| [HN Gopher] Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping...
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Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
It's honesty shocking that in 2023, MacOS still has a nonexistent
window managing system. Forget us on the outside. How are the tens
of thousands of employees who work for Apple not sending the
executive team daily feedback on this?
Author : retskrad
Score : 192 points
Date : 2023-06-17 10:44 UTC (12 hours ago)
| alphanullmeric wrote:
| It's unfortunate that non-Linux desktop environments don't have a
| nice keyboard autotiler like Pop Shell. Amethyst and MacOS in
| general feel so unintuitive and needlessly complex/feature
| lacking that I'm surprised it has captured the kind of audience
| that Apple is known for having.
| asylteltine wrote:
| [dead]
| tambourine_man wrote:
| This appears every now and then on HN.
|
| Window management in macOS is superficially similar but
| profoundly different from Windows or most Linux DEs. It's got a
| fixed menu bar which windows are independent from. That alone
| already changes a lot and has deep implications.
|
| My advice is to learn how and why it's different instead of
| trying to make it behave as something it's not. Waiting for Apple
| to turn it into a chimera would be even worse, IMO.
| nine_k wrote:
| Different enough, fine!
|
| Would you please kindly provide a reference to a guide
| explaining the right way to operate macOS windows, preferably
| with some explanation of the concepts behind it. and the
| advantages it offers over the established practices known from
| elsewhere?
|
| E.g. vi navigation is pretty different from Notepad's, but it's
| relatively easy to make a case when it shows certain
| advantages. What are the superpowers of the standard macOS WM?
| tambourine_man wrote:
| I'm an orphan of the spatial Finder, to be honest. macOS got
| features from NeXT and some of its own, but it lost cohesion.
| Though I'm not entirely sure how it would fit with the
| terabytes and Spotlight of today.
|
| Off the top of my head:
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/amp/
|
| The after show of this podcast: https://atp.fm/96
| torstenvl wrote:
| This is easily solved by Magnet or Rectangle.
| shipscode wrote:
| Just use Yabai
| j45 wrote:
| Might be a patent
| KlayLay wrote:
| Personally, I use Swish for this [1], but the reason is probably
| because of the intended audience. Window snapping requires you to
| organize your windows yourself, which is something they clearly
| don't want you to do. That's why Mission Control, App Expose,
| Stage Manager, and (arguably) Launchpad exist--they organize your
| windows for you.
|
| [1]: https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/
| g_p wrote:
| I think this comes down to Apple's envisaged window management
| paradigm being centered around full-screen windows.
|
| In Apple's UX view, it seems like you're meant to maximize
| windows to "spaces", and switch between workspaces using a few
| gestures (4 finger swipes mainly) to reveal all windows, and swap
| between workspaces that way.
|
| Rectangle, as others have pointed out, give you the "snap"
| experience you would expect from other OSs.
| OJFord wrote:
| Why then the two 'full-ish screen' systems? There's 'spaces' as
| you say, and also the traffic light button that makes it
| 'maximised' I suppose.
|
| I just don't see why if you'd thought it out, and that's
| (either of them) the you wanted people to do it, why you'd have
| both options.
|
| And then there's the weird 'close actually closes the window,
| not the app' (even though for some large percentage of apps the
| one window is all there ever would be).
| rcarmo wrote:
| Those are intended as shortcuts for creative apps where you
| typically need the entire screen real estate. There was
| precedent for that going back to pre-X macOS, but spaces and
| full screen windows are a consistent approach at switching
| contexts in creative apps.
| D13Fd wrote:
| The reality is that they had the green maximize buttons
| originally (although the exact functionality has changed a
| bit), then tacked on the full screen experience later. It's
| not the result of some unified vision, although in practice
| is works fine IMO.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| The green button was originally "zoom" which, to Apple,
| meant "adjust this window to its content, or revert to
| the previous size." Some apps implemented zoom as
| maximize, but that was not The Apple Way(r).
|
| Their full-screen-window-gets-its-own-desktop-space was
| added later.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| I have a huge screen and a mouse and keyboard. Full screen apps
| make absolutely no sense for me, and there's no way for me to
| "4 finger swipe".
| arrrg wrote:
| This is such a weird ahistorical view.
|
| Overlapping and freely resizable windows is the Mac paradigm.
| In my estimation they don't add snapping mostly due to pride.
|
| Maximized windows is an intruder. Something that was big on
| Windows but never really a thing (and just not possible at all)
| on the Mac at all until a couple of years ago. The
| implementation of fullscreen mode is clunky and slow.
|
| Given that Apple has been throwing different window management
| paradigms at the Mac (Expose later retitled Mission Control
| which was the original new OS X approach, Spaces in different
| implementations, sticky windows resizing, Stage Manager, full
| screen mode, full screen mode with split view) it is truly
| weird that this grab bag does not include snapping windows.
| And, I still think that is just down to hurt pride and ego.
| WWLink wrote:
| 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 of
| Office basically go full screen and each document you open is
| another 'child window' of the main office window. Same was true
| for stuff like America Online lol.
| throwingrocks wrote:
| Seems like you assume everyone likes window snapping because you
| do. It's one of the most annoying aspects of using Windows for
| me.
| Peanuts99 wrote:
| Seems like it would be good to have as an option though, some
| people clearly appreciate it and some don't.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Huh? What's annoying about something completely optional? If
| you don't like window snapping, just.... don't?
| prewett wrote:
| I hate the Window's half-window snapping, because I don't
| want tiled windows, but in order to have the window at the
| edge or top of the screen (which doesn't seem like a huge
| ask) I have to get it just close enough so it doesn't resize
| on me, and about half the time I go to far and have to start
| over. I don't have or want a really wide monitor, so Visual
| Studio being half the width of my monitor is not a useful
| size, because it is too narrow.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| Win+I, System -> Multitasking
|
| Expand "Snap windows" (down arrow on right side)
|
| Turn off "When I drag a window, let me snap it without
| dragging it all the way to the screen edge" if you're
| finding it to be too sensitive.
| xdennis wrote:
| Apple people are always like this. They always find
| justifications for their company. If you ask an Apple guy why
| does the mouse have the charge port on the bottom, making it
| unusable when charging, he'll say Tim Apple has perfectly
| engineered the mouse to optimize for the right amount of time
| it takes to drink a cup of coffee.
| AndrewSwift wrote:
| Mac user since 1987, Lisa user before.
|
| Mac windows do snap together when they're close to each other or
| the edge of the screen.
|
| You can option double-click any corner to make the window fill
| the screen without going into fullscreen mode.
|
| You can double-click any edge or corner to make it expand to the
| edge.
|
| Hold down option and mouse over the green traffic light, and you
| get the option to fill the left or right half of the screen.
|
| The main issues for me are:
|
| 1. changing monitor configurations destroys my arrangement
|
| 2. the menu bar, on large screens, is too far away -- it needs to
| be closer to where I'm actively working
| daniealapt wrote:
| Wow, learnt something new! -- Already a massive improvement
| over using the + icon.
| rifty wrote:
| Maybe you already know about these, they aren't free, but they
| do address your issues.
|
| For number 1 there is: https://funk-isoft.com/display-maid.html
| or https://rectangleapp.com/pro
|
| For number 2 there is: https://manytricks.com/menuwhere/
|
| I think both should in some form be supported natively though.
| My reasoning for the second is that many apps are now using
| command palette search overlays when technically 'command +
| shift + ?' or even somewhat 'Move focus to menu bar' system
| option already does that. But because of large screens it
| should just pop over the focused window and unify this
| experience across all apps.
| jimmywatersabc wrote:
| By "add" I assume you mean pre-install or include before it
| reaches me.
|
| I think pre-installed stuff is a slippery slope with bloatware on
| one end of the spectrum, and a bare bones alpine version on the
| other end.
|
| I don't mind installing stuff. My preference is minimalism. I
| prefer to have 3+ independent apps to choose from where possible.
| jrm4 wrote:
| More importantly: Why have users _collectively_ mostly forgotten
| that software is something you can change?
|
| If I sound like a smug Linux user here, damn right. This is a
| _stupid_ way to do operating systems.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| It might be patented. You have to understand that a GUI design
| can only proceed with blessing from the legal dept in a company
| with assets that can be seized.
| Havoc wrote:
| They're still working on a catchy name for it so they can't
| release it yet.
|
| I'm told "Snap Pro" is current front runner
| franczesko wrote:
| Why window buttons are on the top -left, that is the question?
| pinkcan wrote:
| Where should they be, and why?
| xdennis wrote:
| On the right, because that's where most people are accustomed
| to find them.
|
| But they weirdest thing is that the buttons are colored
| instead of having meaningful icons.
| thebitstick wrote:
| Unless you're accustomed to them being on the left, in
| which being on the right is the weird thing.
|
| Red means stop, yellow means slow/yield, green means go,
| which in the context of window management doesn't make
| sense, but if you think about it differently, a good 40% of
| it makes sense. Red means stop existing, yellow means yield
| to other windows, and green means... go big?
| samwillis wrote:
| Not quite answering your question directly, but I think it's
| important for platform owners to leave gaps for the developer
| ecosystem. This may be one that they have purposely left to the
| app market.
|
| If Apple and Microsoft provided a solution to every UX variant
| people want, there wouldn't be a market for apps built on top of
| the platform for UX tools. The further they encroach on the
| various markets the more developers will be discouraged from
| entering those markets for fear of the platform making their app
| redundant.
|
| Apple and Microsoft have to draw a line somewhere, sometimes they
| get it wrong though and piss off a load of devs.
|
| There are however obvious counter arguments to this with platform
| default apps such as email. But again it's important for the
| "average user" to have those in any new device. The platform
| effectively needs to do roughly 90% of what the average user
| wants out of the box, but then encourage users to go purchase
| further solutions from the various markets. Window snapping
| probably sits in That second area.
| RyanHamilton wrote:
| There's no way I believe this is the real reason. The whole
| history of MS/apple/facebook and successful businesses in
| general is allowing others to experiment to create add-ons /
| apps then creating your own integrated version to capture the
| value. i.e. let them pay the cost of experiementation and then
| copy it. See MS office, MS internet explorer, MS games, MS
| teams, Apple sherlock/watson, Facebook UI,......
| djfdat wrote:
| I don't think leaving gaps for third-party developers at the
| system level is really necessary, however, in order to not
| inundate users with configuration options, platform choose
| their level of user choice and configuration. There is _some_
| room for third-party developers, but when more is done by the
| system, users have to do less to get features and performance
| without opening up risk vectors. In some environments, you
| wouldn 't even be able to install third-party software.
|
| I definitely think that window snapping, and other general
| abstract platform-level controls, should be in your first
| group.
