News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by wwalexander on Monday June 10, 2024 @02:58PM (#40637054)
I never thought I’d see the day macOS would get tiling window management. Wonder how it will interact with Stage Manager if at all.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by freediver on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:22PM (#40637519)
I use BetterSnapTool for ages and love it. Wondering if this will be good enough to replace it natively.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by mvanbaak on Monday June 10, 2024 @05:34PM (#40639415)
This was exactly what I was thinking as well. Let's see!
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by xlii on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:01PM (#40638113)
2 days ago I complained that Apple has stalled when it came to window management. I wonder if Tim Cook is reading HN ;)
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by lioeters on Monday June 10, 2024 @07:01PM (#40640272)
He might have someone (or something) who reads and summarizes HN, so he can keep a finger on the pulse.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by nico on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:41PM (#40637830)
I use Moom for basic keyboard-based window management. Great for maximizing windows and quickly resizing them
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by LeoPanthera on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:45PM (#40638819)
Yes! I've been using Moom for I think over a decade now. Cannot recommend it highly enough.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by xyst on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:52PM (#40637994)
the tiling is very basic though. reminds me of windows. i3/sway is superior, especially once you get it customized to your workflow.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by thfuran on Monday June 10, 2024 @05:18PM (#40639231)
Really basic tiling would be a vast improvement over the pathetic current built-in window management.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by LogHouse on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:21PM (#40637489)
I know it’s simple but I am so pleased with this. Now if they fixed the mouse acceleration curve and the scaling issue for monitors, I’d be at peace.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by cmiller1 on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:07PM (#40638229)
It's the only OS that offers a good acceleration curve for my trackballs, been dying with the lack of configuration for the curve under wayland :(
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by jml7c5 on Monday June 10, 2024 @09:55PM (#40641459)
Possible good news: recent versions of libinput support completely custom acceleration curves! Though I don't know if any wayland compositors expose configuration options for it yet.

https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/latest/pointer-...

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by imbnwa on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:34PM (#40637704)
What's the scaling issue?
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by sunshowers on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:48PM (#40638866)
Not GP, but macOS doesn't have fractional scaling, which means that running at non-integer scales is inefficient. For example:

A 3840x2160 monitor run at 1x means a framebuffer of 3840x2160.

At 2x, the effective resolution is 1920x1080, and this also uses a framebuffer of 3840x2160.

At 1.5x, the effective resolution is 2560x1440. This is implemented by rendering at 4x (5160x2880) and then downscaling that.

At 1.25x, the effective resolution is 3072x1728. This is also implemented by rendering at 4x (6144x3456) and downscaling that.

The difference between all of these is quite noticeable.

Edit: Apparently Apple has been shipping its laptops with non-integer scaling for a while, which is interesting.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by astrange on Monday June 10, 2024 @07:49PM (#40640670)
Non-integer scaling is essentially impossible to do well unless you give up and turn all your UI design into web pages. Otherwise you get pixel cracks and other issues from finding all the places things are/aren't rounded properly.

The laptop displays work by scaling down 2x/3x too.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by int_19h on Thursday June 13, 2024 @12:49AM (#40666058)
Windows does it just fine.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by tepmoc on Thursday June 13, 2024 @10:26AM (#40670111)
WinUI essentially webpage
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by int_19h on Saturday June 15, 2024 @02:54PM (#40691865)
I don't even mean the modern stuff. Even fairly old Windows apps can do fractional scaling just fine. WPF does it without a hitch, and it dates back to 2006. Even many WinForms apps can do it, and then of course Qt etc.

But even disregarding all that - if such scaling can be done without problems with webpages, then clearly there's no technical impediment to doing the same elsewhere. It's not like HTML is magic.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by LogHouse on Monday June 10, 2024 @07:37PM (#40640585)
The worst part is that third party solutions (eg BetterDisplay) work. So Apple could find this if they wanted with ease. No clue why they’re so stubborn on it
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by posselt on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @09:06AM (#40645780)
Are you sure it works in a different way? I always thought Betterdisplay still showed you fractional scaling by downscaling from a much higher resolution. Well, I'd say I can still see the blurriness in the display when I pick a custom high dpi resolutnion from the list.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by alejoar on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:19PM (#40637453)
Now if they only would allow me to take the focused window to the next workspace without using the mouse.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by prcrstntr on Friday June 14, 2024 @06:48PM (#40685888)
There's a new app on the block that allows this using virtual workspaces. https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by wiseowise on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:09PM (#40638278)
Finally Windows and Linux fanatics will shut up.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by fckgw on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:25PM (#40638528)
No they just switch from "Mac doesn't have X" to "Welcome to 20212 Mac"
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by superjose on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:44PM (#40638808)
TBH, we still need to see how it integrates with the keyboard.

