Since the first taste of Linux WMs, I believe the best and only good way of handling window move and resize is super+lmb/rmb respectively. No more pixel-perfect header/corner sniping!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/qv0vmz/missing_supe...
Since the first taste of Linux WMs, I believe the best and only good way of handling window move and resize is super+lmb/rmb respectively. No more pixel-perfect header/corner sniping!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/qv0vmz/missing_supe...
On Linux if you learn shortcuts for close/minimise/maximise as well, you can even remove window borders and title bars entirely. It's free screen real estate.
The gnome window title bars are obnoxiously thick and useless by default tho. I've found that Unity or even just Windows like styling in Gnome is a lot more respectful to your screen real estate.
I like the Gnome 2 title bars (Mate). Gnome wasn't always that bad.
That is a tradeoff that makes it nice when you have a convertible laptop.
I wish it was simply configurable from the settings dialogs.
Could it switch? I think windows has a “tablet mode” which activates when you “convert” your laptop. Not sure how well it works in practice, though.
I honestly don't know if there is a standardized way to pass the information or if it depends on the brand. I remember in the earlier version of gnome I had on my lenovo yoga the visual keyboard would popup on most text box but not on firefox which obliged me tolo use Gnome Web / epiphany when in tablet mode but they sorted it out later. I think there wasn't a tablet mode per se but I had used gnome tweak or an extension to have the accesibility options easy to access and enable the visual keyboard but it may have been mpre automatic later. I am saying all this out of memory because that computer died 2 years ago and I didn't use the tablet mode enough to replace it with similar one.
Is firefox actually fully integrated with gnome/gtk, or does it rely on some form of adaptor?
I've recently installed kde on one of my laptops (I usually use i3) and firefox is pretty wonky there. For example, with the OOB configuration, if I double click the top border of a window, it will maximize vertically. Firefox seems to ignore that. It does fully maximize if I double click the title bar, though.
Right and middle clicking the maximize button maximize horizontally and vertically with KWin and that does work with Firefox. Hard to say which part is to blame with i3 + Firefox. But it's not that Firefix needs Gnome.
Yes, Gnome looks very odd because of that.
It definitely needs improvement but for touchscreens it is good.
Luckily, 95% of Linux devices actually have touchscreens.
The sad bit is where you realize that GNOME is typically only found on the other 5%.
I always buy 2-in-1. I run both Gnome and Android [Waydroid] when in tablet mode.
It's my preference too. What do you use?
I used to use "GTK Title Bar" gnome extension which was abandoned a few versions ago so had to write my own and it's X11 specific. The one drawback is that when windows are reopened, they are offset by the title bar height i.e. it messes up whatever is tracking the size/offset/location.
Anyone have other ways to do this in gnome and do they work on wayland too?
I'm on Fedora KDE so won't be much help to you, but there is a "Windows Rules" section in the system settings where I've added a rule that applies to all windows with the property "No titlebar and frame". Actually I'd quite like frame just with no titlebar, but that's not an option.
The AltDrag tool on Windows includes Super+double click to maximize/restore. I find it surprising that this does not come by default on KDE.
"AltSnap" is a continuation of AltDrag that's better on Windows 11. It is instrumental in making me loathe Windows 11 _ever so slightly_ less.
https://github.com/RamonUnch/AltSnap
I drag the window to the top for this. On KDE there's also a (configurable) keyboard shortcut (Meta + prev page, TIL, might start doing this now).
> It's free screen real estate.
jim, does it get any better than this?
Depends on the window manager.
On macOS, you can enable window dragging by holding down the Control+Command keys with this command:
I use this with "three finger drag", and resizing at the window border hasn't been much of an issue for me.MacOS is the "it just works" operating system. As such, I think the moment that you need to declare custom workarounds like this, it kind of loses its legitimacy, and you should already be in Linux land.
I abhor the current state of macOS and Tim Cook’s leadership, but your take is nonsensical.
For one, “it just works” hasn’t been used in over a decade, same as Google’s “don’t be evil”, which does tell you something about their current philosophies.
But more importantly, “it just works” was obviously never about it “it reads your mind and does every software feature however you personally like”, it was about the integration of hardware and software and not having to fiddle with drivers and settings to get hardware basics working.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/7hd450/it_just_works/
I miss 2016 apple
When they ditched all the ports and added the butterfly keyboard?
