[thefossguy69]

The biggest papercut preventing me from being productive on macOS is it's horrible window management which cannot be traversed with keyboard shortcuts like one does in WMs like bspwm and others on Linux and that absolutely insane ~500 ms delay in setting the focused window when moving between virtual desktops.

For some reason, Apple's ideal desktop experience is tailored around focusing on one application at a time. Which is certainly true for some workflows, but that's not me.

[majormajor]

> For some reason, Apple's ideal desktop experience is tailored around focusing on one application at a time. Which is certainly true for some workflows, but that's not me.

This is a very weird-sounding take to someone who has used Macs for three decades and recalls that for most of that time they never even had a full-screen mode.

Apple's desktop experience DNA is still, for better or worse, deeply anchored to spatial arrangement of partially-overlapping windows (or non-overlapping, if screen is big enough and window small enough), driven by mouse (Expose hot corners back in 2004 were basically the end-game after which they haven't made any new significant changes to this, and haven't had to). Their full-screen/single-app modes are IMO a weird half-baked Windows-maximize alternative.

But yes, it's a very mouse-oriented, single-desktop spatially-organized-and-layered world.

[minitech]

Not one window, but one application. Which is, yeah, about the worst of both worlds.

[thefossguy69]

>> For some reason, Apple's ideal desktop experience is tailored around focusing on one application at a time. Which is certainly true for some workflows, but that's not me.

> This is a very weird-sounding take to someone who has used Macs for three decades and recalls that for most of that time they never even had a full-screen mode.

Sorry about that. I should've clarified better. What I meant was that Apple's opinion of an ideal desktop is closely matching a cluttered desk where only the owner knows the position of something and the focus shifts back and forth from one primary task to another task/interruption.

Edit: typos

[happymellon]

Not sure I agree with this considering they have the double whammy of maximising giving you a new desktop, and also their default behaviour of shuffling your desktops to make sure you're disoriented.

The ideal desktop is a cluttered desk, where only the desk knows where it has stuck your tasks.

[wbadart]

I'm stuck with macOS at work and these have also been the most painful parts of the experience for me. Luckily, I recently found Rectangle[0] and InstantSpaceSwitcher[1]. The former gives keyboard based arranging (though not focus; still just use cmd+tab for that) while the latter gives instant transitions between virtual desktops (including shortcuts for navigating directly to a target, rather than sliding over sequentially).

[0]: https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle

[1]: https://github.com/jurplel/InstantSpaceSwitcher

Recent discussion on the latter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47708818

[roryirvine]

Oh, wow, thanks for that pointer to InstantSpaceSwitcher - looks like it might help with my biggest annoyance.

I have "reduced motion" switched on, so don't get the animated transition - instead there's a brief fade, followed by a few seconds where any input is silently ignored. So, if anything, it's even shoddier.

Honestly, the modern MacOS experience feels slightly worse than Linux from 20 years ago.

[altcognito]

It is bizarro. With multi monitor sometimes I click windows and things don’t show. Dragging when more than one dialog is open is unpredictable. The corners are huge, even when maximized. Even the vaunted application bar is so weird - and windows is trying to copy it! Why can’t we use the entire bottom of the screen? Apps don’t show there anyway! You can’t get rid of it and replace it with something else? Just not allowed.

Stretch an app across two monitors? Not with that config! Display port? Oh no! Scaling cleanly? Never heard of it.

Seriously bad stuff. I’ve thought about writing a book with everything wrong with it. It’s bonkers.

[tonyedgecombe]

>You can’t get rid of it and replace it with something else?

You can hide it. I rarely use it as I use a launcher.

[nottorp]

> The corners are huge, even when maximized.

Upgraded to Mac OS 26?

> You can hide it. I rarely use it as I use a launcher.

Cmd+Space, type first letters of application name, enter.

[altcognito]

I definitely use this, but if you want to navigate to specific window on an app, prepare to be annoyed.

MacOS doesn't really have a window manager, it has an app switcher, and a really inconvenient way to pick the context of your workspace.