Ever since I've been using a Mac since Nov. 2023 that's been one of the things that I've battled with, and I've assigned a heck tons of shortcuts to make that happen.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by nobleach on Monday June 10, 2024 @05:54PM (#40639624)
It's frustrating at best. On any tiling WM on Linux, I can hit Meta+<#> and be taken to that workspace.

On macOS, the moment I fullscreen an app, it's taken out of that flow. So for so many years, I've had my terminal full screen on workspace 2. Meta+2 it in my muscle memory for "go to terminal".

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by metadat on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:10PM (#40641550)
Macs aren't made for fancy people like yourself (any longer). No money in it, unfortunately.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by nobleach on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @07:41AM (#40645067)
Somehow, all the way up into the Snow Leopard days, they seemed like they still exposed enough of the goodies for the "fancy" folk.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by adamomada on Monday June 10, 2024 @05:53PM (#40639612)
Wouldn’t it be like everything else, default keyboard shortcuts that can be easily overridden? Personally I hope they go with rectangle’s CTRL+OPT just because it’s seared into my muscle memory now
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by saagarjha on Monday June 10, 2024 @09:56PM (#40641461)
Most of the splits have shortcuts. They're menu items, so you can customize what they end up being.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by mmcnl on Monday June 10, 2024 @05:19PM (#40639245)
Why the fanboyism? It's not a tournament. Let's embrace competition and enjoy that it brings the best out of each OS.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by anthk on Monday June 10, 2024 @07:57PM (#40640722)
CWM is not tiling and yet it can be crazy fast.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by lttlrck on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @12:21AM (#40642303)
This isn't i3/sway
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by zeusly on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:38PM (#40637776)
I hope it supports thirds and not just 50/50 layouts.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by doublepg23 on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:21PM (#40638474)
I think that’ll require the crackpot team that made Calculator on iPad possible.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by mostlysimilar on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:43PM (#40638782)
To be fair the new calculator app with its magic math writing is pretty dang cool.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by goosedragons on Monday June 10, 2024 @05:29PM (#40639361)
Nebo has had essentially that for years, OneNote too.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by flenserboy on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:31PM (#40637667)
It's great for those who want it, but I really hope it can be turned off just as with most of their recent UI additions, such as Stage Manager.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by saagarjha on Monday June 10, 2024 @09:53PM (#40641450)
It's opt-in.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by gnatman on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:13PM (#40638352)
I installed Rectangle about 4 hours ago based on another thread! Tim Apple knows all.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by spike021 on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:13PM (#40637373)
Yeah it looks like this will usurp Magnet for me, which I've used for years now.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by minimaxir on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:14PM (#40637385)
The better question is why it took so long for Apple to copy Magnet.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by vladsanchez on Monday June 10, 2024 @06:44PM (#40640110)
Because Apple is pure Snobbery! Period! They'll never admit to be behind imagineers.

I've personally been infuriated by the absence of Send Later feature. I can't fathom that I could do it with a "stupid/inferior" Windows Phone that wasn't obscenely priced like an iPhone.

They lost their technological leadership since Steve Jobs. End of Story.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by vladsanchez on Thursday June 13, 2024 @07:14PM (#40675926)
3-4 Apple Fans downvoted me... LOL Sorry if I hurt your feelings.

BTW I'm an iPhone13 owner and I still stand for what I said.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by imbnwa on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:35PM (#40637713)
Rectangle and Magnet devs not happy
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by cassianoleal on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:59PM (#40639017)
I still run f.lux even though macOS has native Night Shift. I run BetterDisplay even though I can change display settings natively. I run AppCleaner even though in theory I can uninstall an app by dragging it to the bin. I run Alfred even though Spotlight exists.

I bet I'm gonna keep Rectangle as well.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by mortenjorck on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:34PM (#40638662)
I'm honestly surprised and disappointed that all they appear to have done is Sherlock Rectangle.

Stage Manager was the most interesting and useful thing to happen to window management in over a decade, and I was really hoping we'd see Apple do more with it. Its dynamic nature (windows don't always live in just a single context!) solved a lot of problems inherent in Spaces, and yet there's still plenty of room to build on its foundation.