| djfdat wrote:
| I honestly think it provides perverse incentives, especially
| in the Apple ecosystem, for Apple to leave their platforms
| barebones and apps simple. Instead of pushing their platforms
| and apps to provide the absolute best experience, they can
| spend less money on R&D and rely on third-party software,
| while in many cases taking a 30% cut. They've effectively
| outsourced and crowdsourced the R&D, while leaving the option
| to sherlock any feature they choose to after it's been proven
| successful.
| bengale wrote:
| I assume because there are several great tools for handling this
| so it's not really a priority.
|
| If and when they do add one we can look forward to the many
| articles about "sherlocking" though so that'll be fun.
| shortformblog wrote:
| I think Stage Manager shows their hand--that they think users
| should manage this with the mouse, with no window-snapping.
|
| All this said, I would like to see the full-screen mode get
| support for three windows, along with a way to stack vertically.
| There are times when you need more than two windows on a screen.
|
| I also think it's as simple (and stupid) as Apple wanting to
| continue to use rounded corners and window-snapping not really
| making rounded corners look particularly elegant.
| coolspot wrote:
| Same reason why Mac mouse doesn't have right click and why
| ~double-click~ [edit: pressing "return"] on a folder is renaming,
| and why window controls are on a left side of a window and do
| things unlike MS Windows (not closing, not minimizing, not
| maximizing). Patents.
| mhw wrote:
| > window controls are on a left side of a window
|
| Simpler explanation: Mac OS's first release preceded Windows so
| they had to pick a side for themselves when first designing the
| system. See https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/classic-
| mac-os - the square on the left side of the front-most window's
| title bar is the close button.
| Aaron2222 wrote:
| > Mac mouse doesn't have right click
|
| This hasn't been true for over a decade. The Magic Mouse
| supports right-click (and the Magic Trackpad supports two-
| finger or bottom-right corner to right-click). Not sure if it's
| the default or not though.
| coolspot wrote:
| Magic mouse has one physical clicker. To imitate "right
| click" you have to lift fingers from the left side and click.
| They can't make a mouse with two physical clickers.
| karlshea wrote:
| > double-click on a folder is renaming
|
| Uhh... not on my Mac? Hitting Return is rename, is that what
| you meant?
| coolspot wrote:
| Ah, yes.
| Bud wrote:
| [dead]
| kristiandupont wrote:
| Is "F2 for rename" patented?
| rado wrote:
| It does have snapping?
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I always turn off most snapping. Why? Because I have my preferred
| layout already, and have good dexterity to move things.
|
| When I drag a title bar to the top center, as I have for decades,
| it tries to maximize the window. I never want that, and have
| double-click titlebar (that's more efficient) if I do.
|
| There's also a weird state machine between snap to size and
| normal mode I never completely understood. Believe the thinking
| is that it should work the same as max/restore but I don't want
| three modes to keep track of. If I _do_ snap the size /position
| that's what I want, and would never want it to go back to the old
| place, aka restore.
|
| I think KDE has some useful subset that can be configured. The
| edge snapping is not bad, and the ones that require a modifier
| key.
|
| These are implementation concerns however. The basic idea is good
| but I haven't seen it done right by default yet.
| voisin wrote:
| It's shocking that you can't tell MacOS which monitor to keep the
| app tray on (or to simply show it on all monitors), and that it
| constantly moves!
| lesserknowndan wrote:
| Yes you can. In the Settings, Display, Arrange Monitors you
| drag the menu bar to the screen you want to have the dock.
| voisin wrote:
| That's for the menu bar. I am talking about the dock. It goes
| to whichever screen you are on as soon as your cursor is at
| the bottom. So when you have a large screen up top and a
| smaller laptop below, as you move the mouse from big down to
| small, you often hit the "bottom" of the big and the dock
| reverts to the top screen. You cannot make it stay on one
| screen or show on both.
| devilkin wrote:
| For the same reason they refuse to implement displayer
| multistream. And a gazillion other industry standards: because
| they can, and they feel that their way is the right way.
| pinkcan wrote:
| don't patents expire after 20 years? I'd assume some of those
| should be older by now, leaving me to think the reason lies
| somewhere else.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| I think this is more about the ethos of the Mac. Unix (which is
| the underpinnings of Mac) was all about lots of small tools that
| build together to make something great, and if the base OS
| doesn't have what you want then that's a great third party (or
| DIY) opportunity.
|
| This bleeds over to the Mac in my opinion. I don't want Apple to
| make everything, I want them to provide hooks and APIs that allow
| other people to make things to give me more choices as a user.
|
| I don't want big monolith applications (like Outlook), I want
| small applications that do one thing well.
|
| So when people say "why doesn't Apple do X?" And I see a dozen
| third party implementations I think "because they don't need to"
| and that's perfect in my mind.
| CharlesW wrote:
| As you note, there are many great window management solutions
| for macOS. I'm also very satisfied that Finder's basic window
| management features are complemented by a healthy choice of
| free and paid power-user solutions.
|
| Rectangle (rectangleapp.com) is a good choice that also does
| snapping. I'm happy with Raycast (raycast.com), which offers
| window management with an extension
| (https://www.raycast.com/extensions/window-management).
| linguae wrote:
| The interesting thing is that had OpenDoc took off, the Mac
| would've moved more toward the component-based ecosystem that
| you describe instead of an ecosystem of monolithic
| applications:
|
| https://youtu.be/oFJdjk2rq4E
|
| Alas, OpenDoc was a product of "interregnum" Apple, a font of
| innovation but had no singular vision (OpenDoc was one of many
| visions Apple promoted in the mid-1990s as the future of Mac
| development) and a track record of failed projects
| (Pink/Taligent then Copland). When Steve Jobs returned in 1997,
| he brought and enforced a singular vision for the Mac, one that
| revolved around NeXT technology. OpenDoc was killed under these
| circumstances:
|
| https://youtu.be/oeqPrUmVz-o
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| MacOS is very far from Unix ideology at this point. It's not
| even possible anymore to install things you compile without a
| bunch of red tape scary warnings. You can't make new folders in
| /. iOS has tons of private APIs that only Apple gets to use to
| make their apps and services the only viable choice, eg iCloud
| can upload photos in the background but Google Photos times
| out, even the location sharing hack doesn't fix this.
|
| Apple doesn't do it because it's only a small percentage of
| users who even know what it is to want it, and they're already
| well-served by third party tools. Look at how long it took for
| widgets to come to iOS. Apple isn't usually the first mover
| when it comes to software stuff like this, they like to sit
| back and let other devs solve problems then see how it plays in
| the market first before launching a better-integrated version
| themselves (sometimes in a way that only they can do because
| again private APIs) with only the basic features included.
| foldr wrote:
| >It's not even possible anymore to install things you compile
| without a bunch of red tape scary warnings
|
| If you're compiling the code yourself you can do this no
| problem. Compile it and move the executable to somewhere in
| your PATH. No scary warnings.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| > It's not even possible anymore to install things you
| compile without a bunch of red tape scary warnings.
|
| I see posts like this all the time. It's just not true.
| nerdix wrote:
| Do they actually provide hooks and APIs though? My
| understanding is that a lot of these third party app use
| accessibility hacks which seems like a work around and not
| something Apple intended.
| moonchrome wrote:
| Yeah right - just what I need - a bajilion 3rd party apps with
| window manager access to do basic functionality. Because what
| could go wrong with this approach.
|
| Leftpad philosophy sucks, having a functional batteries
| included OS is a good thing.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Windows also struggles with moving windows between a 4K laptop
| and a 1080p display. The window chugs to reshape into the display
| resolution but the most bizarre is moving a window to 1080p then
| clicking maximize but it just to the 4K display in max
| resolution. I mean WTF is that? How the heck do you easily move
| the window between different resolutions with it doing the
| "right" thing, not the stupid thing?
| 0x69420 wrote:
| ever since lion began the ipadification of macos, apple's Happy
| Path(tm) has been native full screen (even though it's an
| objective downgrade from the scuffed fullscreen mac apps of yore,
| since you have to sit through a swipe animation every time you
| cmd-tab)
|
| you can split this; you just have to _hold down_ the fullscreen
| button, no right-click access because again, thoughtless
| application of touchscreen idioms
|
| as someone who uses none of the above: lining things up is
| painless since window bounds are slightly sticky, & macos
| remembers app state so it's not like you're doing manual window
| management every time you start up $APP. broadly equivalent in
| practice to a tiling wm with elaborate preset layouts &
| pigeonholes for specific programs. except you just drag things
| instead of editing a config file. couple this with all the apps i
| frequently use in full screen (iterm, mpv) having options for
| pre-lion-style instant-switch fullscreen, and i'm not hurting for
| lack of snapping... ever, really.
|
| fwiw there are third-party solutions for snapping if you really
| care, and there are even full-blown x11-style tilers
| hartator wrote:
| I use Magnet which is sweet. https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/
| spike021 wrote:
| I've used Magnet for years now. Always works well and is super
| simple.
| s1mon wrote:
| Magnet does a much better job than the very limited options
| that MacOS has built in. It has menu/key commands for half-
| screen, quarter-screen, third-screen, and sixth-screen as well
| as maximizing without taking over the menu bar. It also has
| snap by dragging which can be used for all of these different
| fractions, although I almost always just use it for left/right
| half or full.
| guitarbill wrote:
| Also Rectangle, which I moved to from Divvy:
| https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| I use this too, but y'all are missing the point. I should not
| need third party tools like Rectangle and Mos to manage
| applications for an OS.
|
| I'd much rather have this functionality built in than have a
| dozen new emojis every year.
| guitarbill wrote:
| Why not? I dislike the Windows snapping behaviour for
| halves. Most macOS casual users won't need it. These apps
| work great and allow a lot of customisability that an OS-
| level snap might not provide. I'm but sure having it built
| in would be all upshots.
| s3p wrote:
| This is like saying "no we don't need a calculator for
| iPad, the first thing I do is go to the app store and
| find my favorite 3rd party calculator. Apple doesn't need
| to make one. this is fine"
|
| It's not that this is causing people to lose sleep. The
| issue is that it's an easy, tangible fix which would
| benefit a lot of power users. Also magnet costs money and
| window snapping in Win10/11 is free.
| rxhanson wrote:
| FWIW Rectangle is FOSS
|
| https://rectangleapp.com
| baq wrote:
| I've got a work-issued MacBook Pro but it didn't come
| with macOS Pro, must've been an honest mistake.
