Show HN: Keypad Layout Window Manager for Mac (opens in new tab)

(github.com)

109 pointsjanten8y ago36 comments

36 comments

I can highly recommend kvm[1] for those of you who are interested in tiling window managers for macOS. Another pearl is Amethyst[2]. I've used both of them (and others such as xnomad) extensively for the past 5 years or so and must say that I'm very pleased.

[1] https://koekeishiya.github.io/kwm/

[2] https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst

nevon8y ago

Been using kwm for the past 6 months or so. Amethyst never really clicked for me, and it didn't work very well with multiple spaces, which I am a big user of.

Kwm and khd (kwm does layouting, khd sets up keyboard shortcuts) are not the easiest to configure, and kwm can be extremely complex, but for me it's been the best window manager for Mac OS I've been able to find. I just wish that performance was better, and that it handled corner cases like small dialogs better.

Doesn't hold a candle to the ones available for Linux, but I blame Apple for that more than I blame the developers.

tuananh8y ago

mind sharing your config?

rrggrr8y ago

2nd for https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst

This tool reduces my cognitive load.

tuananh8y ago

Another vote for Amethyst. Also tried kwm but it doesn't work as well as Amethyst. However, kwm potential is huge.

ooqr8y ago

I've used Amethyst day-to-day on my work laptop for several months and overall I'm happy with it. It's a bit idiosyncratic, but that's more the fault of Apple for not making it easy to develop such a plugin.

It's strange that a company focused on good design and ease of use is beholden to ancient window management traditions such as manually dragging every single window into the dimensions you want. When you open and close terminal windows to various servers dozens of times a day, need a window open on the side with a site showing documentation on this or that, it just doesn't make sense to waste time doing something that could be automated.

1 more reply

raghavkhanna8y ago

There's also spectacle (https://www.spectacleapp.com/), however this seems worth trying out, especially due to the ease of remembering the layout config shortcuts

matt20008y ago

Came here to recommend spectacle too. I basically only use the keyboard shortcuts to send windows to the left half, or right half of the screen. If you hit them again it does 2/3rds or 1/3rds of that side of the screen which is helpful on lower resolutions. That pretty much covers me for window management.

TomAnthony8y ago

Yeah - the simplicity of it, over something like this one posted, makes it much nicer. I also use for move windows to the other display.

Brajeshwar8y ago

My default utility too; for quite a while.

hexagonsun8y ago

I love Spectacle, highly recommended!

AndrewHampton8y ago

I'll drop in the customary link to hammerspoon: http://www.hammerspoon.org

It has a couple libraries for window management. One is plug and play, the other is lower level. Here is my config for setting up a 2x2 grid: https://github.com/andrewhampton/dotfiles/blob/master/hammer...

tnajdek8y ago

Another one is called slate: https://github.com/jigish/slate

Very flexible, my favorite feature is that configs can be written in JS, here's mine: https://gist.github.com/tnajdek/48ea2a2ccac365b91f29

zdw8y ago

Slate is my favorite as well - there's a fork that accumulated a bunch of patches over the years as the original author appears to have abandoned it:

https://github.com/mattr-/slate

Unfortunately, it was declared unmaintained as of a few days ago...

lowboy8y ago

Yup been using Slate for a while now. I wrote a grid system for it that I find works well: https://github.com/jjt/ac-slater

Archio8y ago

I can't recommend enough the first app I install on any new Mac, ShiftIt: https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt

- It's open source + free - Once you install it and learn the keyboard shortcuts you basically can forget it's there because it stays out of your way

sambe8y ago

I always used Divvy for this, but IIRC it's paid only. Looks like a nice start.

jantenOP8y ago

Author here. I actually started this project after buying Divvy. Divvy has many more features but I could never set it up just right. In particular I found no way to use the grid feature without the mouse (other than assigning shortcuts to pre-defined layouts). So I scratched my own itch and created Keypad Layout as a simple no-frills replacement that works exactly the way I want it to.

rmateu8y ago

I'm loving this model. Thanks for sharing.

