[osxwm]

I'm new to (learning) programming and already need to manage windows better. I knew I had this need, but I did not know what this was called until seeing GOOMWWM's screenshots.

I'm on OSX. I typically have Firefox, Terminal, and TextWrangler open while I work through Zed Shaw's LPtHW course. What window manager should I use?

[blakesmith]

If you're using OS X, you don't really have a choice of what window manager to use; you're at the mercy of Apple. If you're looking for ways to wrangle all your windows in OS X, I'd recommend something like SizeUp or Divvy. These aren't window managers in the classic linux sense, but they do provide convenient keyboard shortcuts for keeping your windows organized in OS X. I use SizeUp at work and home and it gives me all I need in Mac land.

If you're looking to up your terminal skills, I'd recommend looking at something like tmux.

[udp]

It's a shame xorg doesn't support IOKit any more. If it did, you'd be able to run an X server (not rootless) on OS X without having to boot a different kernel.

XQuartz is nice, but you're still subject to the OS X mouse acceleration etc.

[tom9729]

Mouse acceleration is fixable at least: http://www.triq.net/articles/mouse-acceleration-preference-p...

[udp]

That certainly helps, but it's not quite enough: http://d43.me/blog/1205/the-cause-for-all-your-mac-os-x-mous...

I suppose when I said "mouse acceleration" I really meant "mouse lag".

[ikawe]

I also found that sizeup mostly fills my WM needs on mac

In some ways I prefer it to strict tiling window management like awesome or xmonad.

You lose the "windows automatically tile" functionality, but the other side of that is that it's easier to break the paradigm for when you don't want to tile.

free unlimited trial: http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/

or $14 for a license

[osener]

Spectacle is a free open source application with the same feature set as SizeUp.

http://spectacleapp.com/

[seltzered_]

there's also tylerwm (google it). I'm currently writing my own with a totally different approach.

[sciurus]

Have you tried tylerwm? It looks like what I desperately want on OS X, but every review I've read suggests it's too unstable to use. I'm nervous about paying $10 for something I'm not sure will work.

[sandis]

I tried tylerwm about three months ago and it was quite flaky. Sometimes it would re-arrange windows while I'm typing. Turned it off an hour later.

[moe]

Save your money, it's unusable (windows jump around randomly).

[callahad]

There are a bunch of apps that can do this for you, with varying degrees of automation:

ShiftIt (Free/OSS): https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt/tree/shiftit16

DoublePane ($3): http://5amcode.com/

Tyler ($10): http://blog.reflare.com/tagged/tyler

SizeUp ($13): http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/

Divvy ($14): http://mizage.com/divvy/

There are some old versions of ShiftIt available in the GitHub downloads, but you might want to compile a more recent version yourself. It's what I use on my 11" MacBook Air, where I mostly use the left-half, right-half, full-screen, and center-window commands. If your use case would be similar, DoublePane might be an easier choice, though it doesn't look like it does centering.

[stephth]

Optimal Layout (Application switcher + window manager): http://most-advantageous.com/optimal-layout

I just stumbled into it, I recommend watching the video.

[moe]

And they all make you really sad if you're looking for a real tiling wm or, worse, have actually used one before.

The window manager situation on OSX is still dire.

[hello_asdf]

You can always dual boot with Linux and OSX. I am triple booting on mine, and it works perfectly. The only reason I really boot into OSX is to do iPhone development.

[sciurus]

Lots of alternatives were discussed at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4059820

[rpicard]

I think that the window manager is a little lower-level than what you're thinking of. If you're running a Mac, you would already have whatever proprietary program Apple uses in OS/X to display windows and the desktop environment. This is my understanding at least.

[osxwm]

Thanks for clarifying that, Robert.

The whatever proprietary program Apple uses in OS/X isn't cutting it for me. I spend too much time getting the windows how I want them and it's never quite right. I would like to automatically tessellate my windows as seen in the GOOMWWM. Is there a way to do that in OSX, and if so, what is this type of software called?

[hobin]

Perhaps this: http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/6-best-mac-os-... can be of some use to you.

[avelis]

I use Divvy for my OS X window management. http://mizage.com/divvy/

[wazoox]

I suppose using X11 on OS X it must be possible to use another WM than the one provided by Apple (quartz-wm). After all, they're providing twm, so there must be a way to run it.

[tikhonj]

I think this is exactly correct. My understanding is that you can run a window manager like XMonad (and, in fact, I've met people who do) but then you will only be able to use X programs and not native Mac ones. If all you need is a terminal emulator, a browser and a text editor then this would work perfectly.