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| Ya sure, there's no one app fits all situations. But the
| issue here is that there's literally nothing versus
| something, so if Apple provides something that works with
| 80% of users that is far better than just trusting third
| parties to fix their OS.
| s3p wrote:
| Agreed. Apple can implement this feature easily, and the
| fact that they have not done so reeks of poor business
| decisions. To the tune of... calculator for iPad...
| LecroJS wrote:
| +1 for Rectangle. It's the first thing I install after
| homebrew on any new Mac. I came from Spectacle after EOL and
| was pleasantly surprised at the additional features (like
| window snapping) + support for Spectacle binds. If you want
| to try it out, it's as easy as `brew install --cask
| rectangle`
| alas44 wrote:
| Using it also and loving it
| pbronez wrote:
| Ooooo good tip, thanks! This might be a good replacement for
| Divvy [0], which I used until it EoL'd
|
| [0] https://mizage.com/divvy/
| interblag wrote:
| Really miss Divvy (RIP). At the risk of causing a good thread
| on Apple's weird inability to lauch a really valuable OS
| feature devolve into a list of workarounds, Hammerspoon (a
| generic automation tool) plus this script (https://gist.githu
| b.com/artburkart/15b62f1a741eef0f74492860a...) offer a really
| good equivalent, with the added ability to change hotkeys,
| extend behaviour, modify behaviour, etc. since it's just a
| script. I was devastated for a brief while when Divvy (and
| then ShiftIt) stopped working, but haven't looked back for a
| while.
| miguelmato wrote:
| Hijacking to recommend Raycast https://www.raycast.com/ with
| Hyperkey https://hyperkey.app/
|
| You can use Cap Locks as a "Hyper" key, equal to (cmd+opt+ctrl
| <+shift>) to launch or switch to spaces/apps with esc+{letter}
| so you can avoid the cmd+tab abomination.
| brerchicken wrote:
| There's a way to snap the window to one side or the other if you
| long press one of the resize buttons at the top. I'm a HS teacher
| and I often have my kids put two windows side by side. On the
| school-issued devices it's trivially simple, but it's honestly
| not that bad on a Mac. Just really unintuitive like everything
| else they do.
| ralfd wrote:
| My go to example to explain the One True Mac Way of Window
| management is the "The many windows of John Siracusa" podcast
| from ATP a few years ago.
|
| The relevant discussion starts at 1:33:00
|
| https://atp.fm/episodes/96
|
| Siracusa, who grew up as a (classic) Mac user, explains his
| tiling and overlapping habits to Arment and Liss, who grew up as
| Microsoft Windows users and later switched, and they gasp in
| utter horror, shock and awe.
|
| For example Siracusa explains that he currently has a dozen
| terminal windows open, and also 19 overlapping Safari windows,
| normal for him, in BBEdit he regularly hits 20-40; they ask him
| if he doesn't know about tabs and he replies "Oh, I love tabs! Of
| course every Window has many tabs!". How would he manage/organize
| hundreds of tabs in multiple applications with a snapping tiling
| manager? He can't. It is fun from there. Like, he jokes after a
| work week his desktop has "sedimentary layers".
| bentcorner wrote:
| I recently started using MacOS and fell into this habit as well
| - I just end up leaving windows open floating underneath other
| apps. I learned about cmd+` which is handy to deal with
| multiple windows of the same app.
|
| In Windows I tend to minimize stuff I'm not actively working on
| (but not always). In general while I also have a lot of
| "background" windows it feels a lot less fiddly than MacOS.
|
| Personally I don't like how "minimizing" apps on MacOS puts
| them in the temporary section of the launcher, I'd rather they
| minimize back down to where the icon of the app normally lives.
| I would end up with a bunch of black squares on the launcher in
| some random order with a tiny icon of each telling me which app
| this actually is.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| There's an option for that in system settings, 'Minimise
| windows into application icon'
| donatj wrote:
| Windows users who just maximize everything all the time and get
| giant empty white bars on the sides of their browser shock me.
| What an insane waste of space. You see windows users with
| Ultrawides and a maximized browser where the site is centered
| and 90% of the width of the screen is serving nothing but site
| border and it just makes me scream.
|
| macOS replacing the "Zoom" stoplight buttons with "Full Screen"
| as the default behavior still irks me. Why would I ever want
| something full screen other than a video or game?
| namtab00 wrote:
| it's not about maximizing the window you're interested in,
| but ALSO "minimizing" (hiding) what you are not focused on at
| that moment.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| In the 2000s there was a huge push for distraction free
| software. Nearly every application was coming up with a
| distraction free mode.
|
| Maximizing your window is similar to that. At the same time
| it doesn't completely eliminate the window context and the
| ability to easily switch between applications like full
| screen does.
| mcluck wrote:
| What kills me about it is I can't find a way to keep my other
| monitors from blacking out. I usually have at least two
| screens, I would love to dedicate one completely to code
| while leaving the other in normal mode for documentation,
| references, etc.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| If I understand correctly, there's an option for that in
| system settings, 'Displays have separate spaces'
| ask_b123 wrote:
| I have 14 terminal and 25 browser windows open (>5000 tabs
| among all of them -- a slightly embarrassing number). :D
|
| Edit: only 1 13' monitor too
| neuronic wrote:
| Is this why people complain about performance issues with
| browsers?
|
| I have some perpetual habit to "clean" my desktop - I get
| annoyed if I have >15 tabs across 2 windows which easily
| happens.
|
| > >5000 tabs among all of them
|
| Not to be antagonistic but ... just why? There is no chance
| you are actively managing and keeping track of these? Is this
| because it doesnt matter if they are open or not? I am
| genuinely baffled and confused.
| pests wrote:
| People use them as bookmarks.
| Veen wrote:
| Siracusa also developed an app to get Classic Mac window
| layering behavior on MacOS.
|
| - https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/
|
| And one that gives him an application switcher that works the
| way he likes:
|
| - https://hypercritical.co/switchglass/
| rcarmo wrote:
| The extinction of OS 7 (platinum) roll-up windows is something
| many people miss.
| ictebres wrote:
| I just discovered swish and it makes window management such a joy
| that it is unbelievable: https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/
| [deleted]
| crazylogger wrote:
| I think with macOS's design of the dock (resizable, unlike on
| Windows where the task bar always takes up the whole monitor
| width,) having one or more windows "full screen" on your desktop
| feels wrong. There is always some some space left unoccupied to
| the side of the dock.
|
| Apple has a solution for this which is the green dot that puts
| your app in a separate space to be truly full screen, and you can
| split screen between two apps. I guess that's what Apple would
| like you to do instead of snapping.
| egypturnash wrote:
| If you hide the dock it works fine to fill the screen without
| hitting the "full screen" button, unless there is some control
| at the _absolute_ bottom of the window that you regularly need
| to access. Putting the dock on the side has always been an
| option; I 've had it autohiding on the right since not long
| after trying 10.0.
| winrid wrote:
| I remember when I brought a Windows laptop (it was my personal
| dev machine at the time) to an Apple interview, and the
| interviewee saw me organize my windows in a couple seconds to the
| sides and he was like "whoa, windows is neat".
|
| "oh, uh. Yeah."
|
| :)
| brianwillis wrote:
| Hold down the option key. Hover your mouse pointer over the green
| zoom button in the top-left corner of the window. A "move window
| to the left/right side of the screen" option appears.
| web3-is-a-scam wrote:
| I just installed Rectangle and forgot about it, never had a
| single problem with it.
| sgt wrote:
| It may be basic, but what about the double clicking on sides of
| windows to make it expand, and double clicking on edges? Does
| does that not qualify as snapping?
| goosedragons wrote:
| No. What people want is a clone of the "Windows Snap" feature
| Microsoft introduced with Windows 7 where you drag a window
| right or left take up half the screen.
| sgt wrote:
| Oh okay. Personally I wouldn't want that.
|
| I would like to organize my computer's desktop the way I
| would organize physical stuff on my desk, just freeform
| style.
| activiation wrote:
| Probably because you never tried it... Personally I like it
| when it can snap to 1/4 or 1/2 of the screen... On a 30in
| monitor
| Someone wrote:
| Possibly patents. As an example that may or may not be relevant,
| Google surfaced https://patents.google.com/patent/US10592080B2/en
| for me. It's from "Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC" and says
|
| _"This document describes techniques and apparatuses enabling
| assisted presentation of application windows in a multi-
| application environment. The multi-application environment
| described herein presents one or more application windows, which
| can be sized, positioned, or layered to provide an optimized
| layout. In some embodiments, these techniques and apparatuses
| enable a size or position of an application window to be
| determined based on an edge of another application window."_
| the-printer wrote:
| Productivity-wise, Stage Manager is a step in the right direction
| in my opinion. I don't think that the macOS desktop environment
| _needs_ a snapping /tiling window manager. Conceptually however,
| the best third-party window manager is spoonfish. But Rectangle
| suffices for certain tasks.
|
| https://github.com/jcs/spoonfish
| based2 wrote:
| 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...
| malwrar wrote:
| Hmm that patent appears to have expired. If it was the reason
| this feature hasn't been implemented, looks like they're in the
| clear to do so now.
| IshKebab wrote:
| 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.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| So an expired patent which was previously owned by IBM is why
| Apple cannot have windows tiling but Windows and Linux have had
| for decades?
| delfinom wrote:
| It's assumed Microsoft paid the troll toll (probably 2
| decades ago). Linux is a complicated field to litigate anyone
| over a patent. It does happen just not easily compared to
| suing a big corp.
|
| But o god I found more cancer:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US20110099512
|
| Splitting one monitor into two virtual monitors is patented.
| Fuck you LG.
| rchaud wrote:
| Samsung DeX (Android desktop environment) has window
| snapping via click and drag as well
| [deleted]
| toxicFork wrote:
| Another reason for "patents are awful"
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Patents can be licensed.
| bluejekyll wrote:
| IANAL, but, "Status: Expired - Lifetime"
| piskov wrote:
| 2022-04-19 Adjusted expiration
| eptcyka wrote:
| UX when snapping to the right of the screen will suffer because
| the toolbar will forever be stuck to the top left of the screen.
| As such, I don't believe this is a well optimised use case and
| might be why Apple doesn't want to "emphasise" this particular
| use case.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| MacOS has a very functional and intuitive window managing system.
| You use the mouse and resize windows and arrange them to your
| liking to suit your workflow and minimize wasted space.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I don't think I can use macOS without rectangle.
| chasing wrote:
| Mosiac. Works great: https://lightpillar.com/mosaic.html
| superasn wrote:
| 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 :/
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| 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.
| glimshe wrote:
| Like everything Apple, it has an opinion. You either like the
| opinion or you don't... I feel that MacOS's UI paradigm revolves
| around extra large monitors and showing your screen as a sort of
| desk. A lot of wasted/empty space where you arrange things
| freely, as opposed to Windows/Linux which emphasize efficiency in
| using the screen real estate.
|
| I use MacOS daily at work but I would LOVE if I could use Windows
| instead, that's what I have on my personal machine. It looks like
| the OP simply wants to use Microsoft and can't admit it to
| themselves!
| lachlan_gray wrote:
| Raycast does this really well, among other things
| SebastianKra wrote:
| 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 windows create their own
| space when I want them to exist within a space? Why can't I
| briefly bring up Finder on top of my fullscreen window? Why are
| there lengthy animations to switch between spaces? Why do CMD+Tab
| and CMD+` have a million special rules for which windows they
| select? Why is there no way perfectly position more than two apps
| next to each other? Why are apps in splitscreen married to each
| other? Why can't I easily swap one of them? Why are some window
| operations keyboard-exclusive, while others can only be performed
| with the mouse?
|
| There has got to be a perfect workflow where all this makes
| sense. Otherwise, they wouldn't build it like that? Right?