I was hoping we'd at least see the window snapping behavior ported over from iPadOS. It's a really well-thought-out way to simplify window resizing and overlapping, and it would go a long way on MacOS (perhaps with a toggle in Control Center for those edge cases where you actually want pixel precision). Maybe in MacOS 16...

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by cassianoleal on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:57PM (#40638988)
I disabled Stage Manager after trying it out for a week or so. How the hell does that thing make any sense? Really, this is a legit question. How is that thing useful?
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by BenFranklin100 on Monday June 10, 2024 @11:05PM (#40641837)
The use case for myself is when I have to focus on a specific task/project and I have three or four applications I need to alternate between. It’s quite useful for that. Once the task is completed, I turn it off.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by cassianoleal on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @04:07AM (#40643764)
Thanks! If you don't mind me asking, how does it help? What's the workflow with it, that couldn't be achieved without it?
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by thiht on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:56PM (#40638979)
> Stage Manager was the most interesting and useful thing to happen to window management in over a decade

… really? I’ve tried to use it a few times but it’s just… not good. Not very intuitive, full of idiosyncrasies, and it doesn’t solve the basic "I want to snap 2 windows side by side" problem. Maybe it’s more interesting on iPad?

I’m glad they finally bring window snapping to Mac.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by cjk2 on Monday June 10, 2024 @06:26PM (#40639936)
it's bloody terrible on the ipad too.

I tried it with my studio display for a day and it was like wrestling a raccoon all fucking day.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by thiht on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:51PM (#40638905)
FINALLY! I really didn’t it to come to Mac, ever.

Now so just need a clipboard history manager, a way to make cmd+tab behave like Windows alt+tab, a way to mute the mic in the status bar, and a different setting for the trackpad/mouse wheel direction, and I won’t need to install random apps for basic features anymore.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by pxc on Monday June 10, 2024 @05:17PM (#40639224)
don't forget per-app volume control, linear scroll wheel speed, some reasonable way to manage menu bar icons and ensure all can actually be accesses and used, a way to prevent the system from going to sleep (the built-in `caffeinate` command hasn't worked for years!), and searching through open windows by typing!
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by tiltowait on Monday June 10, 2024 @08:30PM (#40640937)
I use caffeinate all the time. What's wrong with it?
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by pxc on Monday June 10, 2024 @09:33PM (#40641329)
When sleep is supposedly disabled by caffeinate, closing the lid still puts my laptop to sleep. It's been like that as since I first tried it, several years ago.

But your comment inspired me to Google anew and... I guess it was always intended to only kind of disable sleep?

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by LexGray on Monday June 10, 2024 @09:22PM (#40641252)
> reasonable way to manage menu bar icons

I believe the new control center API is intended to push seldom used icons into the control center

> searching through open windows by typing

The new Siri is context aware once the developers include their data through new APIs. The Microsoft version which was snooping through private browsing, secure apps, and logging passwords in open databases was not the right way to go.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by pxc on Monday June 10, 2024 @09:38PM (#40641354)
> I believe the new control center API is intended to push seldom used icons into the control center

More than just cleaning the menu bar (I don't care about that), I want a guarantee that I can see and click on every menu bar icon somewhere. Whether that's the present vision or not, this sounds like a clear step in the right direction!

While I have lots of gripes about macOS and I understand that probably some of them are things Apple will just never go for, it does almost seem like Apple is giving some neglected desktop fundamentals much needed improvements. Fixing linear mouse movement on the last major release was nice, as is the new window snapping thing.

> > searching through open windows by typing

> The new Siri is context aware once the developers include their data through new APIs. The Microsoft version which was snooping through private browsing, secure apps, and logging passwords in open databases was not the right way to go.

I don't want any kind of internet-connected AI assistant on the desktop at all. I just want the ability to task switch efficiently by fuzzy filtering on basic stuff like window titles and descriptions like can be done easily with Plasma and GNOME built-ins. (On Windows, PowerToys can do it but I don't love that interface and even though it's an MS thing I don't quite think it counts as built-in, either.) I guess many people do rely on proprietary screenreaders but that seems unfortunate tbf.