[roryirvine]

cmd + ` switches between windows of an app. Unfortunately, that's the most awkward key combo imaginable on non-US keyboards. Still better than having to mouse down to the (hidden) dock, but only marginally.

GNOME does it right, and uses super + <the key above tab>. Works the same as the Mac in the US, but is infinitely better in the rest of the world.

(you might be able to remap it on macos using an undocumented 'hidutil' command, but I've never got it to work on an external keyboard)

[musicale]

System Settings> Keyboard> Keyboard Shortcuts> Keyboard> Move focus to next window

[wwalexander]

> cannot be traversed with keyboard shortcuts

Yes, it can: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mac-window-tiling-i...

You can define additional shortcuts in Keyboard settings: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/create-keyboard-sho...

[thefossguy69]

>> > cannot be traversed with keyboard shortcuts > Yes, it can: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mac-window-tiling-i...

The first link is about arranging/tiling the windows. There are zero keyboard shortcuts to move the focus from the window on left to the window on right. It looks like someone used the equivalent of monitor codenames for keyboard shortcuts. Some operations don't even have a keyboard shortcut.

Additionally, while it does show how tiling is performed on macOS, tiling is not treated as a serious feature of the desktop. When "tiling" is used in context of window managers on Linux and BSDs, it implies that the windows are tiled automatically by the WM. It is done for several purposes, but ones that are important to me are:

1. Determinism (for the lack of a better word) of window placement. When I open n^th window, I know where to move my eyes. At the moment, this is arbitrary-ish on macOS. 2. Not having to tile every window manually. I only do this when I have a specific layout in mind. Default tiling behaviour can be configured by the WM's config file(s). At the moment, on macOS, I need to be explicit in tiling every window. 3. Keyboard oriented traversal between tiled windows. This is an extremely important part of a tiling WM. I can move my window or just the focus anywhere, without ever needing to reach for my mouse. Granted, I'm not a superhuman who can take advantage of this speed but I like control over my navigation of the desktop I am interacting with.

None of these are satisfied by macOS natively. Unless some app/plugin is used, which has no guarantee of working in future if Apple wishes to break something. On Linux, this is not the case, the WM is part of the desktop, even more so on Wayland.

> You can define additional shortcuts in Keyboard settings: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/create-keyboard-sho...

This is about setting keyboard shortcuts for custom actions for applications, not window traversal on the desktop. Something like Ctrl+Left and Ctrl+Right which moves the focus between virtual desktops, but for the current desktop, moving the focus between the windows. I am not aware of this being possible at the moment.

[spockz]

You can use Rectangle to get all that what you want in terms of tiling.

Moving between windows of the same app is cmd+~. Cmd-tab moves to another app, remaining on the same desktop if that has a window there.

The delay in focus can be reduced by turning off animations in “accessibility”.

Regardless, I’m with you on that everything is way more snappy on my Linux machine. Even if it’s running a “full” WM/DM like KDE.

[wwalexander]

> This is about setting keyboard shortcuts for custom actions for applications, not window traversal on the desktop.

The "All Applications" section lets you define global shortcuts. As long as there is a menu bar item for it (in this case, one from the Window menu) you can define a shortcut for it.

[Nitrolo]

I've recently been given a MacBook for work for the first time and this was driving me crazy, thank you!

Now I just need to figure out how to make Word stick to these commands and not decide that right half of the screen means the right 3/4 of the screen.

[happymellon]

I don't see moving a window to another desktop which, for a multi-desktop environment, seems far more basic than setting to the left or right.

I've always had to use 3rd party tools to achieve this.

[darkteflon]

Aerospace is excellent: https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace

Can’t imagine going back.

[thefossguy69]

Interesting. I used to daily drive <https://github.com/asmvik/yabai> for almost a year until a major macOS update broke it and I just didn't have it in me to diagnose the issue. I'll bookmark this for future adventures, thanks!

[musicale]

> horrible window management which cannot be traversed with keyboard shortcuts

Window focus shortcut: System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Keyboard

Other window shortcuts: System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Windows

See "Keyboard focus shortcuts" etc. at: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102650

And: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mac-window-tiling-i...

[musicale]

s/Preferences/Settings/

[qmr]

Check spectacle app