Looks super interesting. Has anyone here tried a keyboard-first tiling window manager on macOS? Any recommendations?

sgt 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Can anyone explain why tiling managers are useful? Seems like a waste of space to me. I prefer having my various windows all over the place and just alt-tabbing between (or using other means of opening the right app). I highly prefer having the app I am working on to be in the center of the screen, so that is what makes sense for me.

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vidarh 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

They're useful to let you not have to think about positioning windows with precision.

If that doesn't feel useful to you, then maybe a tiling wm isn't right for you. That's entirely fine.

My wm has an "escape" in that I can define floating desktops, and by default I have one, mostly used for file management, because there are things where I agree it's better to have floating/overlapping windows.

It doesn't really matter if it's a "waste of space" - I have two large monitors, and 10 virtual desktops to spread windows between (I'd add more, but I haven't felt the need). To the point where my setup, by default, centers the window with large margins when I have just one window open on a screen because it's more comfortable (and I'm just one keypress away from fullscreening the app anyway).

Most of the time I use tiling because I like not having to care about the layout beyond those defaults.

But I can also configure specific layouts. E.g. I have desktop dedicated to my todo list, a list of done items, and notes, and it has a fixed layout that ensures those windows are always in the same placement, on the same desktop.

	▲	sgt 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe it's also due to differences in personality. I like to focus on one or two things at a time. And on second though, my argument about wasting space probably doesn't make sense. Perhaps I'm thinking more about "information overload". In my day to day I have a couple terminals (each with 4-5 tabs, some are running screen sessions), two browsers (with max 3-4 tabs open), music player, at least 2-3 IDE's open (JetBrains), Notes, mail client, Slack. This is across two monitors.

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jamiejquinn 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you've tried it and it doesn't fit, that seems fine, it's all just personal workflow.

For me it's pure speed at getting to where I need to go. My notes live on workspace 1, my main workspace on 2 and browser on 3, so I'm just a single key combination away from most of what I need. Can still alt+tab if I like.

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Jotalea 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>Seems like a waste of space

It's quite the opposite.

My laptop has a small 11.1'' screen, so using a traditional desktop with smaller windows is not practical for me. Plus, not having the windows overlap with each other by default gives a more structured workflow.

unrelated to the comment: I wrote this answer 3 times, but the damn process killer on Android kept deleting it so I had to re-write it each time. if I sound mad, it is because I am.

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cadamsdotcom 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Give Rectangle a go. I’ve used it for years and love it.

Thirds, quarters, sixths. Move windows to the next screen. Increase and decrease size.. so many nice things you can do with just the keyboard.

Its keyboard shortcuts are so deeply in my brain I could rattle them off while operating heavy machinery :)

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astr0n0mer 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Check out AeroSpace (https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace). I've been a happy user for the last 8 months or so.

	▲	jnsaff2 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		+1 for AeroSpace. I have been i3/sway user for about a decade and was really missing similar experience on Mac. All the previous ones came with gotchas or were nowhere near the usability of i3/sway. AeroSpace is almost there, it has a few quirks and annoyances and is missing some features but it's close enough that it's now my daily driver for client work requiring being on a Mac. Highly recommended and hopefully it continues to evolve. Also hoping that the churn in macOS is not going to kill it for some unexpected reason. As far as Hyprland, I tried it and when I got to a setup that I felt comfortable I realized that I had basically replicated my Sway setup with no added benefits so I just switched back to Sway. I'm not much into ricing anyway. I mostly want the chrome to stay out of my way. That said, for people unfamiliar with i3/Sway, Hyprland could be a great way of getting into tiling so I'm definitely rooting for them!
	▲	Jnr 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		As a "Linux at home - macOS at work" user, I can't stand Window management on macOS. It is so inefficient and hard to manage. AeroSpace tiling window manager finally changed my work day from constant struggle to only occasional struggle with macOS. I use it with sketchybar which is not yet perfect, but it could become quite good and performant with some work on it. I currently use Gnome on Linux, not a tiling window manager, and I would gladly go with Hyprland, but about a year ago while I was trying it out, it crashed quite a few times so it clearly was not ready for production use back then. Will give it a shot again.