I own Magnet, Moom, Cinch and a few others. I always end up abandoning because the powerful keyboard features get in the way when you're in an actual workflow, and the basic ones make me reach for the mouse.

sambe8y ago

Yes, I ended up using pre-defined shortcuts for common areas. It seemed like a massive downer after paying money for it, but in the end covered 95% of my use-cases acceptably.

tyingq8y ago

I'm wondering if Divvy is going to be hit by this patent holder: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14333957

This project seems safe, as the UI doesn't show a preview grid you can drag over.

tonyhb8y ago

According to that thread's comments the patent was granted in 2011 whilst Divvy was around in 2010, so hopefully it's safe.

1 more reply

michaelbuckbee8y ago

I have a 4k monitor and Divvy is a godsend for setting up the monitor as a 6x6 grid which I can then split with either the numpad keys or the 2x3 stacked control keys which mirror the layouts.

LeoPanthera8y ago

I use Moom for this, it has a killer feature (for me) that I haven't seen anywhere else, the ability to leave n pixels between windows, and between windows and the edge of the screen.

TheSpiceIsLife8y ago

This looks great, definitely going to give it a whirl.

I have to use a Windows 7 PC for work (proprietary software for a laser cutter) and have AutoHotKey running about 30 customer keyboard shortcuts, so when I get home to my Linux and Mac laptops I that I use for casual computer use I struggle to remember key combos for window management. Moom looks like it solves that problem by novel use of existing window manipulation buttons.

Thanks!

joshuaswaney8y ago

Magnet is great if all you're looking for is hotkeys to arrange/maximize your windows and move them between monitors.

dzhiurgis8y ago

I use option+shift+a/d for left/right snapping and option+shift+e for full screen, all mapped in BetterTouchTool. But I do feel I need more flexibility for corner and horizontal snaps. Anyone got ideas how to do it better (I do not have numpad)?

alexellisuk8y ago

Don't most Mac users have a Macbook with effectively no Numeric Keypad? I use an external KB but it's tenkeyless.

Some other default bindings would be useful.

jaequery8y ago

i just need a window manager that performs the following for free:

- hotkey for full screeen window

- hotkey for center screen window

- hotkey for left/right half window

- hotkey for move window to prev/next monitor

- hotkey for resize window by mouse (a la bettertouchtool)

- hotkey for move window by mouse (a la bettertouchtool)

currently i'm using a combination of these to do the following, but i feel its a bit overkill when all i need are what i described above:

- bettertouchtool

- sizeUp

lloeki8y ago

> for free

If you want it so badly, why not pay for the ones that exist?

hibbelig8y ago

Phoenix can do this (https://github.com/kasper/phoenix). Hammerspoon can also do this (hammerspoon.org).

Phoenix is programmed in JS, it seems faster for me, has fewer features. (But what you want is there.)

Hammerspoon is programmed in Lua, it's slower (to start up at least), and it has more features. (I've got a "vi normal mode" config after Karabiner doesn't work with macOS Sierra.)

hayden5928y ago

Looks neat and I'll have to try it out. Just curious what makes this different from Spectacle or Shiftit?

hmans8y ago

Hammerspoon

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

36 comments

hultner8y ago

[1] https://koekeishiya.github.io/kwm/

[2] https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst

nevon8y ago

Been using kwm for the past 6 months or so. Amethyst never really clicked for me, and it didn't work very well with multiple spaces, which I am a big user of.

Doesn't hold a candle to the ones available for Linux, but I blame Apple for that more than I blame the developers.

tuananh8y ago

mind sharing your config?

rrggrr8y ago

2nd for https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst

This tool reduces my cognitive load.

tuananh8y ago

Another vote for Amethyst. Also tried kwm but it doesn't work as well as Amethyst. However, kwm potential is huge.

ooqr8y ago

1 more reply

raghavkhanna8y ago

There's also spectacle (https://www.spectacleapp.com/), however this seems worth trying out, especially due to the ease of remembering the layout config shortcuts

matt20008y ago

TomAnthony8y ago

Yeah - the simplicity of it, over something like this one posted, makes it much nicer. I also use for move windows to the other display.

