
Show HN: Keypad Layout Window Manager for Mac - janten
https://github.com/janten/keypad-layout
======
hultner
I can highly recommend kvm[1] for those of you who are interested in tiling
window managers for macOS. Another pearl is Amethyst[2]. I've used both of
them (and others such as xnomad) extensively for the past 5 years or so and
must say that I'm very pleased.

[1] [https://koekeishiya.github.io/kwm/](https://koekeishiya.github.io/kwm/)

[2] [https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst](https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst)

~~~
nevon
Been using kwm for the past 6 months or so. Amethyst never really clicked for
me, and it didn't work very well with multiple spaces, which I am a big user
of.

Kwm and khd (kwm does layouting, khd sets up keyboard shortcuts) are not the
easiest to configure, and kwm can be extremely complex, but for me it's been
the best window manager for Mac OS I've been able to find. I just wish that
performance was better, and that it handled corner cases like small dialogs
better.

Doesn't hold a candle to the ones available for Linux, but I blame Apple for
that more than I blame the developers.

~~~
tuananh
mind sharing your config?

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raghavkhanna
There's also spectacle
([https://www.spectacleapp.com/](https://www.spectacleapp.com/)), however this
seems worth trying out, especially due to the ease of remembering the layout
config shortcuts

~~~
matt2000
Came here to recommend spectacle too. I basically only use the keyboard
shortcuts to send windows to the left half, or right half of the screen. If
you hit them again it does 2/3rds or 1/3rds of that side of the screen which
is helpful on lower resolutions. That pretty much covers me for window
management.

~~~
TomAnthony
Yeah - the simplicity of it, over something like this one posted, makes it
much nicer. I also use for move windows to the other display.

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AndrewHampton
I'll drop in the customary link to hammerspoon:
[http://www.hammerspoon.org](http://www.hammerspoon.org)

It has a couple libraries for window management. One is plug and play, the
other is lower level. Here is my config for setting up a 2x2 grid:
[https://github.com/andrewhampton/dotfiles/blob/master/hammer...](https://github.com/andrewhampton/dotfiles/blob/master/hammerspoon/.hammerspoon/grid.lua)

~~~
tnajdek
Another one is called slate:
[https://github.com/jigish/slate](https://github.com/jigish/slate)

Very flexible, my favorite feature is that configs can be written in JS,
here's mine:
[https://gist.github.com/tnajdek/48ea2a2ccac365b91f29](https://gist.github.com/tnajdek/48ea2a2ccac365b91f29)

~~~
zdw
Slate is my favorite as well - there's a fork that accumulated a bunch of
patches over the years as the original author appears to have abandoned it:

[https://github.com/mattr-/slate](https://github.com/mattr-/slate)

Unfortunately, it was declared unmaintained as of a few days ago...

------
Archio
I can't recommend enough the first app I install on any new Mac, ShiftIt:
[https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt](https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt)

\- It's open source + free \- Once you install it and learn the keyboard
shortcuts you basically can forget it's there because it stays out of your way

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sambe
I always used Divvy for this, but IIRC it's paid only. Looks like a nice
start.

~~~
janten
Author here. I actually started this project after buying Divvy. Divvy has
many more features but I could never set it up _just right_. In particular I
found no way to use the grid feature without the mouse (other than assigning
shortcuts to pre-defined layouts). So I scratched my own itch and created
Keypad Layout as a simple no-frills replacement that works exactly the way I
want it to.

~~~
rmateu
I'm loving this model. Thanks for sharing.

I own Magnet, Moom, Cinch and a few others. I always end up abandoning because
the powerful keyboard features get in the way when you're in an actual
workflow, and the basic ones make me reach for the mouse.

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LeoPanthera
I use Moom for this, it has a killer feature (for me) that I haven't seen
anywhere else, the ability to leave n pixels between windows, and between
windows and the edge of the screen.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
This looks great, definitely going to give it a whirl.

I have to use a Windows 7 PC for work (proprietary software for a laser
cutter) and have AutoHotKey running about 30 customer keyboard shortcuts, so
when I get home to my Linux and Mac laptops I that I use for casual computer
use I struggle to remember key combos for window management. Moom looks like
it solves that problem by novel use of existing window manipulation buttons.

Thanks!

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joshuaswaney
Magnet is great if all you're looking for is hotkeys to arrange/maximize your
windows and move them between monitors.

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dzhiurgis
I use option+shift+a/d for left/right snapping and option+shift+e for full
screen, all mapped in BetterTouchTool. But I do feel I need more flexibility
for corner and horizontal snaps. Anyone got ideas how to do it better (I do
not have numpad)?

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alexellisuk
Don't most Mac users have a Macbook with effectively no Numeric Keypad? I use
an external KB but it's tenkeyless.

Some other default bindings would be useful.

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jaequery
i just need a window manager that performs the following for free:

\- hotkey for full screeen window

\- hotkey for center screen window

\- hotkey for left/right half window

\- hotkey for move window to prev/next monitor

\- hotkey for resize window by mouse (a la bettertouchtool)

\- hotkey for move window by mouse (a la bettertouchtool)

currently i'm using a combination of these to do the following, but i feel its
a bit overkill when all i need are what i described above:

\- bettertouchtool

\- sizeUp

~~~
lloeki
> for free

If you want it so badly, why not pay for the ones that exist?

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hayden592
Looks neat and I'll have to try it out. Just curious what makes this different
from Spectacle or Shiftit?

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hmans
Hammerspoon