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| 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 computers, but it
| just doesn't make much sense to me on a desktop computer.
|
| 1: https://anders.unix.se/images/desktop_b_moolenaar.png
| https://anders.unix.se/2015/10/28/screenshots-from-developer...
| eastbound wrote:
| It's also the influence of "padding:200px" on all websites.
| Apple taught that whitespace meant design, so a screen barely
| fits 10 words today.
|
| https://appfire.com/ as an example, but I'm always flummoxed
| how ALL wordpress themes cap at 10 words per line of text in
| the body of the blogs, and 25cm of white blank on either side
| (10 inches).
|
| I need a _bigger_ screen.
| mort96 wrote:
| 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 browser. I
| don't understand what I would gain from not maximizing them,
| but I do understand what I would lose.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| 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. Expose/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.
| ninepoints wrote:
| > it's quite different from Windows, where it's the norm to
| maximize everything.
|
| Where did you get this idea? It's definitely not the norm and
| MSFT supports an excellent tiling window system:
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/powertoys/fancyzon...
|
| Even without that utility though, it's easy to snap windows
| to one side or another of a monitor - particularly useful for
| ultra widescreen monitors
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Based on seeing how most longtime Windows users use
| Windows. I rarely see tiling used, it's almost always
| maximizing. Even on gigantic monitors and web pages with an
| 800px central column, they maximize.
|
| The Windows users I encounter IRL tend to not be
| particularly technical though so that may bias things.
|
| I personally get some usage out of tiling but as mentioned
| in another comment the tiling proposal triggers in W11 are
| over sensitive and kind of annoying.
| circuit10 wrote:
| I think that's generally what you want because having
| other windows visible would not only take space away from
| the application you're using but also be distracting
| nine_k wrote:
| It's a great way to waste both the screen real estate and the
| user's attention.
|
| MacOS has a number of interesting features in the kernel, and
| it has a reasonably good and highly uniform UI, with global
| shortcuts and all. But its window management is insufferable.
|
| Good thing there are utilities that try to help that. (I
| already forgot which, I handed back my last work-provided MBP
| in 2018.)
| SebastianKra wrote:
| 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.
| taejavu wrote:
| The alternative explanation seems to be that they know it's far
| from perfect, but lack the appetite to rethink from first
| principles. So they come up with some feature that will help
| some specific scenario, and just pile that onto the stack of
| shit.
| capr wrote:
| why do Apple users give so much benefit of the doubt to these
| people despite all evidence?
| detourdog wrote:
| because when Multi-finder came out it satisfied our needs and
| don't see a reason to change. I bet Apple has put a lot more
| effort into why they do things, then many give them credit.
| SebastianKra wrote:
| because they have a track record of mostly decent design
| decisions
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| IME it's the opposite
| eastbound wrote:
| Last time I've tried Windows, there were ads in the start
| menu. And when I tried Ubuntu, they switched from Gnome
| to Unity, so I ragequit. Also Ubuntu had ads for Amazon
| in its start menu.
| tlb wrote:
| I don't miss it. I carefully dragged each window to align just
| right one time, and never had to redo it since. It persists
| across reboots, and remembers placements separately for the two
| monitor arrangements I use (laptop, laptop + big monitor) so I
| only had to do the fiddly work once.
| csallen wrote:
| And you've just never, ever, needed to rearrange or move your
| windows since?
| prewett wrote:
| I tend to setup separate Spaces and put related apps/windows
| in the same Space. So I have a general/browsing Space, and
| development Space, a graphics-editing Space, etc. So I don't
| usually need to move my windows around. Unfortunately when
| reboot/login restores them, it puts them all in the first
| Space, so I have to move them, but since I reboot a handful
| of times a year, it's not a huge problem.
|
| I've defined Cmd-1, Cmd-2, etc. shortcuts to switch spaces
| like on Linux desktops, which is a lot faster the 3-finger
| swiping macOS comes with.
| [deleted]
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Apple users are _that_ vanilla ;)
| boobek wrote:
| For me personally it's not a requirement the snappy
| window.. Apple is a small walled garden. They don't have
| wide screens so most of the time one app on the screen is
| enough. I have an old 27' iMac and it wasn't enough screen
| space for me to put xcode, terminal and browser next to
| each other. So the most used mode was split screen mode
| with xcode and a simulator. But the "split full screen"
| mode is much better and professional than windows' snappy
| window feature.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| What's the difference between the apple split full screen
| and the windows tiling?
| deafpolygon wrote:
| Windows tiling still keeps you on the overall Desktop,
| while the split full screen is a separate Desktop
| altogether with no access to the other applications
| (without exiting fullscreen).
| tlb wrote:
| A few times, I guess.
|
| I might do it more often if I had separate OS windows for
| code editing. But I use VSCode (and Emacs before that) with 2
| or 3 side-by-side panels. I drag those panes wider and
| narrower frequently.
| tester756 wrote:
| That's interesting. I do use Windows with 2 monitors
|
| and I do change placements/sizes of windows constantly -
| accordingly to the task
| interpol_p wrote:
| I've been using Stage Manager on macOS for this. I have
| groups of apps, each one in a separate "stage" that I switch
| between to work on different things. Out of all the desktop
| paradigms I've tried, this one is working the best for me
|
| I can constantly see the thumbnail groupings of apps that I
| can switch to along the left hand side of the screen. I've
| used other modes (like multiple desktops) but would often
| forget what spaces I had created, and ended up re-creating
| them without realising
| viraptor wrote:
| > It persists across reboots, and remembers placements
| separately for the two monitor arrangements
|
| You're lucky. I didn't even realise this is supposed to happen.
| Every day I start by moving everything to the correct screen
| and correct location. It's never remembered and each time
| windows move to a completely random spot. Things are even worse
| if I work from a different location for a bit. (Some windows
| are pseudo-minimised and I have to click the icon a few times
| to show them again)
|
| It's not even random/occasional. I put slack on the right third
| of the right display every day. It's _never_ there after sleep
| or cable reconnection.
| mrinfinite wrote:
| Spectacle.app snaps
| wildrhythms wrote:
| Spectacle is no longer maintained, per their website, and has
| been replaced by Rectangle:
| https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
| dubcanada wrote:
| This does seem like a personal preference. I quite like MacOS
| window management, and I hate Windows window management.
| tgv wrote:
| Me too, but that's also because Windows' version is ... weird.
| I drag a window up, a pop up appears showing grids where I can
| put my window (nice), I drop it there, and suddenly another
| window appears. That doesn't fit the "snap window" flow.
|
| On the mac, I use a freeware thingy (Rectangle, linked
| elsewhere), and I've assigned three shortcuts, and that's
| enough for me.
| superchroma wrote:
| You can turn the selection and forced snap of other windows
| off, and I do.
| amelius wrote:
| It's still bad though. I mean, what if you didn't like it?
| andybak wrote:
| Specific to snapping, you'd prefer there was no way to snap
| windows at all - even if it didn't affect the current
| behaviour?
| dubcanada wrote:
| I've honestly never cared enough about it, I am perfectly
| fine with my windows haphazardly thrown around. But I can
| understand that some people like it and wouldn't really care
| if it was added. But I certainly won't be the one to request
| it.
| karmakaze wrote:
| Same. I have Rectangle and others installed previously and
| very rarely use them. Double-clicking corners to expand in
| that direction only is good enough for me and wish Windows
| would do that. My layouts intentionally overlap windows
| with some horizontal/vertical staggering and window
| managers don't have shortcuts for that.
| latexr wrote:
| There _is_ snapping. It's been there for years. All you have
| to do is drag a window to a side or the top.
|
| While I'm not the person you asked, I _would_ prefer if there
| was no window snapping at all. I wrote my own code for window
| management with keyboard shortcuts on macOS and dislike that
| it tries to be smart when I move windows with the mouse.
| lloeki wrote:
| 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 "snapping" in the sense that you drag the window to
| the left or right side of the screen, and I would 200% agree that
| it is completely non-obvious to discover, but it is there for any
| one to peruse without any third party tool.
|
| + See here for how to achieve that, section "Tiling and snapping"
| (along with more things to make first party things more sane for
| a certain crowd) https://lna7n.org/2021/04/16/a-survival-guide-
| to-macos-from-...
| alexfromapex wrote:
| You can also click and hold the green
| modestygrime wrote:
| It's much worse than Ubuntu or Windows though. I just want to
| snap a window to the sides. The macOS solution forces you to go
| full screen to snap.
| [deleted]
| saghm wrote:
| 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 if one of the
| various utilities I installed added this functionality. Either
| way, it seems basically impossible to discover other than by
| chance; if I hadn't double clicked that area by accident, I
| still wouldn't know.
| lloeki wrote:
| The setting for that is in Desktop & Dock. It used to default
| to Minimize.
| baq wrote:
| I've used this feature on windows 3.11 (I think? It's been a
| long time ago...) macOS window management is very lacking but
| without this I'd just give up, right now I'm barely getting
| by - installed rectangle recently which gives keyboard
| shortcuts to window snapping.
| serhack_ wrote:
| Works by default
| 16bitvoid wrote:
| Yes, but it's not very consistent. For example, Safari will
| not maximize if you double click the title bar. It'll just
| maximize vertically.
| wrs wrote:
| "Maximize" on MacOS means "go to the largest useful
| size", not "fill the screen". It's application and
| context dependent. ("Fill the screen" is a separate mode
| which the top comment is complaining about, justifiably
| IMO.)
| lloeki wrote:
| That's because it's not Maximize, it's Zoom, which uses
| content hints to resize the window while not wasting
| space with useless empty space inside the window, thus
| still allowing one to see other windows. When there's no
| content size hint it falls back to what Windows and Linux
| call Maximize, which is more like a windowed fullscreen
| mode.