Brajeshwar8y ago

My default utility too; for quite a while.

hexagonsun8y ago

I love Spectacle, highly recommended!

AndrewHampton8y ago

I'll drop in the customary link to hammerspoon: http://www.hammerspoon.org

tnajdek8y ago

Another one is called slate: https://github.com/jigish/slate

Very flexible, my favorite feature is that configs can be written in JS, here's mine: https://gist.github.com/tnajdek/48ea2a2ccac365b91f29

zdw8y ago

Slate is my favorite as well - there's a fork that accumulated a bunch of patches over the years as the original author appears to have abandoned it:

https://github.com/mattr-/slate

Unfortunately, it was declared unmaintained as of a few days ago...

lowboy8y ago

Yup been using Slate for a while now. I wrote a grid system for it that I find works well: https://github.com/jjt/ac-slater

Archio8y ago

I can't recommend enough the first app I install on any new Mac, ShiftIt: https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt

- It's open source + free - Once you install it and learn the keyboard shortcuts you basically can forget it's there because it stays out of your way

sambe8y ago

I always used Divvy for this, but IIRC it's paid only. Looks like a nice start.

jantenOP8y ago

rmateu8y ago

I'm loving this model. Thanks for sharing.

sambe8y ago

Yes, I ended up using pre-defined shortcuts for common areas. It seemed like a massive downer after paying money for it, but in the end covered 95% of my use-cases acceptably.

tyingq8y ago

I'm wondering if Divvy is going to be hit by this patent holder: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14333957

This project seems safe, as the UI doesn't show a preview grid you can drag over.

tonyhb8y ago

According to that thread's comments the patent was granted in 2011 whilst Divvy was around in 2010, so hopefully it's safe.

1 more reply

michaelbuckbee8y ago

I have a 4k monitor and Divvy is a godsend for setting up the monitor as a 6x6 grid which I can then split with either the numpad keys or the 2x3 stacked control keys which mirror the layouts.

LeoPanthera8y ago

I use Moom for this, it has a killer feature (for me) that I haven't seen anywhere else, the ability to leave n pixels between windows, and between windows and the edge of the screen.

TheSpiceIsLife8y ago

This looks great, definitely going to give it a whirl.

Thanks!

joshuaswaney8y ago

Magnet is great if all you're looking for is hotkeys to arrange/maximize your windows and move them between monitors.

dzhiurgis8y ago

alexellisuk8y ago

Don't most Mac users have a Macbook with effectively no Numeric Keypad? I use an external KB but it's tenkeyless.

Some other default bindings would be useful.

jaequery8y ago

i just need a window manager that performs the following for free:

- hotkey for full screeen window

- hotkey for center screen window

- hotkey for left/right half window

- hotkey for move window to prev/next monitor

- hotkey for resize window by mouse (a la bettertouchtool)

- hotkey for move window by mouse (a la bettertouchtool)

currently i'm using a combination of these to do the following, but i feel its a bit overkill when all i need are what i described above:

- bettertouchtool

- sizeUp

lloeki8y ago

> for free

If you want it so badly, why not pay for the ones that exist?

hibbelig8y ago

Phoenix can do this (https://github.com/kasper/phoenix). Hammerspoon can also do this (hammerspoon.org).

Phoenix is programmed in JS, it seems faster for me, has fewer features. (But what you want is there.)

Hammerspoon is programmed in Lua, it's slower (to start up at least), and it has more features. (I've got a "vi normal mode" config after Karabiner doesn't work with macOS Sierra.)

hayden5928y ago

Looks neat and I'll have to try it out. Just curious what makes this different from Spectacle or Shiftit?

hmans8y ago

Hammerspoon

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse