

XMonad on OSX - andreyf
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_on_Apple_OSX

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archer
I switched back to Linux last month after 5 years of OS X usage and XMonad was
one of the main reasons.

Now, whenever I try using OS X on my 13 inch MBP again, the WM makes it feel
really unproductive. Once I have few apps opened moving around is slow. Exposé
and Spaces don't help much. It feels like going back to whatever good IDE from
Emacs or Vim, not very fun.

In contrast, with a tiling manager, even small screens are bearable. I really
recommend giving it a shot. Of course not everyone likes it, but I'd say it's
not particularly unfriendly. Bindings are very simple. Setup is mostly
straightforward.

~~~
look_lookatme
I just have a really hard time grokking haskell. I've been using stumpwm and
it's awesome, but it integrates less well with gnome.

In the same boat -- 6 years OSX, installed Lucid RC on 13 inch MBP recently --
so far no intention of going back.

~~~
silentbicycle
dwm is good, too. Sure, C isn't the greatest thing for exploratory
programming, but configuring it isn't hard. (One of these days I might really
learn X programming and do a tiled WM configured with Lua, but I've got too
many projects already.)

wmii is also good, and once you get used to using libixp, you can script it in
anything. I found wmii's named tabs interfered with muscle memory, though.

I used XMonad for a bit, but GHC is a hell of a dependency, and for a while
there were problems getting any version newer than 6.6 to build on FreeBSD and
OpenBSD. That's a dealbreaker for me.

~~~
rkowalick
_(One of these days I might really learn X programming and do a tiled WM
configured with Lua, but I've got too many projects already.)_

This has already been done. It's called awesomeWM and it is exactly as good as
its name indicates.

~~~
silentbicycle
I don't like Awesome. I've been using Lua for a while, and something about the
way the Lua stuff is set up doesn't sit right with me. I can't rattle off any
examples off the top of my head (it's been a while since I checked it out),
but, I tried it, not my thing. (Also, taking a BSD codebase and making it
GPL'd and bloated tends to piss me off.)

~~~
mzl
You could also check out Ion. The development has stopped and the webpages
pulled, but there seems to be two forks (notion and anion3) that are in
progress.

~~~
silentbicycle
Tried: 9wm, aewm, awesome, blackbox, dwm, ion, larswm, ratpoison, scrotwm,
w9wm, wm2, wmii, xmonad, probably a half dozen others.

I liked aewm, blackbox, dwm, ratpoison, and XMonad the most, FWIW. While I
really like the keyboard-centric UI in ion and ratpoison, I think the
layout/tile interface style used by dwm, XMonad, etc. gracefully accommodates
programs that have too many windows or just blatantly break ICCCM, while ion
and ratpoison don't even try.

~~~
mzl
Sounds like you have it covered.

I use pwm (precursor to ion) since I configured it years ago and it has served
me well since then. One benefit of using such an old wm is speed; it does so
little that it is blazingly fast on a modern computer. If I were to switch, it
would probably be to ion or xmonad.

------
rosenbergdm
After casually trying AwesomeWM on my mac for a short while, I decided to try
to make XMonad as usable as possible under OSX without writing any HOC code.
It's been an incremental process, but at point I'd call my setup _more_ than
adequate. One of these day's I'm either going to update the OSX/Xmonad wiki
page with my method with all of the scripts and configurations I am using
under the hood... In my opinion, much of the _magic_ of integrating X11/Xmonad
with aqua involves 'capturing' key combinations (on the Xmonad side),
determining how to respond, then either responding directly or emitting the
correct keystrokes using xdotool
(<http://www.semicomplete.com/projects/xdotool/>).

For example, I let xmonad capture the keysequence <Command-Tab>. Xmonad keeps
track of the MRU-like window list and switches to it. If it is another window
in the current workspace, xmonad can switch to it unassisted. If a 'switch'
would involve switching to an _aqua_ application, xmonad then uses xdotool to
emit the <Command-Option-A> \+ <Command-Tab> key sequence (popping out of
X11).

------
tudorachim
Yes, but it only works for managing X apps, not the standard ones OSX ships
with.

~~~
labria
... and that makes it completely useless, sadly =( I would love to have a
tiling WM for MacOS X, but it seems impossible (unless Apple suddenly makes
one themselves =).

~~~
cschep
<http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/>

size up is worth a look, but it's not quite the same if you're used to Xmonad,
that's for sure.

~~~
labria
Yes, I tried it, but gave up after a few days: it provides nothing that manual
tiling doesn't (I have a background with a spot in the center, helps tiling 4
terminal windows).