| mh- wrote:
| Option-clicking the green maximize button is the shortcut I
| usually tell people about. If you hold down option, you'll
| notice that the mouseover for the green ball changes to a
| plus instead of the fullscreen icon.
| pmontra wrote:
| Wasn't (isn't) double clicking the title bar the maximize
| behavior for Windows and Gnome too?
| jdlshore wrote:
| 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 maximize their height
| without changing their width.
| jrmg wrote:
| 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.
| crimsontech wrote:
| Indeed, I think it's a relic from the one button mouse.
| nicbou wrote:
| Try the volume and wifi icons!
| bombsinjello wrote:
| [flagged]
| prewett wrote:
| If you move the mouse up to the top of the screen in
| fullscreen mode the menu bar will reappear, so things work
| about like normal (although that certainly wasn't obvious the
| first time I pressed the green button). The double-click on
| the title bar is "Zoom" mode, which you can activate with
| Window >> Zoom. But I agree, it's not obvious, nor is it
| obvious what "Zoom" means.
| lloeki wrote:
| > what "Zoom" means
|
| This:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36373756
| saghm wrote:
| Unfortunately my main use of the menu bar is to have
| information at a glance (like the date and time), so having
| to move my mouse to see it kind of defeats the purpose. I
| definitely would not have guessed what "Zoom" mode meant
| though!
| gardnr wrote:
| This is a bit annoying when an app has its own menu near
| the top of the screen. The only app I use in full screen is
| a media player. Every time I try to interact with the in-
| app hamburger menu, the whole wind shifts and the system
| window bay animates out.
|
| I really don't like the full screen behaviour in macOS.
| eastbound wrote:
| IntelliJ also has a menu bar just below the top of the
| full screen. I wish Apple made the collapsing top menus
| require much more insistence before appearing.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Also, there's Magnet which does KDE-like window snapping since
| ages. It's not expensive, works flawlessly and doesn't tax your
| system in any way.
| lolinder wrote:
| 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.
| gibbitz wrote:
| Like scroll direction, having a sim card in your phone, using
| accepted standard cables, giving users access to their own
| files, using standardized file formats, etc. These guys abuse
| their users and somehow they believe Apple cares about them.
| Not sure when everyone will wake up and realize that
| arbitrary change isn't better than expected behavior. I guess
| when the industry points "AI" at generating OSes then Apple
| will start questioning their decisions to stay viable in a
| sea of clones that actually "just work" as expected. Until
| then they'll just keep treating their users like crap.
| gamegoblin wrote:
| I've used a mac for 10 years now, and TIL
|
| The Windows snapping UI is much more intuitive, though.
| dbbk wrote:
| This is totally undiscoverable, I also only just realised.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| But also annoying when you're trying to tile some (of a
| bunch) of windows at full height. Yes, there are ways to do
| it without unintentionally maximizing, but it takes more
| attention to detail.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Is there any way to static tile in Windows without an
| external application?
|
| I.e. pre-configure a tiling layout of application windows,
| that will be restored as specified (or at least on boot)
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Revert back to Vista or whatever version of Windows had
| an active desktop and embed applications in the HTML file
| used as the active desktop?
|
| Beats the heck out of me.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Windows-style snapping can also be extremely irritating
| with how easily accidental snap-proposals are triggered
| when moving around windows that you _don 't_ want snapped
| or maximized. I would say that when using Windows (or Linux
| DE with similar snap proposal UX) the bulk of proposals
| triggered are unintentional. In aggregate it's a surprising
| amount of unnecessary noise.
|
| This is why on macOS I prefer utilities like Moom, which
| tucks snap options behind a little popup that replaces the
| native macOS zoom button hover popup. It gives me snapping
| on the odd occasion it's actually useful without the spammy
| accidentally triggered border zoom animations that come
| with Windows snapping.
| SpikeMeister wrote:
| I don't have the same experience. Is your mouse
| sensitivity turned up very high?
| throwawayadvsec wrote:
| it's still incomplete unity/gnome or mint have better window
| system
| s3p wrote:
| 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.
| latexr wrote:
| > Instead of windows where you can BAM drag a window to one
| side and snap it in 0.2 seconds
|
| You _can_ do just that. Drag it to either side to make it
| half-width or to the top to make if full width and height.
| ninepoints wrote:
| Still sounds like a miserable experience compared to
| fancyzones though
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| 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 window border and the cursor frequently
| fails to change to the "resizing" one.
|
| In the case of two-button mice, Apple came out with a mouse
| that hid the second button and in fact was nearly unusable
| because the entire shell was the button so you couldn't lift
| the mouse and keep the button held to continue a scroll.
|
| And on and on.
|
| Oh, and then Apple added Alt-Tab-style app switching... but
| it's often useless because when you Command-Tab to an app,
| Apple doesn't restore its window. It remains minimized and
| useless in the dock. There is a utility called Alt-Tab that
| lets you fix this, at least.
|
| And those are just a couple...
| fyloraspit wrote:
| I think bettertouchtools is the best to get macos to the
| point of usability with regard to window management and other
| general OS QoL.
|
| Linux really does beat out everything for this type of stuff
| imo. The best window management, sometimes even by default
| and everything customisable almost to the point of
| perfection.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| 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.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| 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.
| dfex wrote:
| How the hell have I never come across Cmd ~ before?!!
|
| Thank you so much!!!
| somat wrote:
| My favorite "weird" thing common in X11 window managers is
| how they can separate the focus and the raising operations.
| On windows(and I presume mac) these operations are tightly
| linked. Why would you want to separate them you might ask?
| It turns out to be really useful to look at the window on
| the top and be able to type/control the obscured window
| underneath.
|
| On the one hand X11 sort of sucked with it's inconsistent
| window handling mechanisms. On the other hand because there
| was no central policy some very good novel productivity
| advancements were made in X11 space. select/single click
| paste, focus follows mouse, don't raise on focus. tiling
| window managers.
| baq wrote:
| > utility called Alt-Tab
|
| I think you've saved my life
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| The developer is cool and responds to requests, including
| this one I made:
|
| If you Command-Tab to an app that doesn't have a window
| (AKA Finder), it will create one for you (optionally).
| GeorgeTirebiter wrote:
| I only have an iPad these days, I now use Windows; but when I
| did use MacOS, has Apple fixed your first bug? Can you resize
| windows from any edge or corner now, or must one always uses
| the lower right corner only to resize the window?
| watermelon0 wrote:
| Yes, now you can resize from any corner/edge.
| johnwheeler wrote:
| I don't understand. I wouldn't consider snapping a first class
| feature like closing, maximizing, and minimizing.
|
| It's possible that the addition of snapping would confuse some
| uninitiated users. They wouldn't understand why the windows lock
| toward the side of the screen when they drag.
|
| The only beef I have with apples windowing system is you can't
| remove the finder from alt-tab. There are apps like witch but it
| is currently broken with IntelliJ tools. It doesn't allow switch
| window focus to auto save.
|
| I have written the developers about this. They probably are
| reading this now. Fix it.
| WWLink wrote:
| I'm agreeing but it's because I find features like window
| snapping, auto-reveal desktop, and AERO SHAKE (where all the
| windows except the one you're shaking get minimized) REALLY
| FUCKING ANNOYING.
|
| Windows 11 maximized the annoying desire to do things for me by
| bringing up this stupid rectangle at the top of my screen any
| time I move a window, trying to get me to snap it to a side of
| the screen...
|
| It's like MS hired someone who uses those obnoxious Linux
| tiling WMs that don't let you do anything except tiling, and
| that person is trying to force tiling on everyone.
|
| Thing is, damnit, I like overlapping windows!
| deafpolygon wrote:
| > Windows 11 maximized the annoying desire to do things for
| me by bringing up this stupid rectangle at the top of my
| screen any time I move a window, trying to get me to snap it
| to a side of the screen...
|
| This can be turned off. Go to Settings (Win+I).. click
| through System then Multitasking.
|
| Expand the "Snap windows" dropdown (arrow at right side). The
| option you want to turn off is "Show snap layouts when I drag
| a window to the top of my screen". I'm about to turn it off
| as well. I rarely use it, now that I think of it- and it's
| too touchy.
|
| While you're there, you can turn off the title bar shake (I
| have that turned off as well).
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| It's some patent thing.
| febeling wrote:
| Just use Rectangle app https://rectangleapp.com/
| woleium wrote:
| +1 for amethyst, it's a window tileing tool.
| Joeri wrote:
| I started with rectangle but now prefer moom.
|
| https://manytricks.com/moom/
|
| It integrates in the way I would expect the native feature to
| work: hover the green button for a snapping palette.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Rectangle integrates the way I expect window snapping to
| work: with easy and sensible keyboard shortcuts. They keys
| are much easier to aim than the tiny green circle on the
| corner.
|
| I'm not saying moom doesn't have those, I just haven't used
| it and Rectangle serves my purposes perfectly well.
|
| To each their own, of course. Just trading anectodes. :)
| jffry wrote:
| FWIW Moom does also support keybinds too, including for
| custom sizing. I have binds for left/middle/right third and
| left/right two-thirds.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I imagined it did. Just didn't want to assume as I never
| used it. :)
| tennisflyi wrote:
| I use Spectacle but it's not being maintained any more. Thanks
| for the suggestion.
| smaccona wrote:
| When you install Rectangle, it has an option to mimic
| Spectacle's keyboard shortcuts (if I recall correctly) which
| I thought was a really thoughtful touch.
| D13Fd wrote:
| There are a few apps that do this but Rectangle is the best
| IMO. It is also customizable via the terminal.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Rectangle Pro is also totally worth it. The mouse control is
| super handy.
| cheshire137 wrote:
| I've been looking for an alternative to Divvy because I've
| wanted more features, I'll give this a shot. Thanks!
| rspoerri wrote:
| I use tiles ( https://www.sempliva.com/tiles/ ). I don't know
| the difference, but apparently when i setup my computer i found
| that solution.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Rectangle.app is open source but Not sure about tiles.app
| andybak wrote:
| Thank you! I used to have a solution but after getting a new
| Mac I could never remember what it was called (a problem when
| an app just works and needs no interaction. You never need to
| know what it's called after you first install it!)
| connordoner wrote:
| This doesn't actually answer the question.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| Still useful though!
| dubcanada wrote:
| No, but this is a question to Apple, can anyone even answer
| it? If they were an Apple employee, and it was upcoming in a
| new release they couldn't talk about it?
|
| The best possible outcome is you get an ex-Apple engineer who
| may have some background as to the thought process.
| marssaxman wrote:
| What is "window snapping"?
