
Chunkwm – a tiling window manager for macOS - firloop
https://koekeishiya.github.io/chunkwm
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comboy
I can't zoom the text on this website. I don't want to generalize to wm design
choices but why, why would people do that on some sites, why is this even
technically possible.

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aboutruby
I have compiled a few usability issues from their website:
[https://github.com/koekeishiya/chunkwm/issues/576](https://github.com/koekeishiya/chunkwm/issues/576)

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jamestanderson
Submitted a PR for the font size issue. Thanks for compiling a list!

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giancarlostoro
Thank you for that, I was curious what in CSS would cause this effect that I
don't hear often about so I could avoid making that mistake in CSS, looks like
it was vmin versus using em. I don't recall if I've ever used vmin, but now I
know now to use it for fonts at least, or to mostly avoid it. Looks like your
PR made it in too!

The PR for those curious:

[https://github.com/koekeishiya/chunkwm/commit/052c880d15a21b...](https://github.com/koekeishiya/chunkwm/commit/052c880d15a21bceab257f4a63c8792d72c67668)

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porkloin
As a tiling WM user coming from Linux, ChunkWM and Amethyst are both
incredible projects that allowed me to replicate my familiar and comfortable
tiling setup once I had a work-issued laptop running macOS.

For those who haven't used ChunkWM, the closest corollary in Linux is BSPWM.
Just like BSPWM, the window manager is a standalone daemon that exclusively
handles tiling and window management, and relies on an external hotkey daemon
to issue commands to the WM that resize, focus, etc.

Obviously this requires a lot of configuration - if you like the tiling WM
idea but don't want to maintain a few hundred lines of config files, I'd
highly recommend looking at Amethyst.

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city41
I used Amethyst a couple years ago and gave up due to bugs and it often
getting in a bad state. Has it improved? I switched to Linux but quite
literally i3wm is the only reason. I will give current Amethyst and chunkwm a
try.

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porkloin
Amethyst has stabilized a ton in the last few years, I'd definitely
considering giving it another shot if it's been a bit.

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mystickphoenix
I struggled a lot trying to get chunkwm up and running a while back. Ended up
trying Amethyst: [https://ianyh.com/amethyst/](https://ianyh.com/amethyst/)
While it still has plenty of configuration options, it ended up being
manageable enough for me while showing me the benefits of twm's.

If chunkwm seems like a lot and you still want to try out a tiling window
manager, I'd recommend Amethyst simply for the lower barrier to entry.

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chapium
I amethyst is more usable than chunk im definitely stearing clear of it.

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intertextuality
I had the opposite experience; setting up chunkwm was trivially easy and it's
been rock solid for the last year and half of me using it.

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cellularmitosis
Something is seriously messed up with the scrolling on the "Screens" page. It
causes huge lag on a 2015 MacBook Pro, just to display six gifs, and your
mouse focus has to be in the middle of the page in order to scroll.

[https://koekeishiya.github.io/chunkwm/screens.html](https://koekeishiya.github.io/chunkwm/screens.html)

Why oh why does every page on the internet need a sticky header? Just give me
a document already...

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pixel_fcker
scrolling doesn't appear to work at all for me on Chrome 71, macOS

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lilactown
you have to have your mouse over/focus on the main body div, since it appears
to be centered and overflow: hidden.

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cdubzzz
Check out Spectacle[0] if you are coming from a Windows world and actually
like the window management in Windows 7.