Filtering windows based on their contents could maybe be a little bit cool but I think it'd probably mostly get in the way, even if there were an app I trusted doing the searching with appropriately limited APIs. I wouldn't readily trust a proprietary, internet-connected service to do that kind of searching, though— neither from Apple nor from Microsoft. If such a feature required me to enable Siri I wouldn't even be interested in trying it.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by accidentalborg on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @08:30PM (#40653224)
Oh man, I couldn't live without Alfred's clipboard manager [paid] feature. I started using Alfred eons ago, bought their Powerpack, and haven't looked back since. The ability to resurface text or images I copied up to 3 months ago has saved my bacon too many times to remember.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by merlindru on Wednesday June 12, 2024 @07:46AM (#40656951)
Clipboard history manager: Paste App (https://pasteapp.io - freemium) or Raycast

Cmd+Tab: AltTab (https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/)

Different setting for the trackpad/mouse wheel: Mac Mouse Fix (https://macmousefix.com) or LinearMouse (https://linearmouse.app/) or Mos (https://mos.caldis.me/)

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by bitsoda on Wednesday June 12, 2024 @11:31AM (#40659214)
Nailed it. It's honestly criminal and something I consider UX terrorism the way macOS lacks this basic functionality when even something like ChromeOS ships these by default. Wonderful hardware, but boy is the OS rough 20+ years later.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by mmcnl on Monday June 10, 2024 @05:16PM (#40639214)
No mention of Stage Manager at all if I'm correct? Seems like Apple is quietly abandoning that path.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by karmakaze on Monday June 10, 2024 @05:44PM (#40639528)
I never really understood the appeal of tiling window managers. I've gotten used to having overlapping windows with appropriate parts peek out out behind others. e.g. tail of a log behind an editor running a program, and I can bring it to the foreground to see older lines and/or scroll. To do the same with a tiling manager, I would zoom the logging pane. I suppose I just prefer less layout changes. Same for Slack, I have just enough peeping out to know there's some messages but I can't see the message text so I can ignore them until I'm ready.

Are there situations that make more sense to use a tiling manager like on larger (where all the tiles are usable) or smaller screens (where full expansion makes sense)?

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by sircastor on Monday June 10, 2024 @06:39PM (#40640064)
I generally agree with you. I use my Mac with most of the windows overlapped most of the time. But occasionally I need them side-by-side to do some work. Typically referencing documents or code. Fortunately the introduction of this looks to just be an optional feature rather than a dictated "way things are".

An overlapped/stacked interface is fine a lot of the time, but the flexibility is important.

What really drives me crazy is the 100% tiled-interface. I feel like something important is just below the tiles, but I can't see it.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by threeseed on Monday June 10, 2024 @07:34PM (#40640561)
You can always run apps full screen. Then it's possible to have them side by side.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by dylan604 on Monday June 10, 2024 @08:32PM (#40640950)
I'm thoroughly confused. How can a full screen program allow for a side by side?
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by jkestner on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:48PM (#40641756)
Full screen is a mode that takes away the ability to move windows, and removes their chrome. You can have two windows in this mode, and they will just take up the whole screen between them.

I get a bunch of ui issues doing full screen, and though I use Magnet for snapping, I want something that stays snapped. Looks like this will do it.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by sprobertson on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:46PM (#40641743)
The maximize button has an option to go into a split screen mode where you get two "half full" screens (i.e. side by side but still hide the menu bar, window chrome).
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by lowkey on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @12:03AM (#40642196)
I wish there was a keyboard shortcut to run apps full screen
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by TylerE on Monday June 10, 2024 @07:02PM (#40640277)
You can solve that easily with the free rectangle app today.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by sircastor on Monday June 10, 2024 @07:07PM (#40640327)
Yes, I actually use Rectangle on both my work and personal laptops.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by karmakaze on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:54PM (#40641788)
I have Rectangle installed and the only feature I use is dragging a window to the left or right edge to use half the screen. I don't even know if that's from Rectangle or macOS. The other thing I do is double-click edges to expand to edge of screen, which I assume is macOS.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by TylerE on Monday June 10, 2024 @11:28PM (#40641973)
It had let unable shortcuts to snap windows into various tile layout type configurations
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by attendant3446 on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @05:12AM (#40644116)
The last time I tried Rectangle it didn't have any customization, just those predefined areas and nothing else. I really like how window management is done in KDE Plasma.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by SOLAR_FIELDS on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @09:19AM (#40645868)
BetterTouchTool is not free but has the customization you seek. I’ve used it for about a decade now
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by cjaybo on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @01:37PM (#40649183)
If you get the paid version then customization is an option, just FYI. Not sure when this was introduced but it’s been working well for me.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by dangus on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @10:25AM (#40646526)
I love the Rectangle app. The problem is that the average Mac user has no idea this exists at all.

