Re:4K is for programmers
by sparkie on Friday January 10, 2014 @04:02AM
(#7035786)
You should try a tiling WM in which you can switch between windows based on their location. eg, alt+{left,down,up,right}
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Any recommendations? I dived into xmonad some time ago but I never found a good and fast windows manager for OS X.
I use bspwm, which has a very simple design and follows the unix philosophy quite nicely. A single daemon process which manages windows, and all configuration is done with the shell via the `bspc` command, which talks to the daemon over a socket. A separate daemon (sxhkd) is used for keybindings, and the configuration for sxhkd is just a map of keybindings (including mouse buttons) to shell commands, with a very simple DSL to allow groups of commands, and the use of the cursor position. Example from my configuration:
alt + {Left,Down,Up,Right,h,j,k,l}
bspc window --focus {left,down,up,right,left,down,up,right}
{alt,super} + Tab
bspc {window,monitor} --focus next
alt + super + {Left,Down,Up,Right}
bspc window --swap {left,down,up,right}
super + {Left,Down,Up,Right}
bspc window --edge {left,down,up,right} push
super + shift + {Left,Down,Up,Right}
bspc window --edge {right,up,down,left} pull
super + q
bspc window --kill
Worth noting that bspwm treats monitors individually when using window commands, so you need a separate set to handle windows on diff monitors (unless using Xinerama).I've no idea whether it works on OSX though. 2bwm seems to be popular among OSX users, but I've not tried it.
wow, the tiling concept looks even more flexible than the tiling in xmonad. I will definitely try this.
I wouldn't say it's more flexible, as XMonad has all the power of Haskell behind it (+ ability to create sub layouts), and is easier to create more complicated arrangements than hacking together a bunch of bash scripts - but I think it's a good balance of flexibility:simplicity. XMonad is pretty complicated to configure even pretty basic things.
There was some discussion about OS X window management options on another thread the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6998309
I like SizeUp a lot: http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/
I personally use Divvy on my Mac, I needed something simple and it works perfectly for me :)