[0] [https://www.spectacleapp.com/](https://www.spectacleapp.com/)

~~~
nthnclrk
Yet another vote for Spectacle.

I also pair this with Cinch[1] as I regularly switch between inputs and setups
(KB & Mouse at the desk, neither on the go) and like to have flexibility with
both keyboard and mouse/trackpad control.

The key value-add of Cinch for me is replicating Windows-style 'drag-to-top'
for fullscreen, and 'drag-to-side' for half-screen window adjustments.

In short, Spectacle for fine-tuned keyboard controlled window management, and
Cinch for mouse/trackpad.

[1][http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/cinch/](http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/cinch/)

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elagost
Tiling window managers are very fun to use, once you get the hang of them.
They're definitely not for everyone, but they make my workflow much simpler.

For anyone who uses a Mac, and has used this - how is it? It looks really
cool, but I'm concerned about speed/stability. I used Magnet
([http://magnet.crowdcafe.com/](http://magnet.crowdcafe.com/)) when I had a
Mac, because the lack of any sort of tiling or snapping annoyed me, but it was
slow and felt very much like a third-party add-on and a hack.

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NickBusey
I have never seen a page manage to break browser zoom so thoroughly. Zooming
to 300% on Firefox actually makes the text smaller.

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mcrider
And the screenshots (which are 3000px+) can't be zoomed in on or clicked? And
you can't scroll the text unless you're directly on it? Weird implementation
decisions for this site.. The WM looks awesome though :)

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chrisweekly
I have to admit to being mostly satisfied with my Divvy setup, which isn't
"tiling" per se, but does provide me reasonably granular, keyboard-shortcut-
mapped, size-and-position assignment for arbitrary view windows. Wondering if
digging into a proper tiling solution would have ROI.

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ilovecaching
macOS is clearly designed to be used with gestures. I remember the first time
I went into the Apple store the salesman tried to show me some fancy gestures
to open the app launcher.

Tiling is the complete opposite: keyboard based. I've had fine experiences
with both the gestures and tiling, and I find that macOS is easier to use for
graphic design, while sway is easier to use for coding.

I think amethyst and chunkwm are both a little clunky, but that's too be
expected. I'm wondering which does HN prefer?

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mcqueenjordan
This is _awesome._

The only thing that keeps me from running Mac as my main machine is that I
don't have i3 on mac. (My main systems all run archlinux w/ a heavily
customized i3 tiling window manager.)

I'll definitely be looking into this.

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amaccuish
Is there any reason why there aren't many alternative shells/wms for Windows
and MacOS as there are for Linux. Are there technical barriers, or is it more
that the defaults are good enough?

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asveikau
X is designed such that the WM is a user replaceable component with a stable,
public interface to the rest of the system. Those other systems not so much.

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ianyh
This is correct. I can only speak to macOS, but window management in this case
is actually built on something entirely distinct from the actual system window
manager. It utilizes a framework designed for implementing accessibility
driven features, but it just happens to provide mechanisms for moving and
tracking windows as a part of that.

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szymon_k
Because of some personal preferences - I didn't really like BSP, and the idea
of running two window managers - I use Hammerspoon[1] for a lot of other
things - I wrote HHTWM[2] - tiling wm library for Hammerspoon.

HHTWM also persists state between reloads, something that chunkwm didn't do
last time I checked.

[1] [http://hammerspoon.org](http://hammerspoon.org)

[2]
[https://github.com/szymonkaliski/hhtwm](https://github.com/szymonkaliski/hhtwm)

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keyle
There is an app called Magnet on the appstore (I'm not affiliated in any way).
Anyway, it does 60% of what this does with 0 hassle.

I love the idea of chunkwm, but I don't have a lot of spare time.

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0x03
Chunkwm combined with Karabiner-elements has completely changed how I interact
with a computer. It feels more like an extension of me, similar to the feeling
of rapidly iterating through commands in a CLI.

[edit] I have been using it for about 2 years now.

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wanderfowl
I absolutely love this software. Combined with Alfred (where I've generated a
set of Keybindings), I'm able to tile effectively, and haven't thought about
Window size in months. Love it.

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xfitm3
I think anything that changes macOS UX has a tremendous uphill battle.

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CharlesW
How so? I ask as someone who doesn't consider his macOS install complete
without Bartender and Moom, etc.

~~~
philsnow
The thing that always bothers me when I try polishing my hammerspoon config is
that none of the available modifiers are dedicated to window management.

On all my linux systems, I have a separate Mod4 modifier that is exclusively
used for key bindings that my window manager interprets.

On Mac, there's control, option/alt, and command, but various programs use
various subsets of them, so none of them is available for me to completely
commandeer.

Karabiner(-Elements) lets you convert a key to be a cmd-control-shift-option
modifier, and I might just end up doing that, but whatever key you choose
probably isn't going to be under my left thumb like my muscle memory wants.

For hammerspoon what I ended up doing is making modal keymaps, but modal
keymaps are really different from how I handle it on my other systems, so it
hasn't stuck yet.

~~~
saagarjha
I use Karabiner-Elements to rebind my Caps Lock key to "Super" (actually,
F17).

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j_m_b
As an alternative to a tiling window manager, I've found phoenix
([https://github.com/kasper/phoenix](https://github.com/kasper/phoenix)) to be
a great window manager. It allows you write custom keybinding in javascript to
move windows around.

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Improvotter
I tried chunkwm last year or so but I found it to be very lackluster. There
were a lot of problems when it was trying to work against the native window
manager. How has it improved over the last year or so? I use i3 on Linux, but
love to get a window manager on my Macbook as well.

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pkamb
I wish there was a way in stock OS X to have windows float on top in the
z-order. I'd love to do more multi-window stuff but I hate how I constantly
lose small windows when I focus my larger editor or browser.

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ggm
Chunkwm on its own, without the key capture daemon is surprisingly easy to
use. You do have to mouse between things instead of using keyboard to shift
focus but the tile and size behaviour is pretty good.

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stackzero
Have been using and recommending this for the last few months. Found it easier
to customize vs. amethyst

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ggm
simplest install/run cycle for something in this space I've had in a long,
long time.

 _it just works_

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djstein
been using this every day for 2 years! great project!