So when Joe Windows considers switching over to Mac, they see that there's no equivalent to the Windows snapping feature that's been in their OS since Windows 7, and they might think macOS is inferior.

I personally don't need this feature from Apple but I think they needed to add it for their own business needs.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by accidentalborg on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @08:27PM (#40653208)
To add more clarity here in case it's helpful: If you open the Rectangle app's settings menu and open the last tab (looks like a gear), you can play around with the "Gaps between windows" setting.

I have this set to 15px, so when I drag my app windows around, they snap to a grid with 15px spaces between the windows. Dunno why I find it so satisfying, but it really scratches an itch in my brain.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by nativeit on Monday June 10, 2024 @07:44PM (#40640637)
I have a 55” 4k television that wasn’t being used, and as a joke plugged it into my Mac Mini, and with a tiling window manager it’s functionally 4 decent sized FHD monitors at once. I have left it plugged in much longer than I thought I would, it’s really much more functional than I’d imagined. I still probably prefer a regular 1440p display, for most tasks.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by AnthonBerg on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @07:30AM (#40644990)
Same, except on purpose and it’s still plugged in.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by harshaxnim on Monday June 10, 2024 @06:07PM (#40639756)
With tiling managers you can do all you just listed + quick snapping. Who would say no to that?
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by jwells89 on Monday June 10, 2024 @06:59PM (#40640242)
The WM being tiling-dominant doesn’t really make sense if one only ever tiles the odd window every now and then. In that situation it makes more sense to use a floating-dominant WM with light tiling features (like that of Windows, most major Linux DEs, and now macOS).
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by michaelmrose on Monday June 10, 2024 @08:08PM (#40640790)
3x 27" monitors provides lots of space for multiple usable windows it helps to also be able to switch workspaces per monitor so you switch monitors with a hotkey rather than switching windows.

Compared to peek and switch it provides more usable space since windows can be maximized without leaving space for another window to peek out, less manual arrangement since Windows need not be carefully arranged. Also I normally switch because I want to do another task or in resource to a notification.

That said however we choose to analyze it it's in part subjective matter of taste. There is no singular correct answer.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by somat on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:09PM (#40641538)
For me it was a couple of X11 features not often found on mac or windows that made me think about the desktop in a desktop environment and what I want out of my window manager. My timeline sort of goes as follows.

1. focus follows mouse, the window you are pointing at gets the focus. This feels very strange at first. but pulls a surprising amount of friction out of working with multiple apps. However you have to pair this with.

2. don't raise on focus. this let you work on a lower window. to raise you click on a specific part of the window, usually the title bar. if you don't have this focus follows mouse is terrible. this lets you have the main window(usually the documentation or reference) open on top while you type away on the lower window.

3. At this point I heard of i3 and it made perfect sense to me. I have never said "boy I sure am glad this window is half covered up" I ether want one app full screen, two apps side by side(reference and work) or many small apps(terminals). why not just have the window manager enforce this instead of me fiddling with windows. these days I use mainly use spectrwm because it fills that perfect middle ground between too sparse(dwm) and too featured(i3).

That said, for my day to day operations(I sys-admin, so lots of terminals) it works great. however there are many apps that do not play well. for example, I recently set up a linux box for steam games and steam was not happy with i3(all menus were separate windows) this is probably fixable but I just went with a normal wm. And when I do actual work on it I am reminded why I like tiling wm's as I find myself shuffling windows all the time.

Closing thoughts, an example of a tiling wm internal to an app is blender, even before I started using tiling wm's I thought blender had a very good ui for getting work done, much better than the mdi type apps that were common at the time. so just imagine your whole desktop working that way. And tabs, really tabbed interfaces should be a function of your window manager not the app, but that ship has sailed and I don't think there is any way to fix it now.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by tayloramurphy on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:13PM (#40641565)
I used to use Slate[0] to manage my windows but have since switched to Raycast since it was a more enjoyable experience.

I have a 49" ultrawide so it's super useful to have precise control over where a window goes. I also use 3 desktops (as Apple calls them) and have different windows sizes depending on what I'm doing. Having overlapping windows would just be super annoying now!