While I get the butterfly keyboard hate (though mine is so far still perfectly fine) the USB-C ports were amazing. I have a 2016 MBpro and that thing still cooks really well. As somebody who worked in video production those ports were a godsend. No more waiting around for footage to transfer all the damn time. Complete game changer. Plus with one or two quality docks I could plug-in literally anything I ever needed. With the AMD GPU i could also edit pretty beefy 4K with no proxies most of the time. In 2016/2017 that was pretty awesome. Plus last good intel machine they made IMO, so good compatibility with lots of software, target display mode for old iMacs, windows if I wanted it, etc.
Probably my favorite laptop I’ve ever owned. Powerful machine, still sees work, runs great.
It introduced USB-C before it was ubiquitous even on smartphones, at least in my area. All the peripherals still needed a dongle, it was the dongle era. The keyboard was okay to type on once I got used to the short travel, but the keycaps easily broke off, and dust would get in and the keys wouldn't register. Also, the whole laptop would get very hot, at least the 13" pro without the touchbar. I prefer the older 2015 model, before the butterfly, that's the one I had at work but had to give it up, and I regret waiting for the new models instead of purchasing the same one.
Like I said, totally get the keyboard hate. Mine just turned out perfectly fine.
People hated the dongles but again I could hook up everything. Dozens of connections with throughput I could never get before. It was fantastic for my needs and still is!
Compared to my old NixOS with tiling window manager, I’d say MacOS panes just doesn’t work. I have Rectangle, but it’s no comparison to the full tiling experience. I switched for Apple Silicon nothing more
I use Aerospace and it's an okay but not great tiling window manager. Note that AeroSpace really is among the best on macOS, but I'm guessing the OS APIs simply don't expose enough hooks.
https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace
Most people wouldn't touch "NixOS" or a Linux-style "tiling window manager" with a 10-ft pole, though. For them, the tiling window manager is a good in-between.
I've been using Amethyst for a couple of years now and it's been working quite well for me.
what is the full tiling experience like? I was never a tiling WM guy, on Linux I'd just set some KDE shortcuts for moving and resizing windows. On macOS I used Spectacle and then Rectangle but not sure what I am missing out on, I was always content with Spectacle
I've used XMonad for a while now. Almost no fiddling with windows at all.
Even if this was a "custom workaround" this argument would be extreme "all or nothing" binary thinking.
An OS can "just work" for of the stuff a user does, and just need some tweaking here or there. Doesn't mean if the "just works" stuff is not 100% you're just as good going to Linux.
Anyway, this is not some "custom workaround", it's a regular Apple-provided macOS toggle. It's just not exposed in the UI, because for most users, the regular way "just works". I know all kinds of "defaults" toggles, and barely use 1/100 of them, because the actual defaults are fine.
But, believe it or not, is very customizable (and previously very scriptable). I have Shift+Command+M (maximize) bound to resize to fit the content (different from full screen in macOS). Anything that’s in a menu can be bound to a keyboard shortcut without any additional utilities.
I have multiple virtual desktops. Can I move a window to the next desktop from the keyboard without 3rd party software yet?
I found myself closing Linux windows sometimes only with alt+F4; sometimes only with ctrl+Q; sometimes with both; sometimes with none
You can close them with xkill and a single click.
Killing is not closing, different signals.
There's probably some option to send a different signal.
I kind of agree with you, but on macOS I still don’t have to ever think about drivers. The hardware just works. Linux isn’t quite there yet. My work XPS laptop running Ubuntu is close, but not quite the same.
Yes, the mac user faces incredible disillusion when he discovers that "just works" was just another marketing gimmick (to the likes of it doesn't get viruses!)
As a long-time Mac user, "it just works" actually meant "it either works or it doesn't" - a *binary*. Whereas other OSes were shades of grey - it _might_ work if you spend time searching and trying random combinations in settings.
And it was good because it saved time.
(Same used to apply to iOS too)
As a 20+ year heavy mac AND linux user, both are true.
It doesn't get viruses, especially if you don't install random junk from warez sites and stick to MAS, brew, and a few trusted vendors. Even if you do install crap, it's trojans not viruses, which are more like the Yeti (something like that might exist, but few have seen it) than a problem mac users have.