|
| It is hard for me to imagine what you could mean by "nonexistent
| window managing system". Obviously Mac OS has a window management
| system.
|
| People have widely varying preferences when it comes to such
| things. You seem to be thinking of yours as though they are
| somehow objective and external to you.
| dangus wrote:
| brew install rectangle
| fsckboy wrote:
| tangential question: is there some sort of add-on tool-let that
| would duplicate the File-Edit-*-Windows-Help
|
| menu down onto the top of an app's window? Even if it only worked
| when that window had focus would be good enough for me. I hate
| going to the top of the screen, only to discover the wrong app
| has focus
|
| are there a family of little doo-dads like this, and what is the
| category called?
|
| also, aside, pet peeve: why is New Window always in the File
| menu, and never in the Window menu, from time immemorial?
| altairprime wrote:
| Some form of 'snap' is being rolled out with Stage Manager on the
| iPad, which has very strong window rails, and the latest update
| improves their granularity. macOS has very few snap rails
| relative to the iPad, and only very limited close-range springs
| when in proximity to other windows. Perhaps that'll change, or
| perhaps not, in the future. So, Apple's definitely not ignoring
| snapping -- they're just doing it in ways that don't currently
| meet your needs.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| It's probably like how their Health app sucks to use directly:
| they figure people will solve it with apps, and people have done
| that. There are competing solutions available that are all pretty
| good.
|
| And now that there are so many solutions it might make less sense
| to then integrate one which will practically kill the rest.
|
| I personally use an app Divvy which let me create global hot keys
| for specific arrangements and moved on.
| victorbohr wrote:
| I use Rectangle for this. Works like a charm.
| https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
| nxpnsv wrote:
| I use magnet^1, should I be using rectangle?
|
| ^1: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magnet/id441258766?mt=12
| rxhanson wrote:
| I'm the developer behind Rectangle. There are a handful of
| features in Rectangle that aren't in Magnet, like being able
| to repeat shortcuts to achieve different sizes/positions, and
| being able to modify a lot more of the behavior of the app
| (there are more settings, and there are terminal commands
| listed on the readme of the GitHub repo). The main draw is
| that Rectangle is FOSS, which comes with obvious benefit.
|
| Beyond that, Rectangle Pro (paid, closed source) is where
| I've put a ton more features. You can find Rectangle &
| Rectangle Pro at https://rectangleapp.com
| interestica wrote:
| I use bettertouchtool, should I be using magnet or rectangle?
| alehlopeh wrote:
| Can an Ask HN self-post be clickbait? Apple isn't refusing to do
| anything. They just haven't done some minor thing that you
| personally would like. The fact that you're "shocked" by
| something as banal as "lack of window snapping" is kind of funny
| actually.
| vosper wrote:
| Ask / Tell HNs definitely can be click/engagement bait, and
| this probably is.
| rchaud wrote:
| Engagement bait doesn't serve any purpose on HN. On other
| social media it's necessary to send a relevance signal to the
| algorithm. You don't win any prizes for posting a lot on HN.
| AndroTux wrote:
| I am a Mac user for many years now. The first thing I always
| set up is Magnet. A third party app that allows me to have
| proper window management. So yes, in my opinion it really is
| shocking if even Windows manages to have a better user
| experience in something so basic, for more than 10(?) years.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| I also use Magnet - it's great and I would hate to be without
| it. But at this point it's bizarre that I still have to
| install a third party app to get such a basic UI feature.
| borland wrote:
| +1
|
| I've owned personally, and used macs for work since around
| 2009. I've never installed any third party window-snapping or
| management systems, and I don't consider it a big deal.
|
| I do use window snapping on Win10/11 periodically, but TBH I
| find that the beefed up snapping in Win11 is more annoying than
| it is useful, often snapping things to quarters of the screen
| when I just wanted to move a window.
|
| Likewise, I've seen non-programmer users on win10 hit the
| window snapping by accident and be confused and put off by it.
|
| Would I like it if Apple were to build a power-user window
| snapping feature into macOS? Yes, I would. Am I upset at them
| for not including it? Certainly not. Were I a product manager
| for macOS I would find it hard to justify the investment, given
| all the other things they can and do work on.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Almost everyone I know immediately installs a third-party app
| to handle windows when they get their Mac. That includes me.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| I almost always disable window snapping on Windows and Linux.
| Having a single window maximized, or even snapped to 50% of
| the screen is wasteful of screen space. I currently have 6
| firefox windows visible, they're just overlapped. I can
| quickly access them, move them and resize them using the
| mouse.
| basisword wrote:
| And nobody I know does that. Neither of our and data is
| particularly useful.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| For what it's worth, when I have to use mac os I am shocked by
| the lack of basic window management functionality, so I can
| believe that OP is too.
|
| By shocked I mean that I literally don't understand how Apple
| has produced something so terrible, when their hardware (and
| most of rest of the software) is so good.
| s3p wrote:
| Can an Ask HN response comment be off the mark? Apple is a
| trillion dollar company and no doubt has encountered this issue
| when their power users (and employees) look to get work done
| quickly.
|
| They spent countless hours and dollars into making stage
| manager but don't implement a simple yet powerful feature.
|
| The wrong question is why would someone want this. The right
| question is why hasn't Apple addressed it.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Apple refuses to do things all the time.
|
| Aside from the aforementioned window-management gaffes, here's
| what I think is the most ridiculous design defect of the
| iPhone, which I reported first as an engineer there and
| repeatedly as an independent dev: It does not provide audible
| notifications of MISSED CALLS. I mean... WTF? A 1990s StarTAC
| (and probably most other phones) provided this obvious feature.
| So did 1980s answering machines. My 1992 microwave beeps if I
| forget to take the food out. But Apple's handheld Unix
| computer-phone remains silent if you happen to miss a call
| while you're in the shower, or down the hall doing laundry, or
| watching a noisy movie. If my parents have some kind of
| emergency, they're going to CALL ME. But Apple doesn't think
| that's important.
|
| That was the first bug I filed against the iPhone, probably on
| the day we were given them (the day of release). FIFTEEN YEARS
| LATER, it's still not fixed. But what did Apple petulantly do
| instead? Add repeating notifications to TEXTS... but leave that
| option off of the essentially identical settings screen for the
| Phone app.
|
| That is Apple refusing to do something, to the detriment of all
| customers. I was not the only person to file this bug; I
| checked Radar (Apple's bug-tracking system). So it's not as if
| they haven't heard the complaint. You can also find plenty of
| references to it in a general Web search.
|
| When Apple finally allowed developers to write real
| applications, I expected that problem to be addressed quickly
| (by me or someone else). But NOPE; developers can't access
| telephony functions.
| shortcake27 wrote:
| If your parents had an emergency why would they call once and
| only once?
|
| Every person thinks that their missing feature is the most
| important feature ever and they're mad Apple hasn't
| implemented it yet. You have even resorted to incorrectly
| labelling a nonexistent feature as a bug. Imagine what iOS
| would be like if Apple actually implemented the billions of
| niche edge-case features like this. It would be an absolute
| disaster.
|
| I'm glad that Apple sticks to their guns instead of bending
| to loud niche users.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Apparently one would consider macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS
| real applications, written by developers.
|
| Or maybe they just appear out of thin air, created by pixie
| dust.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| "Apple" is too broad. Likely some mid-level manager made the
| decision to do nothing and never revisited.
|
| I remember a bug I wrote 15? years ago for gtk/gnome file
| manager. The left pane tree widget doesn't support the arrow
| keys we used extensively in WinXP. Also doesn't support the
| full context menu. Why? No reason, some mid-level person
| decided the left pane should be gimped.
| OneLeggedCat wrote:
| > gnome
|
| Gnome is the Apple of Linux world. A lot of Linux people
| hate gnome.
| robbiep wrote:
| I would HATE if my phone kept on informing me of missed calls
| or messages when I've put it down somewhere. I'll check it in
| my terms; that's why it's not in my hand
| Bud wrote:
| [dead]
| mr-ron wrote:
| Shoutout to SizeUp the first app I install on any MacOs computer
| I work on
| jsf01 wrote:
| Although it would be nice for this to be built into the OS, there
| are lots of apps that fulfill this purpose. I personally use
| Moom, have heard good things about Magnet, and if you like tiling
| there's Yabai.
| modeless wrote:
| What about that interminable animation every time you fullscreen
| a window or switch between fullscreen windows? It should be at
| least twice as fast and there's not even any way to hack it to
| speed it up. You just have to live with it. ("reduce motion"
| changes it to a crossfade but doesn't make it faster)
|
| While we're at it, the Dock has always been bad. And the top menu
| bar was good for the original Macintosh with a tiny screen but it
| makes no sense on a 4k display with many different app windows
| showing simultaneously. MacOS has a lot of relics of the past
| that Apple refuses to give up. I just see it as a tax I have to
| pay to get to use Apple Silicon.
| rr842j wrote:
| I still have to meet anybody that is not at a minimum annoyed
| by the macos animations.
|
| I literally stopped using the spaces feature because of that!.
| The default animation got me dizzy all the time, but even with
| that one disabled via accessibility settings they keep a
| terribly slow fading animation.
|
| It's absolutely ridiculous for a professional machine to impose
| these things on you.
| howinteresting wrote:
| macOS is designed for mainstream users, not power users who
| want an efficient workflow with minimum distractions.
|
| This is why I stopped complaining about macOS and just use
| Linux.
| yongjik wrote:
| Only if you're very lucky with Linux, or your definition of
| distraction does not include hours spent on fixing sleep
| and hibernation, finding the right input method among
| several that keep getting deprecated, fixing pixel scaling
| with multiple monitors, and other fun stuff.
|
| I still have a Linux Desktop that I boot up from time to
| time, but I've pretty much given up at this point. My time
| is more valuable than that.
| xdennis wrote:
| You sound like an Apple ad from the 2000s: aggressively
| unknowledgeable about how to use Linux and wasteful with
| your money.
| howinteresting wrote:
| I've never had a serious issue with Pop OS on both a
| desktop and a Thinkpad.
|
| Linux does have some issues (GNOME has some pretty
| noticeable UI issues) but overall I'm much happier with
| it than I ever was with macOS.
| wryanzimmerman wrote:
| I'm a power user who wants minimal distractions... OSX
| provides that just fine, my workflow is nearly identical
| between OSX and Linux because it's just a full screen
| terminal.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Glad it works for you.
| jwr wrote:
| Same here. I don't use spaces because I can't stand the
| animations, and they can't be turned off.
| surfpel wrote:
| Those animations are there to help people maintain a spacial
| understanding of their GUI.
