I've been running desktop Linux for 20+ years, both home and work... not exactly a tiling window person, but for all that time I've run wmaker, blackbox, openbox, or in more recent decades kwin configured to act pretty much like the former options — most apps maximized most of the time and hotkeys for "switch to desktop", "send window to desktop", "send window to other monitor", etc.
But not too long ago I started a new job, and while they didn't exactly say no to me running Linux, I would be the only person there not using a Mac, and some of their dev tooling is built specifically for Mac, so clearly that wasn't the smart way to go. Plus the whole "they give me a 16-inch MBP" thing. So, I'm a Mac user now.
Most things were really not difficult at al to adapt to, especially with homebrew installed and a few choice tools symlinked into place, except for the window management. It mystified me when I first encountered System 7, and it hasn't started making more sense at any point since then. Fortunately, there's Aerospace. It works well, it's customizable enough that I can make it compatible with my muscle memory, and maybe I tile windows just a little bit more than I did before... even on my Linux machine.
Same here. On MacOS, may I recommend Rectangle. Been using it for years with shortcuts for full, vertical halves, and vertical thirds/two-thirds, and it’s exactly all I need.
You probably know this, but there has to be some difference in window management because Mac apps can exist with no windows. So cmd-tab switches apps, cmd-backtick switches windows within an app, and what’s missing is switching windows ignoring app boundaries. But there’s more to it. On anything but MacOS, I am annoyed because there’s only switching windows ignoring app boundaries, nothing to switch apps as a unit or to switch windows limited to the current app, my windows get all interleaved, and I can’t find anything.
I wish I could fix that bug somehow. I want that disabled, it doesn't make sense for my work and only makes things annoying. I know it may make sense for for some people, but I'd love to at least have an option for "last window gone closes the app'
It's not a bug, it's just different. MacOS leaves it up to the app to decide what makes sense to do when you close the last window. Lots of apps have one window and automatically Quit themselves if you close it (e.g., System Settings). A few have a preference to make them work that way.
This dates back to Mac System 0.9 where quitting an app was a huge deal (20 seconds of floppy disk grinding as you returned to the Finder) but semantically it still makes sense, why quit the whole process just because you closed a window? Windows went the other way, and as a result Microsoft had to implement all sorts of caching in Office so it doesn't actually have to fully relaunch Word when you close a document and open another one.
Oh, and of course this also relates to the other unique MacOS UI feature, the menu bar being attached to the screen rather than the window. So you don't have to find and relaunch the app to make a new document, the New command is still there.
I appreciate this blog post. ✨ I basically went through what the OP did. I've just been coping until using KDE Plasma recently and seeing how fast (and configurable) switching is. Me, being impressed while understanding that KDE is not at the pinnacle of the embracing tiling or configurability.
alper | 9 hours ago
I use Aerospace's spaces functionality and despite it being a tiling window manager, this is the feature I use the most.
hobbified | 3 hours ago
I've been running desktop Linux for 20+ years, both home and work... not exactly a tiling window person, but for all that time I've run wmaker, blackbox, openbox, or in more recent decades kwin configured to act pretty much like the former options — most apps maximized most of the time and hotkeys for "switch to desktop", "send window to desktop", "send window to other monitor", etc.
But not too long ago I started a new job, and while they didn't exactly say no to me running Linux, I would be the only person there not using a Mac, and some of their dev tooling is built specifically for Mac, so clearly that wasn't the smart way to go. Plus the whole "they give me a 16-inch MBP" thing. So, I'm a Mac user now.
Most things were really not difficult at al to adapt to, especially with homebrew installed and a few choice tools symlinked into place, except for the window management. It mystified me when I first encountered System 7, and it hasn't started making more sense at any point since then. Fortunately, there's Aerospace. It works well, it's customizable enough that I can make it compatible with my muscle memory, and maybe I tile windows just a little bit more than I did before... even on my Linux machine.
alper | 2 hours ago
Of all the layouts a "tiling window manager" could provide, what I use the most is:
That's it. That's all the tiling I need.
wrs | an hour ago
Same here. On MacOS, may I recommend Rectangle. Been using it for years with shortcuts for full, vertical halves, and vertical thirds/two-thirds, and it’s exactly all I need.
wrs | an hour ago
You probably know this, but there has to be some difference in window management because Mac apps can exist with no windows. So cmd-tab switches apps, cmd-backtick switches windows within an app, and what’s missing is switching windows ignoring app boundaries. But there’s more to it. On anything but MacOS, I am annoyed because there’s only switching windows ignoring app boundaries, nothing to switch apps as a unit or to switch windows limited to the current app, my windows get all interleaved, and I can’t find anything.
viraptor | 42 minutes ago
I wish I could fix that bug somehow. I want that disabled, it doesn't make sense for my work and only makes things annoying. I know it may make sense for for some people, but I'd love to at least have an option for "last window gone closes the app'
wrs | 35 minutes ago
It's not a bug, it's just different. MacOS leaves it up to the app to decide what makes sense to do when you close the last window. Lots of apps have one window and automatically Quit themselves if you close it (e.g., System Settings). A few have a preference to make them work that way.
This dates back to Mac System 0.9 where quitting an app was a huge deal (20 seconds of floppy disk grinding as you returned to the Finder) but semantically it still makes sense, why quit the whole process just because you closed a window? Windows went the other way, and as a result Microsoft had to implement all sorts of caching in Office so it doesn't actually have to fully relaunch Word when you close a document and open another one.
Oh, and of course this also relates to the other unique MacOS UI feature, the menu bar being attached to the screen rather than the window. So you don't have to find and relaunch the app to make a new document, the New command is still there.
viraptor | 6 minutes ago
I get that it can be a feature for some people, but for me it's a behaviour I never want and it only adds work - it's indistinguishable from a bug.
So you don't see it in the alt-tab list anymore.
op | 7 hours ago
the default behavior is doubly frustrating:
prefers-reduced-motionon browsers (the second part is completely valid)currently i've just decided to accept the fade-in/out animation. i don't really mind the browser behavior too much.
squarism | 4 hours ago
I appreciate this blog post. ✨ I basically went through what the OP did. I've just been coping until using KDE Plasma recently and seeing how fast (and configurable) switching is. Me, being impressed while understanding that KDE is not at the pinnacle of the embracing tiling or configurability.