And things "just work" way way way way more than they do in Linux (and I've started using it professional as desktop and for dev work in late 1990s, I'm not weekend tourist to it), which is exactly what I expected as a pragmatist. Only some non-existing carricature user that exists in strawman arguments expected everything to be perfect.
The "they don't catch viruses" is a bold lie, but back then when i worked in tech sales the apple promoter wanted us to repeat the lie ad nasueam. They definetly catch malware and it's as easy as in any other platform (also because today the malware will likely be running in a headless chromium instance)
I've had a macbook since 2010, and to me its software quality has been going downhill since snow leopard, today it's completely unrecognizable.
I think apple jumped the shark more or less in 2012 with the flay layouts, when they also started changing ages old defaults, hiding and then removing features for power users, too much handholding and telling you what's best for you, things like that.
My macbook from that era is still with me, but it runs debian now, same as any other PC i use for work or leisure, and it's really so much better for me as a programmer and as a user. Freedom. It's really freedom (and KDE's ergonomics really clicks with me). I recently had to install unsigned software on one of our worplace's mac minis (which i'm glad i don't have to use anymore) and it was so incredibly frustrating i wanted to smash that thing.
>The "they don't catch viruses" is a bold lie, but back then when i worked in tech sales the apple promoter wanted us to repeat the lie ad nasueam. They definetly catch malware and it's as easy as in any other platform (also because today the malware will likely be running in a headless chromium instance)
Malware is not a virus. And it doesn't catch malware if you keep to trusted sources and keep on OS protective layers like SIP.
Install junk from warez sites and the like, and YOU installed something (still not a virus: a trojan). If you couldn't install it at all (also totally possible) you'd be crying how macOS restricts you.
In over 20 years of OS X use I've never had any virus, nor did anyone I know. Over 30 years of Windows I've had plenty.
>They definetly catch malware and it's as easy as in any other platform
If you install it, it's not a virus (and you can't avoid that in any OS, unless they lock you out of arbitrary program download and execution and only have you run in sandboxes).
Even so, you can very well install and not give it privileges, and then it can't even touch important directories. If you install it && enter your admin credentials to let it do whatever, it's on you.
>I've had a macbook since 2010, and to me its software quality has been going downhill since snow leopard, today it's completely unrecognizable.
It has, but that has nothing to do with now allowing viruses or even malware (in fact, regarding the latter, is more secure than it was in 2010 via multiple measures).
This used to be option exposed in settings.
apt-get install logicalleap
Sudo apt-get install logicalleapd
Windows is also the "it just works" operating system, and it has hundreds of useful things you can only do through registry hacks.
It's not a very useful test.
I look at the good things about macOS over desktop linux like how cmd-c/v works across all apps, and it would be amazing if it were just a cli command to bridge the gap.
In my experience, Windows is very far from a "it just works" OS.
It's the ambition as a home user OS though, like macOS. And in the discussion of "it just works" operating systems, who else are we to go by than the vendor ambitions? Personal opinions? In that case, neither is because both struggle to always work in all scenarios since their respective inceptions.
When the phrase originated, manually updating CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT were expected skills of a home PC owner. The idea of buying a device, plugging it in, and having it work without a complex setup was unheard of. "It just works" on the Mac meant the absence of a DOS layer, IRQs, command lines, etc.
AFAIK Windows has never been known or marketed as "it just works". It goes long way to maintain backwards compatibility, but lets not kid ourselves that it has any semblance to what Apple's "it just works" is supposed to mean.
In what universe has Windows ever been a "it just works" OS? Not this one.
Wish it worked on all windows. For some reason Settings is exempt from this, for example.
The macOS Settings app is broken in all kinds of ways, as far as UI/UX goes. It's been this way since they redesigned it a few years back. Not that it was great before, but the redesign just made it worse.
It (partially) works, but only if the cursor is NOT hovering over the right portion of the window. So only 30% works.
Oh I guess I never tried while clicking on the Sidebar!
I think it was a mistake for Apple to put some of the best QOL, not just accessibility, enhancements behind the Accessibility section of the Settings, rather than on the Trackpad settings. Three finger drag is a game changer, and a lot of my colleagues had no idea it existed.
The weird thing is that setting used to be in the trackpad settings! I have no idea why they moved it. It's one of the first things I enable on every device I use.