|
| Most people are not highly technical power users who get
| annoyed by the small delays, this is a bias I see a lot on
| HN.
|
| I do agree that their accessibility options should allow for
| more customization of animations, though. I use 'magnet' for
| window control and it's instant. Highly recommend. Just wish
| switching between desktops could be made instant too.
| lostlogin wrote:
| The Time Machine one is amazing. I go there by accident
| sometimes, usually when trying to work out why it isn't
| working (this is a whole other issue) and it's ludicrous.
| bryceneal wrote:
| I feel the same way. I would much prefer no animation at all,
| and an instant transition between spaces.
|
| Apparently this is possible with yabai
| (https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai), but it requires
| disabling system integrity protection which I am personally
| uncomfortable with.
| egypturnash wrote:
| I'm absolutely fine with them. I use Spaces all the time -
| mostly by hitting f3 and clicking on the screen thumbnail at
| the top, rather than control-arrowing or control-number.
|
| HN has a lot of hate for these animations but I don't think
| I've ever seen anyone bitching about them elsewhere.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| Yeah, I've never had issues with the animations. And,
| additionally, I've always found that the animations make a
| UI feel finished by making state changes more apparent.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| > And the top menu bar was good for the original Macintosh with
| a tiny screen but it makes no sense on a 4k display with many
| different app windows showing simultaneously.
|
| My display is 27" with resolution of 1280x720. I rarely use
| multiple windows.
| derefr wrote:
| Maybe it's inherently slow, because it's a "loading transition"
| like in video games. Takes a second for the new backing virtual
| desktop to be allocated, and for the window to potentially grab
| new assets to redraw (think: resizing iMovie window larger =
| larger timeline preview = re-rendering timeline thumbnails);
| and the animation plays on the old desktop while this is going
| on in the background on the new desktop, so that when the
| animation completes, the new desktop is "ready" for an atomic
| single-frame cut-over, rather than ugly pop-in happening and
| the app still being blocked on input.
|
| Probably also has some constraints imposed upon it due to
| requiring that virtual desktops transition smoothly over Screen
| Sharing, where texture assets are being sent and buffered to a
| remote compositor.
| modeless wrote:
| These rationalizations don't justify it. The animation still
| has ugly pop-in and jerkiness despite being so slow and
| despite the fact that most apps can relayout and redraw their
| window in a tiny fraction of the time that animation takes.
| And screen sharing shouldn't make things slow when you're not
| using it.
|
| Anyway, I'd trade a bit of pop-in for a faster computer if
| that was necessary. There's no excuse to not offer that
| choice even as a power user "defaults write" option.
| derefr wrote:
| > most apps can relayout and redraw their window in a tiny
| fraction of the time that animation takes
|
| Re-rendering to the same compositor target buffer (when you
| e.g. resize a window), and allocating new textures in
| (potentially) new formats under control of a new compositor
| target buffer, are different orders-of-magnitudes of work.
| Think about how much delay there is from the point you plug
| in an external display, to the point your windows finish
| "popping over" onto it and it becomes usable. Allocating a
| new virtual desktop and moving a window to become
| fullscreen on it, is doing 90% of that same work.
|
| _Why_ does each virtual desktop have its own compositor
| and own target buffer? Because each virtual desktop has its
| own active _display mode_ it 's operating under: its own
| display resolution, its own bitplane format [think RGB vs
| BGR displays], different memory allocation constraints
| depending on whether it's currently being mirrored /
| screen-shared or not, maybe allocated in the VRAM _of a
| different GPU_ if it 's being drawn on a monitor plugged
| into a discrete GPU's HDMI/DP socket, etc.
|
| This "distinct target buffers with their own compositors"
| approach is also why you can't span windows across displays
| on macOS 10.9+. (Before that, macOS used a different
| approach, that allowed for single virtual desktops that
| span multiple monitors, but where this would use one big
| target buffer, formatted to the lowest-common denominator
| format acceptable to all display targets. So if you plugged
| in a shitty external display like a 720p projector, and
| "extended" your desktop to it, then the _whole_ compositor
| target buffer would get reformatted, and so your _internal_
| display 's resolution/color depth/refresh rate would
| decrease.)
|
| > Anyway, I'd trade a bit of pop-in for a faster computer
| if that was necessary.
|
| My point is that this wouldn't _be_ the trade-off. Instead,
| you 'd switch over to the new fullscreen view, half-
| rendered -- and then it would very likely still take just
| as long to finish re-rendering _and accept input_ as if
| there was no animation.
|
| You can actually try this "experience" out for yourself:
| try having an external display connected; opening Mission
| Control; and then _dragging_ the focused virtual desktop
| from your internal display, over to the external display
| (or vice-versa.) It takes about 3 seconds before all
| texture assets finish re-allocating in the new compositor
| target buffer 's texture format and re-rendering; and
| because there's no animation to paper over this case, it
| just feels unresponsive, like the whole shell has stalled
| for 3 seconds.
| modeless wrote:
| There is absolutely no reason for the common case of
| maximizing a regular window on the same display to switch
| texture formats or change resolutions or whatever else.
| That's silly. The compositor side of maximizing a regular
| window can and should be implemented in the same way that
| window resizing normally works, i.e. simply allocating
| one new screen sized texture to hold the application
| contents, which can be done in much less than one frame.
| For special cases like switching resolutions then sure,
| things can take longer, but that kind of thing is orders
| of magnitude less frequent than maximizing or switching
| between regular full screen windows.
|
| If you think that Apple engineers can't optimize the
| compositor side work that needs to be done to maximize a
| regular window or switch between regular full screen
| windows to take less than one frame then you have a very
| poor opinion of their engineers that I do not share. And
| if you think it's not worth the effort to optimize a case
| that typically happens every couple of minutes while
| people use macOS then I have to disagree in the strongest
| possible terms.
| fwlr wrote:
| defaults write -g NSWindowResizeTime -float 0.01
|
| should fix that (disclaimer - haven't tested this in a long
| time, may need to restart apps or whole os to see effect).
|
| In general, if something about macOS annoys you and there isn't
| a preference setting to fix it, googling "defaults write
| com.apple " will often find a solution.
| Writing with `defaults write` lets you alter nearly any value
| in the OS, very few things are hardcoded. A word of advice if
| you start messing around with this stuff - you will generally
| want to follow up any `defaults write com.apple.foo` command
| with `killall Foo` to force restart that component, as writing
| directly with the defaults utility will _not_ be reflected in
| real time, unlike what you are used to with changing things in
| System Preferences.
| [deleted]
| extr wrote:
| Not really. Tons of these preferences are gated behind SIP,
| something you can't turn off if it's a work laptop.
| modeless wrote:
| I wish you were right, but no. I've tried that one and a lot
| more besides. Go ahead and test it yourself, and let me know
| if you find a different one that actually works.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| It doesn't affect the fullscreen animation.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I like the menu bar, and don't mind the Dock.
|
| Wholly agree about the space switching animation. At the very
| least, I'd have liked the focus to change when I start
| switching - not when the animation ends. This way at least I
| could start typing and pressing shortcuts without having to
| wait. Not perfect, but better.
| ckolkey wrote:
| I've been happily using yabai for years - I even wrote some
| custom functions in hammerspoon to send windows to new spaces,
| move focus, and swap windows around n/s/e/w with key-bindings.
| Can't imagine life without it :shrug:
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Probably for the same reason they won't support no-raise-on-focus
| or [sloppy-]focus-follows-mouse.
| rcarmo wrote:
| Here's my list of window management tools for Mac (and beyond):
| https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/window_managers
| talkingtab wrote:
| Compared to Linux (Debian and Ubuntu) Apple's implementation is
| dysfunctional. Snapping and unsnapping is an important tool I now
| expect from any modern OS.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| I think the Apple Vision Pro is a good example of why snapping
| makes no sense.
|
| In this environment, your screen is basically the entire world
| around you, it can be as big as you want. Would you want to
| divide this into neat rectangles filling your entire view ? If
| your screen is that large, you basically size your windows to fit
| the content and then arrange them spatially into something that
| makes sense to you.
|
| The desktop isn't that different, but it's limited by the size of
| your screen. This urge to divide the entirety of your screen up
| into rectangles with zero breathing room between them is not
| because that's the most natural way of organizing your windows,
| it's a way to deal with lack of space.
|
| Say you're organizing your mail on your physical desk. You're
| making different stacks. Bills, taxes, junkmail, etc. Are you
| going to put these stacks right next to each other ? No, you're
| going to leave some room between them. In fact, it would be
| really annoying if you had so many different stacks of papers on
| your desk that you had to put them next to each other filling the
| entire surface. It would feel way more chaotic.
|
| In my opinion, tools like a maximize button and window snapping
| are trying to solve the wrong problem. You're trying to maximize
| usage of the space you have, because you have too little. The
| real solution is to get more space, i.e. get a larger monitor.
| You don't need window snapping or anything like that if your
| monitor is big enough, and you can just size your windows to fit
| the size of their content and place them wherever. In fact, on a
| large monitor window snapping makes zero sense.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| i use a linux machine all day (kde neon). like 15 hours a day.
| i use "maximize" on any program i work with. not fullscreen but
| maximize so i have access to the taskbar in the bottom without
| having to go out of full screen. i "sometimes" do snapped
| windows or quarters but i find it too much information overload
| and the programs i work with often just dont like in half the
| screen. anyway, the problem is,
|
| i have tried mac os but they either want you to randomly place
| windows here and there but that feels "weird".
|
| fullscreen has trouble going in and out and randomly placing
| windows feels cheating with the work you are doing. mac os
| doesn;t have the middle ground
| D13Fd wrote:
| We're talking about the desktop OS, not Apple Vision Pro, which
| isn't even out yet. Snapping makes lots of sense for a 2d
| desktop OS.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| Only if your monitor is too small. Snapping makes no sense on
| my 5k2k ultrawide, for example.
| D13Fd wrote:
| That's when you need it the most, so you can tile apps
| quickly.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| I have enough room that I don't need to tile them, that's
| the point.
| porphyra wrote:
| I really wish there was an i3-like tiling window manager for
| macOS. Yes, I'm aware of Yabai and others, but it's still not
| quite the same. Tiling apps bolted onto macOS's floating windows
| still feel sluggish, window decorations take up lots of space and
| are easy to accidentally click on (ruining the tiling),
| animations are annoying, focus doesn't follow mouse, keyboard
| shortcuts sometimes conflict, and so on.
| sxg wrote:
| I'm sure you've heard of Amethyst, but it does address at least
| a few of your concerns. Particularly focus following the mouse
| and conflicting shortcuts.
| rr842j wrote:
| They has enough with the groundbreaking announcement on wwdc of
| widgets in the desktop and Chrome... Sorry, "Web apps".
