Window Management Apps

[soundsmitten]

Congrats on the new project! I am still using a tiling wm but I will give Flashspace a try this weekend. I encounter (known) issues multiple times a day with said wm, so this might be what I'm looking for.

It seems that separating virtual workspaces and window arrangement into separate apps might be the most stable approach right now. Previously, I used Moom and similar apps for light window rearrangement. It appears there's a gap between a complete tiling wm and utilities that move and resize one window at a time. I think the ideal for me would be an app where you press a shortcut and it'll apply tiling rules and then get out of the way. Is anyone aware of an existing app like this?

[soundsmitten]

It appears since years ago Moom 4 now is a lot smarter with full on window layouts, but I'm curious if there are some dotfile-friendly/open source alternatives to hack on.

[colacoder]

I'm in a similar situation, finding myself going back and forth between a full tiling manager and simple manual tools.

From what I know, the current tools are either manual control (like the ones you mentioned) or full tiling (like yabai, aerospace, amethyst).

There are in between ones but will require you to predefined the apps and layout you need to recall later, and not tiling random windows dynamically. The examples are raycast pro and https://github.com/tranhuycong/space-saver

[wojciech-kulik]

So we all are in the same boat, I've been struggling with managers, simple layouting apps, etc. for the last 3 years, I think. I realized that I don't like tiling managers because there are way too many glitches and I'm just using 90% of the time full-screen apps.

So at some point, I completely stopped using TM, but it turned out that I desperately needed fast workspaces, so I went back to Aerospace just for that. But then again turned out that the performance was pretty low, that's why I started this project as the final approach :D.

I think the ideal for me would be an app where you press a shortcut and it'll apply tiling rules and then get out of the way. Is anyone aware of an existing app like this?

In the meantime, I also found a pretty nice solution - Rectangle Pro. You can save your layout there, assign a hotkey and call it to bring your layout back. It can also be automatically triggered when you (dis)connect a display.

So at this point, I think the best solution for me is FlashSpace to manage workspaces, something that moves windows around (most apps have that, for example Raycast), and optionally Rectangle Pro to layout apps (also useful to put apps on the right screen).

[PangMo5]

It would be nice to support simple window management in FlashSpace without compromising performance. (like Rectangle)
I think it would be great to have more options in one app rather than having to set up multiple apps for similar functionality.

And It would also be nice to integrate with other features in FlashSpace.
For example, when you navigate to a specific workspace, it could have the ability to automatically tile to a preset layout based on the apps registered in the workspace.
This could be a quick way to adjust the layout without significantly impacting performance.

[wojciech-kulik]

For example, when you navigate to a specific workspace, it could have the ability to automatically tile to a preset layout based on the apps registered in the workspace.

This is exactly what tiling managers do, like yabai or Aerospace :D.

I would like to avoid adding layouting because it opens gates to edge cases and more feature requests related to tiling. In no time it would end up as another tiling window manager :D.

A lot of apps have this functionality, so I think it's best to focus here on the workspaces and do it right and leave tiling to apps that are focused on that.

[PangMo5]

Yes, but Aerospace is watching all windows, which is why I thought there was a performance issue.
I don't think it's a big deal if it only supports resetting to a static layout that only affects apps already registered in the workspace,

I agree that this could lead to a lot of tiling related feature requests.
However, I think this can be made closed with a well-written UI/UX to make it feel like it doesn't extend beyond that feature, and I think it would be a nice feature that fits in well with the Workspaces already defined in FlashSpace. I think it would give it an effect that other tiling managers can't give.

Even if it doesn't become a merge, I'd like to make it simple and propose it, is that okay?

[PangMo5]

Now that I think about it, rather than providing the feature in the app,
since it already support workspace active scripts, we could leverage those scripts and utilize a third-party tiling app that supports the CLI.

If it works as expected, i'll create a related tip discussion.

[wojciech-kulik]

Good catch! Scripts should allow to enable this functionality easily.