Exactly, same, and same. I was in the company HQ a few weeks ago and one of my colleagues just got a new machine. I was watching them set it up and was like, "How do you live like that, clicking the top and holding to drag to move the window?" They had no idea three finger drag was a thing, life changed.
Probably due to the longstanding bugs with it. I still use it on all my laptops, but Finder in particular gets tripped up with what the drag state is when using it.
I tried this on most recent MacOS 26 - it does not work here. Might it be because I have Rectangle installed?
Works great for me. I enabled that functionality alongside resizing on RMB by using "Easy Move+Resize" from GH. I also use Raycast to bind most window management stuff, it's instant unlike the built-in alternatives on Tahoe.
Same, tried with and without Rectangle running and haven't seen it work yet. Must be missing something obvious.
edit: I ended up trying Easy Move+Resize which is mentioned in a sibling comment, can recommend, works as advertised.
I don't think I know how to confirm that command is correct, and I've been a Mac user for decades. If Apple's solution to problems is "trust the CLI command you found on a website" then I might need to sell some shares.
Is there a way to resize windows with this gesture as well?
if you search
NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture
you see how often this feature gets broken and type some other flag or install 3rd party app.
Yeah, it was one of those things I noticed when I first started using Linux and wondered why every other OS didn't just copy it.
Probably just simple resistance to use of modifier keys in non-technical users, at least on the Windows side. A lot of users never touch a modifier except for Ctrl for copy/paste and maybe Windows for start menu search.
On the Mac side where key combos and modifier use is more widespread among users, it’s probably because there’s no intuitive visual that can be associated with the interaction.
It's not like Apple would frown about the idea of an action having "no intuitive visual associated with it". On iOS, you can scroll to the top by pressing on the status bar as one example.
Unless your status bar is on the bottom. Then scrolling up is really hit or miss
The status bar – as in: the area where the clock, battery and signal strength are shown – is absolutely always at the top of the screen on iOS.
I mean browser status bar (address bar, load progress etc.) and also you're wrong at least on new phones.
If you tap the island and if there's any activity there, it doesn't scroll up it switches to activity app. You need to hit the top edge of the screen not the island. And that is hit or miss, because 30% you hit the island and often there's activity there.
It was better before when it was not an island and activity was rare, only when you're navigating or on a call. Now every app and it's dog has a live activity in island.
Oh, I get having a visual way of doing it with just a mouse for sure. But for power users or even just-a-little-bit-of-knowledge users it's super quick and convenient. When I had to use Windows for work it drove me nuts that the option wasn't there (ended up finding AltDrag thankfully).
On Windows, I use AltDrag.
Altdrag doesn't work with scaling and is missing some other nice to haves, The Altsnap fork of it fixes this. Its one of the first things i install.
windows does support [win] + [arrow key] though
Mac supports the win (Cmd) + arrow key thing too; figured I'd mention since the story is about macOS window management.
I used to use the Sawfish window manager ... before it fell out of maintenance, oh and before I switched to DEs with the window manager bolted on.
The thing I miss the most from Sawfish is that it let me resize any window. There are a lot of fixed-sized modal dialogs with scrollbars that wouldn't need them if they were taller, and there's a lot of room on my portrait monitor!
What a nice feature! Really puts the user in control. Is there any maintained WM allowing this? How are modals treated on tiling WMs?
Easy Move+Resize is great for this on macOS: https://github.com/dmarcotte/easy-move-resize
This is the way, game changer.
For window move I think it's a reaction to the popularization of putting UI in the window titlebar so there's nothing to grab onto. I don't mind it but I wish there was a dedicated "grab" button on the mouse because I find it clunky to have to use both hands to manage windows.
I can tell you the feature of Meta/Super¹+L/R click to move/resize windows has existed on Linux long before UI in the window titlebar became a thing.
¹ aka Windows key
I know it's been around for a while, but I don't recall people talking about it like it's a killer feature of Linux window management until after the "UI in the window titlebar" trend started.
I use i3-wm
I never resize a window with its border.
I never minimize a weindow.
I sometimes move a window to a different panel but it snaps to the width / height of the column.
Overlapping windows is perhaps the worst GUI paradigm - it's like the first thing someone thought of for 640 x 480 screens.
Let it go.