|
| Maybe in 2025
| slig wrote:
| Just use Magnet
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magnet/id441258766?mt=12
| baryphonic wrote:
| I use Hammerspoon with the ShiftIt plugin ("spoon")
|
| Works quite well, and is configured w/ Lua
| dcsan wrote:
| Raycast has some nice keyboard shortcuts for window layout.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| OSX / MacOS has always felt frustrating that way. There isn't
| appreciation for making good use of desktop space. It favours
| littering windows of various sizes everywhere, and the Dock has
| always wanted to waste two rectangles of desktop on either side.
| djfdat wrote:
| From my relatively short experience but ongoing with Mac, MacOS
| lacks a lot of features that Windows has. It has many inferior
| options that people just accept. Some people find third party
| software or modifying plists to bend the operating system to
| their will.
|
| As much as I hate many many many design choices in Apple's
| ecosystems, I adjust where I can and move on.
| D13Fd wrote:
| Like what? I use both every day, hard to think of any major
| features for my usage other than snapping that Mac OS lacks.
| Grum9 wrote:
| [dead]
| djfdat wrote:
| - Peek at desktop
|
| - Quick hide-all-windows to copy something from your desktop
| to your clipboard, then bring everything back
|
| - Alt-tab, especially when it comes to apps with multiple
| windows, and windows in different states, such as minimized
|
| - A modern/fully-featured default web browser without a
| locked down extension ecosystem. - A start menu for seeing
| all your applications
|
| - A taskbar with application grouping
|
| - File Explorer is much more full-featured than Finder
|
| - Better settings, especially when it comes to relevant
| settings being in one place
|
| - The concept of uninstalling an application vs just deleting
| the application
|
| - In some cases, an actual function key row
|
| That said, I've used Windows for almost 15 years now, and I
| think many of its choices are second nature to me. Many of my
| friends are masters of switching windows with Expose, which I
| absolutely despise. And I still use Windows for work, but use
| Mac in personal usage. I usually end up frustrated at things
| that work on Windows but don't on MacOS, but rarely vice
| versa.
| jitl wrote:
| Desktop peek: Part of "Mission Control": spread thumb and 3
| fingers, or press Fn+F11.
|
| Alt tab: press cmd-tab to cycle applications, then cmd-` to
| cycle windows of that application. This typically has
| better number-of-keypress to get the window you want
| compared to Windows alt-tab which requires iterating over
| all windows in the worst case.
|
| Browser: Safari is fits your criteria
|
| Start menu to see all apps: this is called "Launchpad", and
| is in the Dock by default for new macOS users, but can be
| removed.
|
| Uninstall vs delete: apps installed from the Mac App Store
| can be uninstalled from launchpad. Otherwise, isn't "apps
| are files, drag to install, cmd-delete or drag to trash to
| uninstall" objectively simpler than using a wizard to
| install, and digging around in a control panel to
| uninstall?
|
| Function key row: you can swap the behavior of the fn row
| so that the keys send Fn1-Fn12 by default, and needs the fn
| key held down to send commands like "volume up".
|
| Settings layout: this one is opinion; I've always found
| Windows settings horribly organized. From 2001-2007,
| there's no contest that System Preferences is better
| organized than Windows XP's control panel. From 2007-2015,
| the Vista-era control panel split things awkwardly between
| the "new style" Vista panels and old-style windows
| XP/2000/98 panels. Since Windows 10 things are on more even
| footing in my view, although some details in macOS Network
| and Displays are annoyingly hidden in some versions.
| Gunnerhead wrote:
| Also for desktop peek you can customize "hot corners" to
| show the desktop when you put your cursor in one of the
| corners.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Alt tab: press cmd-tab to cycle applications, then
| cmd-` to cycle windows of that application. This
| typically has better number-of-keypress to get the window
| you want compared to Windows alt-tab which requires
| iterating over all windows in the worst case.
|
| Except that you can select a window with cmd-tab and then
| have _absolutely nothing happen_ as a result. It will
| show windows that it does not let you muster on screen,
| except with a secret key combination it does not tell you
| about. The existence of this secret method of actually
| getting the application to do what you expect it to in no
| way excuses the default behavior of not doing what it
| should do.
| wrs wrote:
| 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 at all.
| karaterobot wrote:
| 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-kept secret does work) but Apple chose not
| to apply it.
| wrs wrote:
| 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.
| prewett wrote:
| Launchpad can also be started by taking four fingers
| spread out and bringing them together into one spot. I
| think that is enabled by default. (Control panel, at
| least in older versions, also had a little animation for
| all the gestures, and you can assign different functions
| to them)
|
| You can also swipe up with three fingers to get a view of
| all the windows on your current desktop (and also select
| other Spaces). Normally I just use Cmd-Tab, but if your
| window is very visible this can be faster. I keep my
| source control app's window hidden behind Xcode, and then
| 3-swipe-up to click on it when I need to commit
| something.
| kristiandupont wrote:
| >Alt tab: press cmd-tab to cycle applications, then cmd-`
| to cycle windows of that application. This typically has
| better number-of-keypress to get the window you want
| compared to Windows alt-tab which requires iterating over
| all windows in the worst case.
|
| In the case where you need to switch to a window that you
| haven't been using for a while, perhaps. But switching
| back and forth on the other hand, is infuriating because
| the z-order is polluted. And I also find it incredibly
| frustrating that all the other windows are brought to the
| top just because they happen to share a process.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Some of the Windows choices are horrendous. Alt-tab to switch
| apps actually switches between browser tabs in Edge. It's
| really confusing. There's a litany of other problems too like
| virtual desktops move all screens instead of just the screen
| with the cursor, so it's unusable. There's also a case where
| certain actions with the mouse cause all the windows to vanish.
| I mean, what was that. Then there's that window history thing
| which is baffling to use.
|
| macOS has its demons but Windows just plain is confusing.
| djfdat wrote:
| Alt-tab to switch between browser tabs in Edge is new, a
| setting that you can turn off, and in some cases, it's
| actually very useful, since you can limit the number of tabs.
| It lets me treat recent tabs the same way as I would treat
| recent applications, which many websites effectively are. But
| anyways, that choice is made available to you.
|
| I don't currently use multiple monitors, but I do use virtual
| desktops, and... that's exactly how I would expect virtual
| desktops to behave? If it only changed a single monitor, does
| that mean you'd have to go to each monitor to change to a
| different virtual desktop? Do you see virtual desktop
| configurations specific to each screen, or any screen? What
| happens if your screens are different resolutions. I think
| that Windows again has the superior implementation here.
|
| Aero shake was pretty terrible, no arguments here.
|
| The window history thing, Timeline, is something that I have
| disabed, but honestly sounds like an even better version of
| Recent Files, which is something many people use and might
| like something more full featured.
| tpmoney wrote:
| > but I do use virtual desktops, and... that's exactly how
| I would expect virtual desktops to behave? If it only
| changed a single monitor, does that mean you'd have to go
| to each monitor to change to a different virtual desktop?
|
| Different strokes for different folks. In my setup yes,
| each of the three monitors has their own set of virtual
| desktops. When working on a project for example, I might
| have my center display configured with the IDE, and a
| second monitor configured with one virtual desktop per
| group of related reference materials. So I can switch
| between API docs, language docs, database query and
| reference etc on one monitor, while keeping the IDE front
| and center. The other monitor might contain a space with
| "office" apps (slack, email etc) and then another with a
| set of tiled terminal windows for using CLI utilities. If I
| switch that screen to look at emails, I don't need or want
| the other screens to change to something else.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| The virtual desktop implementation in macOS is called
| Spaces. The first time it appeared in the OS, it would
| always span all screens, so when switching they would all
| switch together.
|
| Presently the default is for each display to have their own
| collection of spaces. You can have one display with a
| single space and another one with 10, or 50 on each. They
| behave independently and are switched independently.
|
| There is a toggle to restore the old behaviour but I find
| the new one far superior.
|
| I don't understand the question about different
| resolutions. Why would they be a concern?
|
| I regularly use my MacBook's display in conjunction with a
| 1600p ultrawide external display. Different resolutions are
| not a problem, and never have been.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| I want all these turned off by default and not need to
| stumble through trying to figure out how to disable them.
| Windows now feels like using Android where you need to
| google first to figure out how to modify something. In
| terms of virtual desktops, having independent control per
| monitor is so elementary that it makes the feature pretty
| useless otherwise.
| pulpfictional wrote:
| I want it all, I want it now.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| It's just a far more opinionated OS. Always "my way or the
| highway". MacOS doesnt have a good window manager because it
| was designed for every app to be Fullscreen and then use three
| or four finger scroll to switch apps. The designers really want
| you to use their preferred way of managing windows so they make
| the traditional method suck.
| kagakuninja wrote:
| The roots of MacOS UI principles date back to the 1980s. Even
| the current UNIX based MacOS was created in 1999 based off of
| the Next OS.
|
| Multi-finger gestures were introduced with the iPhone in
| 2007, and eventually made their way onto laptops. Not only is
| MacOS 10 / 11 not based on multi-finger gestures, you can
| only use gestures if you are using a laptop or an Apple
| touchpad. The default mode of using MacOS is mouse based.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| > Not only is MacOS 10 / 11 not based on multi-finger
| gestures, you can only use gestures if you are using a
| laptop or an Apple touchpad. The default mode of using
| MacOS is mouse based.
|
| Well, every single one of their input devices supports the
| gestures. Built-in trackpads, Magic Trackpad, Magic Mouse.
| I'm not saying you're wrong, but for me (Mac user of 9
| years) macOS is decidedly gesture based, and I consider
| them one of its biggest strengths.
| xn--cr8h wrote:
| ...so that you can't see the time? why would you want that?
| scottydelta wrote:
| I have been using spectacle app since a long time and I love it.
| It lets you define keyboard shortcuts to make it easy to size and
| move windows around. Here is the website
| https://www.spectacleapp.com/
| lostlogin wrote:
| I used to use it and it's now not maintained. Others here have
| said that Rectangle duplicates a lot of the function
| (intentionally).
| rxhanson wrote:
| Rectangle is a drop-in replacement for Spectacle, and
| provides an option upon first install to select the Spectacle
| default keyboard shortcuts. Note that Spectacle only included
| keyboard shortcut window management, while Rectangle also
| includes the drag to screen edge snapping.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| For those that want this for Mac, use this app called Rectangle.
| It's a MUST HAVE.
|
| https://rectangleapp.com/
| valevk wrote:
| BetterSnapTool! While at it, check out BetterTouchTool as well.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| Seems very similar to magnet and rectangle, are there any
| advantages?
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