Comment by hamasho

Comment by hamasho 2 days ago

20 replies

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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/

asimovDev 2 days ago

Shoutout to Rectangle for having Spectacle keybindings option. Maybe one day I will learn the normal ones but I am too used to them at this point

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chrisweekly 2 days ago

Similar experience and pov here -- but w/ Divvy^1 (not Rectangle).

1. https://mizage.com/divvy/

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  • mieses 2 days ago

    So this app you recommend is not open source and does the same thing as Rectangle?

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    • sunsetMurk 2 days ago

      Divvy has a pretty UI to choose the size and location of windows, and puts little buttons in the top corner of windows to change their size and location.

      Rectangle provides hot keys and an icon in the menu bar to set window size and location.

      I use rectangle now, but have used divvy in the past and I think is better for people who like to use their mouse vs hot keys.

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      • chrisweekly 2 days ago

        Divvy has custom hot keys! My prev comment's main point was "keyboard only FTW".

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malkosta 19 hours ago

Rectangle+Apptivate made me stop looking for an i3 alternative, after years. The first for moving windows, the second for switching between them with super+number, just like i3.

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rwyinuse 2 days ago

I too recommend Rectangle. It made transition from Linux significantly less painful.

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[removed] 2 days ago
[deleted]
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reddit_clone a day ago

Yep. Another long time rectangle user. I use multiple desktops (Spaces) and arrange windows ( browser window, emacs frame, iterm widow) for each task.

This makes context switching bearable when working on several things.

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SOLAR_FIELDS a day ago

Have you tried BetterTouchTool? It is both feature rich and stable, I have been using it for over a decade

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Etheryte 2 days ago

Maybe I misunderstand what you mean, on one hand you say you want a window manager that's feature rich, on the other you say you're tired of using very flexible software with tons of configs. Aren't those two at odds with one another?

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  • pfg_ 2 days ago

    I wouldn't consider having good default configs and being feature-rich at odds with eachother. Ghostty is feature-rich but needs no config. There's no reason yabai needs to be so highly composable that it doesn't even have a hotkey listener by default and and instead points you to another piece of software that only translates hotkeys to shell commands and is no longer being maintained. i3 at least has a pretty usable default config.

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  • exe34 2 days ago

    flexible usually means "it does what I want".

    tons of useless features means it does what other other people want.

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ffsm8 2 days ago

[flagged]

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  • dewey 2 days ago

    > feel the urge to come up with frequently wrong tidbits

    Isn’t that a very subjective and personal preference. Why do you feel people’s reasons are not valid? You don’t have to convince everyone.

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    • ffsm8 2 days ago

      Well, the hamasho strongly implied with his comment that i3 needs a lot of configuration to be a good window manager, which he isn't willing to maintain as he grows older and wants to spend less time with the OS.

      That implication is what's wrong, while his subjective experience of "I prefer Mac OSX" is obviously not wrong, the reason he's citing just don't hold up to critical analysis, hence my own statement that I wish apple enthusiasts in general would be more honest with themselves about their preferences - instead of phrasing it in a way that makes it clear that anything other then MacOS is something for juvenile people that don't have any life experience yet.

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      • hamasho a day ago

        "It wasn't my intention. i3 works well with the default config, except the keybindings for moving are jkl; instead of hjkl, but I customized it extensively. I'm not an 'apple enthusiast' (I used Arch on Macbook btw). I know it lacks so many thing and it was frustrating. I'm not intended to criticize Linux; I've just gotten used to macOS.

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