[0] https://github.com/jigish/slate

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by gloryjulio on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:21PM (#40641610)
I used 40 inch screens for many years. Tiling is must have for big screens and it works better than multiple screens combined togather
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by karmakaze on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:57PM (#40641810)
I have a 43" monitor and I don't tile my windows because the corners are so far away. I tend to make a 'fat cross' of overlapped windows that don't really use the corner areas.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by gloryjulio on Monday June 10, 2024 @11:49PM (#40642105)
43 inch is just 4 21.5inch monitors put together, you can look 1 tile at a time and ignore the rest. Literally just treat it as 4 screens and don't forget to move your head.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by dangus on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @10:24AM (#40646512)
I don't know how one can't see the appeal. Once I installed Rectangle on macOS I can quickly put windows side-by-side with a couple of keystrokes, and change which windows I want side-by-side extremely quickly

Fiddling with the mouse to resize windows manually or having windows overlapping and covering up information on each other is not really a great way to interface with them. Maybe it's helpful to locate the windows and bring them into focus, but once they're in focus and in use, I want to be maximizing their screen real estate and making sure they're 100% readable.

And, really, it's something the OS should have had at the very least as an optional feature for over a decade now. Windows introduced this feature in Windows 7. It's been a sore spot of a missing feature and it's especially detracting for the Windows users that Apple wants to have switch over to the Mac platform.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by browningstreet on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @08:54PM (#40653359)
I do the same. It’s a hierarchical steppe like system. Maybe if we gave it a name, people would develop to this target.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by Solstinox on Wednesday June 12, 2024 @08:44AM (#40657465)
Agreed. Messy overlap + an app called HazeOver where you can dim apps out of focus is the best approach to this.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by pxc on Monday June 10, 2024 @06:21PM (#40639889)
You still haven't seen that day, have you? macOS still offers only a floating window manager, now with some window snapping capabilities. But there is no mode or window manager built into macOS where new windows are arranged in tiles spanning the whole screen by default.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by rochacon on Monday June 10, 2024 @07:37PM (#40640582)
Exactly, by the description of it on the announcement, this is not "tiling window management" as we're used in Linux, this is just "Window Snaping" that been available on Windows and Linux for what, a decade now?

I really hope there is a "automatic tiling" option, otherwise this is just mouse support for the current "Move Window"/"Tile Window" options already available on the OS (and easily bindable via custom shortcuts).

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by nativeit on Monday June 10, 2024 @07:46PM (#40640650)
When did “Linux” settle on a single window manager? There have been 3rd-party solutions for Mac for years, I don’t understand what’s different about that versus Linux, which comes with nothing by default, not even a graphical interface.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by goosedragons on Monday June 10, 2024 @08:08PM (#40640792)
Most desktop Linux distros come with one of the big DEs like Gnome or KDE by default. And those have had Window snapping since shortly after MS demoed it for Windows 7. How is this different from Mac OS? It's integrated into the DE, you don't need to install anything extra and it works like you'd expect. On Mac the third party options never felt quite native.
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by hnaccount_rng on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @01:15AM (#40642612)
I get what you are saying, but for me nothing on Linux feels nativ. I'm still amazed that Apple has people who can announce window snapping and sound absolutely sincere when claiming that's a revolutionary new feature in the world. So.. I really get where you are coming from
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by kaba0 on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @11:09AM (#40647091)
Who claims it’s a revolutionary new feature?
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by pxc on Monday June 10, 2024 @09:25PM (#40641281)
While some tiling window managers do support mixing in special floating windows (often used for modal dialogs, for example), the defining characteristic of a tiling window manager is that all windows are tiles by default; tiling is the rule rather than the exception.

There are floating window managers with window snapping on the free Unices, of course. But none of those claims to be a tiling window manager and nobody confuses them with such.

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by dgellow on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @10:55AM (#40646887)
Available on windows since Windows 7, 14 years ago
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by vladsanchez on Monday June 10, 2024 @06:48PM (#40640161)
Been a happy Magnet user for long time! Nothing remarkable in this OS that hasn't been seen yet elsewhere. No innovation, only #MeToo features.

It took them a decade to release a "Send Later" feature? How's that for innovation? Snobs!

Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by foxandmouse on Monday June 10, 2024 @08:14PM (#40640830)
Since it's not available on iPadOS, I think the answer is.. it wont?
Re:macOS Sequoia Preview by gloosx on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @02:20AM (#40643095)
I wonder if they made horizontal 50/50 split possible. It is so freaking odd they decided to implement vertical 50/50, but flipping the variables and making a horizontal 50/50 is a no-no. Like no-one at Apple ever used a portrait orientation monitor.