: post #13
andrewla wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I don't think there's a lot of value in these. I hate the MacOS environment as much as anyone, but all the attempts to create tiling managers have resulted in strange unusable quirky behavior. You're better off just sucking it up and using the native UI until you get sufficiently familiar with it that it rarely gets in your way too much. Meanwhile keep lobbying your employer (assuming that you ar…

Completely agree with this take. No matter how sophisticated these Mac Window Managers get, MacOS will always mess with the windows because it knows better than you. That's why people buy Macs, and it's not going to change. If you don't like this, then you actually don't like Macs. It's opinionated, and it's opinions do not match yours. I would have liked window snapping, but instead we have 1/2 baked split screen vi…

> I would have liked window snapping, but instead we have 1/2 baked split screen virtual desktops.

There’s at least non-fullscreen tiling available now if you hold down Option/Alt when hovering over the green traffic light (which also changes the corresponding Window menu items to “Move Window to (Left|Right) Side of Screen). There should probably be a toggle somewhere that makes this the default.

> I simply don't understand why people use them for development environments, the "Unix underneath" doesn't help enough in enough scenarios when it's hostile in so many others.

A lot of it is that the hardware is well-rounded and not as riddled with gambles/compromises as most other laptops are. Usually non-Apple laptops have at least one or two things that suck about them, with the most frequent being battery life, fan noise, and poor thermal design but include mediocre screen, bad keyboard, bad trackpad, bad power management, bad unplugged performance, bad port placement, and chintzy build among other things.

Some percentage of users also just like macOS as it is, though.

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

#24

Post by meter »

I’ve been using this for the past few months, and for the most part, I like it. I appreciate that it’s all configured with a single file (no GUI).

One issue: If an app uses native Mac tabs, Aerospace treats each tab as a window, which completely breaks the full screen functionality. Alacritty is one example. It’s really odd.

Edit: there’s an open issue for this: https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace/issues/68

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

#25

Post by behnamoh »

jwells89 wrote: post #12
anonzzzies wrote: post #10

I have been trying this for a few months now. I3 is quite perfect and Aerospace is a nice try, but it’s very far from i3; it’s quite flaky. I guess this is because Mac OS X doesn’t actually allow full control like Unix WMs do? I have not found anything better though, but I will install Linux when it’s working well on Apple Silicon. Only i3 is at least for me enough reason to use Linux as Mac OS X, again imho, is terr…

Having dabbled in some of this for a hobby project (not a window manager, but adjacent), it’s because the official APIs to do these things with are limited. You end up relying a lot on undocumented private APIs and hacks, which are flaky both due to their undocumented internal-use nature and because the OS isn’t designed to play nice with significant meddling with window/process management, which results in the OS an…

Apple being Apple... gosh they just know how to build hardware but for software they just flop.

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

#26

Post by jwells89 »

behnamoh wrote: post #25
jwells89 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having dabbled in some of this for a hobby project (not a window manager, but adjacent), it’s because the official APIs to do these things with are limited. You end up relying a lot on undocumented private APIs and hacks, which are flaky both due to their undocumented internal-use nature and because the OS isn’t designed to play nice with significant meddling with window/process management, which results in the OS an…

Apple being Apple... gosh they just know how to build hardware but for software they just flop.

In fairness, I’ve encountered similar flakiness when using third party window/desktop manager utilities on Windows. Commercial OSes in general just aren’t designed with that kind of flexibility in mind.

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

#27

Post by Cu3PO42 »

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?

Out of all of these, I've only tried Yabai. It's fine. Things mostly work like I expect them to and I rarely encounter a situation that isn't fixed by restarting Yabai. That said, I'm hardly a power user. I have not disabled SIP and instead simulate features that would require it as best as possible through other means. E.g. workspaces can be switched by dispatching a key combination that is handled by macOS natively.

You can check out my configs here [0] if you are so inclined, but it's not super polished.

[0] https://github.com/Cu3PO42/gleaming-glacier/tree/next

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

#28

Post by bsnnkv »

Nice to see another twm on macOS.

Somehow over the past few years Windows became the more vibrant platform for twms (vs macOS) with developers (including myself) trying to push the envelope and introduce many quality of life features you still won't find even in Linux twms today.

https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi

https://github.com/glzr-io/glazewm

https://github.com/dalyIsaac/Whim

Hopefully this new entrant will drive even more innovation in this space on macOS.

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

#29

Post by bbor »

bsnnkv wrote: post #28

Nice to see another twm on macOS. Somehow over the past few years Windows became the more vibrant platform for twms (vs macOS) with developers (including myself) trying to push the envelope and introduce many quality of life features you still won't find even in Linux twms today. https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi https://github.com/glzr-io/glazewm https://github.com/dalyIsaac/Whim Hopefully this new entrant will dri…

Not to drop this kind hacker’s competitor, but I’ve been a happy user of https://rectangleapp.com/. Will definitely be checking this out instead tho, even though I’ve paid for rectangle — any demo that has SublimeText windows in it is a demo I trust!

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

#30

Post by ashenke »

bsnnkv wrote: post #28

Nice to see another twm on macOS. Somehow over the past few years Windows became the more vibrant platform for twms (vs macOS) with developers (including myself) trying to push the envelope and introduce many quality of life features you still won't find even in Linux twms today. https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi https://github.com/glzr-io/glazewm https://github.com/dalyIsaac/Whim Hopefully this new entrant will dri…

I'm curious, what kind of features that are not found on Linux ?
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