Tiling window managers used to be a thing in the old days, they predate the invention of overlapping windows, there is a reason it is only a minority that reaches out to them nowadays.
Tilings are no better or no worse than floating. There are many users who would benefit from them (people who typically keep all their windows maximized), but have had literally zero exposure two them due to MacOS and Windows.
Complaints about lack of window snapping in MacOS vs Windows, a loose copy of tiling, are consistent across the internet. If MacOS and Windows had native tiling support, you'd see a fight fiercer than tabs vs. spaces.
The reason floating windows are used is because "that's the way it is done." Windows 95 wowed the world and established the status quo.
Not to mention the direction that the likes of Paper and Niri are going, these are things that very few users get to experience and therefore couldn't possibly have an informed decision on what they prefer.
> Not to mention the direction that the likes of Paper and Niri are going, these are things that very few users get to experience and therefore couldn't possibly have an informed decision on what they prefer.
niri is great because it gives you the best of all worlds.
Scrolling by default but you can easily float and tile things as needed. It feels so intuitive for how I use computers.
I've created a few posts and videos on using niri while going over my workflows in https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-is-niri-this-good-live-de... and https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/day-to-day-window-management-....
Having used Windows for 25 years, there's no chance I'll ever go back. This environment is already substantially better. That's after tricking Windows out with virtual desktops, global hotkeys, window positioning tools, launchers, multiple clipboards, heavily WSL 2 driven, etc..
I tried to switch a few times over the last decade but was always blocked by hardware issues on this machine, those blockers are gone now.
Windows does tiling just fine, it even has layout suggestions.
Yes, which is why people complain about MacOS vs Windows. People wouldn't complain about the lack of quasi-tiling in MacOS if they didn't care about it (which is the gist of your gp comment). The only reason they have experienced it is because Windows has quasi-tiling.
That reason being that there is a minority of people who reach out to anything instead of just using what they're given. Compounded by baby duck syndrome, of course.
Not in a GUI though. Sun Windows was overlapping, GEM was overlapping and almost everything else since then.
I'm on a 5120x2160 monitor and tiling is super perfect.
Can't recommend it enough.
There were others out there, e.g. Oberon, Lilith,...
That's where I learned the power of tiling. Years of using the Acme text editor.
When you also learn drop down menus are not needed either.
Yup, but "normies" do need menus or at least some way to do things that has some degree of visual affordance (e.g. a persistent cmd/ctrl+p, which I think Office has/had).
not everyone can drive a Ferrari
Recently getting a new Mac for work, coming from Hyprland has been tough, but I feel like I’m getting there. Aerospace and Karabiner-Elements have gotten me most of the way there. Have had to write a few scripts to get the workspaces working the way I’m used to, but overall I got a significant part of my workflow to mirror my Linux setup, but would still love to get the super+right click to resize working somehow (there is a native way to move windows with ctrl+cmd+left click which was nice).
Same here. I use both!
> get the super+right click to resize working somehow (there is a native way to move windows with ctrl+cmd+left click which was nice).
I've tried this with Hamerspoon to no avail and ultimately gave up... if you find a workaround, I'm all ears!
I really miss AHK...
How are you liking Aerospace? I miss i3. I tried a few TWMs in Mac but they felt quite janky, but it's possible I just didn't give them time.
Not OP but it's the best auto tiling WM I've found for MacOS so far. Yabai requires SIP disabled for what I would consider core features which is a no go on a work laptop. Aerospace sides steps this and MacOS's horrible window management by just not using the built in spaces. I've only had to restart it a couple times over the last 4 months due to bugs.
I also use https://github.com/acsandmann/aerospace-swipe to add trackpad support.
see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46998527
i use this. it’s not maintained so you need to manually enable its access to assistive control in Settings but besides that still works great:
https://github.com/jmgao/metamove
it does exactly what you want coming from Fluxbox-style window managers
here’s how i configure it (it has a settings ui, this just automates setting it up) https://github.com/justjake/Dotfiles/blob/3d359f961b009478ef...
i didn’t notice the hideous corner grab areas for a few weeks after updating to 26 because i never tried to use the corner
Yeah I use a third-party add on for macOS that does something similar.
The only annoyance is situations where you are moving the mouse while also starting to press a ctrl+ or cmd+ key combination and unexpectedly move or resize the window in the process.