If I ever have to take a job that doesn't let me install Sway, I'm in trouble. Having windows haphazardly piled on top of each other makes me very anxious and stressed out. It did before I switched, and is why I switched, but now I've had a taste. I know how pleasant window management can be.
> Having windows haphazardly piled on top of each other makes me very anxious and stressed out.
I've found that overlapping windows makes sense for "gui" like applications: Half of the screen is too small for a web browser or a graphical email program or an IDE.
So these days I make do with a program that allows me to use keyboard shortcuts to move the current window to a specific position and size (different shortcuts for different positions and sizes). In this way, I spend very little time moving windows around, as I just need to hit the key for the position I want.
Also, I don't tend to move windows around, e.g. my terminal is always at the same spot, and my browser is also always at the same spot (different than the terminal). So I don't have to touch a window often.
Which program so you use? I felt that xmonad just broke too many flows and was too big an investment as a user, but I'd like to be able to control my windows without using my trackpad
Right now I use Hammerspoon for macOS. I used to use Phoenix. On Windows there was AutoHotkey. On X11 I think the twm family allows you to move Windows to specific positions and sizes. There was also sawfish. Maybe wmctrl is a relatively modern thing and works with Gnome and KDE and other environments. What to do on Wayland I don’t know.
Yabai, a tiling wm for MacOS, is very good. I too was forced to use a Mac for my job and Yabai met my tiling needs as well as anything could have. Try it out next time you have to use a Mac!
I have a sway/linux laptop from 2017 and a 2020 intel macbook pro. The hardware in the mac is nearly double the real world performance but the way the windows move with yabai feels incredibly slow and janky.
And the hotkeys are a pain in the arse compared to sway, I resorted to skhd and karabiner elements working cooperatively.
Notes:
yabai needs a scripting addition, and new versions of it seem to need you to manually reload it.
skhd and yabai both need "accessability" access in settings, new versions seem to need to be re-added (and the old entry that you approved before gets a "No icon" icon which makes it feel jank and confusing, like, you think you enabled accessibility but it complains)
yabai also needs you to disable system integrity protections.
And added to that: most macOS windows can't be resized, so they fall off the screen or leave half a screen empty.
Honestly it was not a pleasant experience and was one of the main reasons I went back to linux, despite the subpar software support of things like zoom (which doesn't allow screensharing on wayland)
To be honest, i really really get angry having to shuffle around window's having windows overlapping another etc, having to work more then one hour on a "non tilling desktop" starts the "what where they thinking!!"-though replay in my head.
