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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?

#481

Post by pxc »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #452
happymellon wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's basically the polar opposite of something like a Linux tiling WM It's basically an over-engineered Gnome, where some features like side by side windows there was a red line by UX and someone worked around the law to "sort of" offer the option.

Having used GNOME (and actually, running it on a couple of machines right now), I think macOS is at least a step or two above “overengineered GNOME”, because GNOME itself is basically what you’d get if you asked someone to turn iPadOS into a desktop OS. It feels considerably more restrictive than macOS does.

GNOME has a lot of features that macOS is missing by default, like dragging windows anywhere by holding a key, compose key support, per-app volume mixing, and searching through open windows as you type.

In what ways do you feel that GNOME is more limited than the macOS desktop?

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

#482

Post by pxc »

mort96 wrote: post #328
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at old screenshots of how people used desktop computers [1], it was rare to see fullscreen windows, even on the tiny monitors of the day, and when most people used only a single monitor. Today, we all have gigantic monitors, many have more than one, but for whatever reason people want to maximize or tile windows. Maybe it's the influence of the fullscreen only, unitasking paradigm from phones and tablet c…

I keep my browser fullscreen because websites usually break (read: horizontal scrollbars, or ridiculously narrow columns for content) or go into a mobile view if I don't. I keep my terminal (read: text editor) fullscreen because then I have enough horizontal space to have two panes open next to each other (sometimes with an additional directory viewer to the left). 99% of the time, I'm in the terminal or the web brow…

If you're not using a tiling window manager, maximizing windows that do their own tiling (e.g., tmux, Emacs, vim, iTerm, Konsole... whatever) is the only thing that makes sense.

If you're visually impaired, you'll also likely find yourself needing to maximize because all of the blank space used in modern design trends means that if you scale up the app or the font sizes, all that empty space the app is burning up forces you to maximize the window just to fit the important elements on the screen.

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

#483

Post by kitsunesoba »

pxc wrote: post #481
kitsunesoba wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having used GNOME (and actually, running it on a couple of machines right now), I think macOS is at least a step or two above “overengineered GNOME”, because GNOME itself is basically what you’d get if you asked someone to turn iPadOS into a desktop OS. It feels considerably more restrictive than macOS does.

GNOME has a lot of features that macOS is missing by default, like dragging windows anywhere by holding a key, compose key support, per-app volume mixing, and searching through open windows as you type. In what ways do you feel that GNOME is more limited than the macOS desktop?

There’s a ton of little power user affordances sprinkled through macOS that aren’t present in GNOME, and some not in any other desktop environment.

Here’s just a few shortcomings compared to macOS pulled from memory and from playing with my GNOME install for a few minutes just now:

- No built in UI to remap modifier keys

- Disinclination towards menubars, with any functions that don’t fit on the toolbar or in the hamburger menu getting trimmed

- No ability to search menu items for an app-agnostic command palette

- No ability to assign/remap key shortcut for any menu item, including in third party apps

- No desktop icons without extension

- No per-virtual-desktop wallpapers

- Dash can’t be pinned to left or right edges

- Files and folders can’t be pinned to the Dash

- Overview can’t group windows by application, making it impossible to move all window of an app between desktops at once

- Minimize and zoom/maximize buttons are hidden without GNOME Tweaks

- All windows for an app can’t be closed, minimized, restored, or zoomed all at the same time

- No option in settings to change UI accent color

- Frequently accessed control center sections can’t be dragged out and made top-level items

- File manager obscures root filesystem and other partitions

- GNOME apps don’t allow user to customize toolbars unlike native Mac apps

If I really drilled there’d probably be enough to fill a blog post.

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

#484

Post by matt-attack »

chris37879 wrote: post #460
saghm wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only Apple device I use is the laptop I was given for work, and I've always disliked that the button that would "maximize" the window on other OS instead makes the window "fullscreen" (getting rid of the menu and everything else that entails). I recently discovered that I am actually able to "maximize" by double-clicking the top bar of the window, but I have no idea if this is something that works by default or i…

Holding option and clicking the plus will maximize it like a Window's maximize button. The option key on macOS enables all sorts of extra functionality, open some drop down menus while holding it and you'll find extra / more advanced options in some. Or if you option click your Wifi, for instance, you get all the network info for the network in a bigger popup than clicking it alone!

I find it baffling that the “option” key is not labeled “option” or simply “opt”. WTF Apple?

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

#485

Post by dwb »

matt-attack wrote: post #484
chris37879 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holding option and clicking the plus will maximize it like a Window's maximize button. The option key on macOS enables all sorts of extra functionality, open some drop down menus while holding it and you'll find extra / more advanced options in some. Or if you option click your Wifi, for instance, you get all the network info for the network in a bigger popup than clicking it alone!

I find it baffling that the “option” key is not labeled “option” or simply “opt”. WTF Apple?

Indeed it wasn’t for the longest time, but it has been for the last few years (I think with the generation of keyboards after the bad “butterfly” hinges). But the symbol on the key always matched with where it was mentioned on screen, in menus and such.

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

#486

Post by WWLink »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #359
WWLink wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol you couldn't be more wrong. Back in the classic Mac days, Apple was so anti-full-screen-environment that most apps had floating toolbars and the document windows were minimal and freestanding. (ircle and office:mac 2000 or older would be my first examples, but I believe photoshop worked the same). MS did it because.. I think Windows used to only support 1 window per program or something. That's why old versions o…

And then in 2010 they came out with macOS 10 and went back on all that.

MacOS X was still pretty hardcore about not doing fullscreen, for quite a while. The green button used to make the window 'full size' but that often meant like, as big as a 8x11 document in word would be, not full screen.

That pissed off a lot of users who expected MacOS to act like Windows. So Apple changed it.

Then along came the iPad and Apple went full hog on "1 task at a time" UIs. So full hog that Microsoft had to backstep and do the same with Windows 8 lol.

I don't know what Apple is doing anymore lol.

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

#488

Post by wappieslurkz »

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 "…

Gary from the YouTube channel MacMost made some amazing eye opening guides regarding window management, like this one: https://youtu.be/T9uGNidrTyM

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

#489

Post by e12e »

lionkor wrote: post #437
s3p wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's awful. Instead of windows where you can BAM drag a window to one side and snap it in 0.2 seconds, you have to hover over the window, wait a second, press option, wait .1 second, figure out which option you want, mouse over to it, then finally click it. That's insane.

Linux users: - Meta+Left to snap to the left - Meta+Right to snap to the right - Meta+up to maximize - Meta+down to un-maximize Meta is Win or Alt, depending on your config.

The kernel doesn't do window management - i expect you mean: "Gnome users"?

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

#490

Post by superasn »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #294
superasn wrote: post #287

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 i…

I believe probably the issue with this is that there are only a tiny handful of devs with 3+ monitors hooked up who could develop a dock/taskbar with such features and test that it works as intended.

I think you're right but almost every other operating system natively supports it including Windows 10 and Linux mint.
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