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Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

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Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#281

Post by kitsunesoba »

SebastianKra wrote: post #256

I always feel like Apple must have some grand 1000IQ concept for window management and I just don't get it. Stage Manager, Spaces, Mission Control, Expose, Window Zooming, Hiding, Minimizing (which is different from Hiding), Fullscreen/Splitscreen... yet the first thing I do is install a third-party window manager. I tried for months to go vanilla and get my head around the features. But why, why do fullscreen window…

The idea behind macOS window management is to not manage windows at all, instead letting them exist at sizes that fit their content in whichever position they land on your desktop, stacking and overlapping like papers on a desk, letting relevant bits peek through without requiring the entirety of their host windows being visible. Exposé/Mission Control are there when a window gets lost, and virtual desktops are meant to partition window groups by task further reducing the need to manually manage windows.

It's basically the polar opposite of something like a Linux tiling WM and it's quite different from Windows, where it's the norm to maximize everything.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#282

Post by crimsontech »

jrmg wrote: post #209
jdlshore wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Default behavior of the green button click is full-screen, but option-click maximizes. The behavior of double-clicking the title bar is controlled by the "Dock & Menu Bar" settings pane. It can be configured to minimize the window instead. You can also double-click any edge or corner to maximize from that side alone. Option-double-clicking will grow both sides. I like to option-double-click my Terminal windows to max…

You can discover so many things on Mac by Option-clicking! It’s used in many places to give an ‘alternate’ function to buttons and the like.

Indeed, I think it’s a relic from the one button mouse.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#283

Post by squeaky-clean »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #204
ShadowBanThis01 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple loves to hide functionality to the point where it essentially doesn't exist. When I started at Apple as an engineer, the first bug I filed was "Can't resize windows from their edges" (or any corner except one). Just mind-bogglingly stupid. And when Apple finally does capitulate and admit that others have done it better, they petulantly try to hide the functionality anyway. In the case of the windows, there's no…

My favorite is how, if you have multiple windows of the same app visible, when you cmd-tab to that app, it moves all of the windows to the top of the stack. So if you want to switch between windows of two different apps, you better hide the ones you don't use.

For me it's almost the opposite. I can't cmd-tab between different windows of the same app. I can use cmd+~ to switch between windows of the same app, but I always forget that and end up cmd+tab'ing though all my apps trying to find where my second Chrome window is.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#284

Post by nicbou »

jrmg wrote: post #209
jdlshore wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Default behavior of the green button click is full-screen, but option-click maximizes. The behavior of double-clicking the title bar is controlled by the "Dock & Menu Bar" settings pane. It can be configured to minimize the window instead. You can also double-click any edge or corner to maximize from that side alone. Option-double-clicking will grow both sides. I like to option-double-click my Terminal windows to max…

You can discover so many things on Mac by Option-clicking! It’s used in many places to give an ‘alternate’ function to buttons and the like.

Try the volume and wifi icons!

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#285

Post by IshKebab »

based2 wrote: post #109

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6661436B2/en Method for providing window snap control for a split screen computer program GUI https://patents.justia.com/patent/6661436 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250201392 https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/07/gnome-shell-quarter-tili...

That patent is for the ability to resize windows once they have been sent to half the screen. Windows does that.

But Linux (at least Gnome) doesn't support it so it doesn't violate the patent. You can send windows to half the screen but you can't conveniently move the split point.

But MacOS doesn't even let you do that. I always end up installing Spectacle or Rectangle or whatever it is and using keyboard shortcuts.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#287

Post by superasn »

Can anyone also tell me how to get the dock on all my 4 monitors together? The best I can do is get it on the bottom 2 monitors using the mouse hover features.

But is there a way to get it to show on all 4 monitors all the time? If it could show the open windows on each monitor (like windows taskbar) that would be even more amazing! Please this has been bugging me for so long and any help is appreciated.

P.S. There is a software called ubar but that only works for bottom 2 monitors :/

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#288

Post by SebastianKra »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #281
SebastianKra wrote: post #256

I always feel like Apple must have some grand 1000IQ concept for window management and I just don't get it. Stage Manager, Spaces, Mission Control, Expose, Window Zooming, Hiding, Minimizing (which is different from Hiding), Fullscreen/Splitscreen... yet the first thing I do is install a third-party window manager. I tried for months to go vanilla and get my head around the features. But why, why do fullscreen window…

The idea behind macOS window management is to not manage windows at all, instead letting them exist at sizes that fit their content in whichever position they land on your desktop, stacking and overlapping like papers on a desk, letting relevant bits peek through without requiring the entirety of their host windows being visible. Exposé/Mission Control are there when a window gets lost, and virtual desktops are meant…

I might actually try that for a while, but I doubt I can get used to it.

My use cases almost always want the maximum available vertical space. Every window that scrolls, I want as large as possible in that direction. But, on the other hand, I can see how smaller overlapping windows would leverage spatial memory for faster switching.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#289

Post by lolinder »

lloeki wrote: post #141

Well, because it has? Hover over the green stoplight, you get a popover with fullscreen options. Press Option and the fullscreen options mutate into snap left/snap right/zoom. These can also be found in the Window menu. Again, press option to mutate the fullscreen ones to snap. And since these are menu options, one can set any keyboard shortcut of their choosing through the keyboard shortcut prefpane+. So it is not "…

It's weird that Apple is obsessed with gesture-oriented interfaces—even for things that really don't call for a gesture—but when there's a super intuitive gesture pretty much everyone else has settled on they decided instead to rely on a hidden context menu.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#290

Post by wrs »

karaterobot wrote: post #225
wrs wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure quite what situation you're describing with the secret key thing, but in case it's relevant: Cmd-tab selects applications , not windows . If the application has no windows open, then when you cmd-tab to it, you won't switch to a window (but you will see the menu bar switch). The situation cannot occur in Windows because it insists that an application must have at least one window open to interact with it…

You can see a description of the problem, and its obscure (in the sense of being hidden) solution, in this stackoverflow thread. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/112350/cmdtab-does... All applications are open in this case. MacOS just doesn't display anything in certain quite common cases, such as one of its windows being hidden or minimized. There is a mechanism to display these windows (the obscure, well-k…

Aaaah, minimized windows, a feature I only use by accident. I always “disable” the cmd-M shortcut.

(“Disable” meaning set it to cmd-opt-shift-ctl-M for all apps.)

But still, switching to the app does show all the non-minimized windows. And minimizing a window is explicitly asking for it to be hidden. So it would be wrong to show it every time you switch back to the application.

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