I used to be a heavy user of i3. It's very flexible and configurable, and you can do much more than just moving windows. But after I switched to Mac, I couldn't find a tiling window manager that was both feature-rich and stable. After trying several options, I just use Rectangle[1]. It's not a window manager; it only provides shortcuts for window placements like simply moving windows to left/right/top/bottom or splitting the screen into 3/4/6 sections and place windows. It covers 80% of my needs and there are no pitfalls or unexpected behavior, so now I'm happily using it. Another reason is that I'm getting old and tired of using very flexible software with tons of custom configs.
I've moved from window managers to deterministic app switching with Rcmd mapped to capslock and dual cmd being tied to some window arrangement and screen swapping karabiner commands.
I've switched to what I consider a french cleat system where I have task specific app/window sets and only keep a single task open at a time.
Similar to how french cleat walls are for general storage but then you can arrange all tools for a project on a specific cleat for the duration of the project.
How many apps must a person use in reality that rcmd+letter isn't sufficient for deterministic switching?
Any web app that isn't just general browsing I have mapped to a safari app now, gmail, llms, etc. chrome's tab management is just a joke.
One reason I prefer Divvy^1 is that my custom keyboard shortcuts are usable whether typing directly the on laptop w/ trackpad, or (more frequently) on external keyboard.
I used to be a big user of tiling window managers but, more recently, I’ve discovered that the workflow of something like Moom is nicer in more situations.
Moom is an absolute crucial piece of software that I've gladly paid for upgrades to over time to support it.
There's also BetterSnapTool, which I used to use, but I think switched to Moom for specific features at one point in time. It's even cheaper and still receiving updates to continue working.
yabai uses native macos spaces and generally requires sip to be disabled to have a good experience(windows can't be moved between spaces without)
rift is essentially aerospace but implemented in a yabai style. yabai style meaning using low level, private apis and generally focusing more on performance. whereas aerospace prides itself on only using one private api.
usage wise, aerospace and rift both use a virtual workspace system where all of your (work)spaces are in one macos space so no red tape has to be cut in order to move windows from ws -> ws and so forth
Does rift handle native MacOS tabs like the ones ghostty and finder use? I might give it a shot. I have been having a couple of issues with Aerospace lately.
Also I am wondering if you could estimate how difficult it would be to implement something like Niri? I much prefer the scrolling style tiling, but none of the MacOS WMs seem to be going that route (other than PaperWM.spoon which is not for me).
I used to be a heavy user of i3. It's very flexible and configurable, and you can do much more than just moving windows. But after I switched to Mac, I couldn't find a tiling window manager that was both feature-rich and stable. After trying several options, I just use Rectangle[1]. It's not a window manager; it only provides shortcuts for window placements like simply moving windows to left/right/top/bottom or splitting the screen into 3/4/6 sections and place windows. It covers 80% of my needs and there are no pitfalls or unexpected behavior, so now I'm happily using it. Another reason is that I'm getting old and tired of using very flexible software with tons of custom configs.
[1] https://rectangleapp.com/
Similar experience and pov here -- but w/ Divvy^1 (not Rectangle).
1. https://mizage.com/divvy/
With 5k/6k displays ordinary tiling is a joke: windows are too big. So apps like moon are far better option.
On Windows there is no such thing as Moom, so I use tiling manager like komorebi.
As a person switching between different OSs and devices, it’s a shame that rift seems to not use well-established key binding like alt+hjkl.
Also for 5k+ display (or ultrawide) this kind of window tiling is a must (which komorebi has)
~Welp, I tried, but HN seems to render this not like I paste it~If you indent your pasted stuff by four spaces, HN treats it as code. That might help.
I've moved from window managers to deterministic app switching with Rcmd mapped to capslock and dual cmd being tied to some window arrangement and screen swapping karabiner commands.
I've switched to what I consider a french cleat system where I have task specific app/window sets and only keep a single task open at a time.
Similar to how french cleat walls are for general storage but then you can arrange all tools for a project on a specific cleat for the duration of the project.
How many apps must a person use in reality that rcmd+letter isn't sufficient for deterministic switching?
Any web app that isn't just general browsing I have mapped to a safari app now, gmail, llms, etc. chrome's tab management is just a joke.
What do you use to manage window arrangements?
Pretty cool, but nothing beats Swish if you're using a Macbook trackpad https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/
"Highly opinionated" indeed ;)
One reason I prefer Divvy^1 is that my custom keyboard shortcuts are usable whether typing directly the on laptop w/ trackpad, or (more frequently) on external keyboard.
1. https://mizage.com/divvy/
I used to be a big user of tiling window managers but, more recently, I’ve discovered that the workflow of something like Moom is nicer in more situations.
Moom is an absolute crucial piece of software that I've gladly paid for upgrades to over time to support it.
There's also BetterSnapTool, which I used to use, but I think switched to Moom for specific features at one point in time. It's even cheaper and still receiving updates to continue working.
What features do you like in Moom?
It doesn’t force you with tiles (on 6k xdr tiles are a joke).
Its two-stage popup is a game changer. Ie you show it via caps-a, then press one letter to move window anywhere.
And it allows you to specify any arbitrary size and position and save that to the specific one letter.
It’s a shame I can’t find a single screenshot of this killer feature and I write this from a phone.
this is cool, I love multiple options on macOS.
What’s the difference between this and yabai or aerospace?
yabai uses native macos spaces and generally requires sip to be disabled to have a good experience(windows can't be moved between spaces without)
rift is essentially aerospace but implemented in a yabai style. yabai style meaning using low level, private apis and generally focusing more on performance. whereas aerospace prides itself on only using one private api.
usage wise, aerospace and rift both use a virtual workspace system where all of your (work)spaces are in one macos space so no red tape has to be cut in order to move windows from ws -> ws and so forth
Does rift handle native MacOS tabs like the ones ghostty and finder use? I might give it a shot. I have been having a couple of issues with Aerospace lately.
Also I am wondering if you could estimate how difficult it would be to implement something like Niri? I much prefer the scrolling style tiling, but none of the MacOS WMs seem to be going that route (other than PaperWM.spoon which is not for me).
I'm pretty new to Mac and didn't know Paper had a port, what isn't to your liking?
I'm using aerospace. If I'm fine with performance, does rift provide anything else?
Same boat, but vs amethyst. It's worked very well for me the last few years.