Show HN: Rift – A tiling window manager for macOS (opens in new tab)

One thing rectangle does that I absolutely love is todo mode. I don’t actually use it for todo but having a windows set to always be visible and have the full window shortcut adjust based on that, cheffkiss.

Shoutout to Rectangle for having Spectacle keybindings option. Maybe one day I will learn the normal ones but I am too used to them at this point

Similar experience and pov here -- but w/ Divvy^1 (not Rectangle).

1. https://mizage.com/divvy/

I too recommend Rectangle. It made transition from Linux significantly less painful.

Maybe I misunderstand what you mean, on one hand you say you want a window manager that's feature rich, on the other you say you're tired of using very flexible software with tons of configs. Aren't those two at odds with one another?

Yep. Another long time rectangle user. I use multiple desktops (Spaces) and arrange windows ( browser window, emacs frame, iterm widow) for each task.

This makes context switching bearable when working on several things.

Rectangle+Apptivate made me stop looking for an i3 alternative, after years. The first for moving windows, the second for switching between them with super+number, just like i3.

Have you tried BetterTouchTool? It is both feature rich and stable, I have been using it for over a decade

If you indent your pasted stuff by four spaces, HN treats it as code. That might help.

komorebi is coming to macOS[1] soon :)

[1]: https://youtu.be/u3eJcsa_MJk?si=UnHjFXBsWir4QiTz

Is this Tahoe exclusive? I had never seen it before.

Thank you, I had no idea it existed !

The Accessibility framework is not what I would call a "hack" personally. It was quite well thought out and fully featured

I've spent the last month working on something similar in Rust with various macOS framework bindings and it's not really that scary

You don't really need anything other than a Rust dev env, rust-analyzer and a browser window with the Apple docs website and the objc2 crate docs.rs site open - no special XCode craziness required

They’re not, is the impression I get. I usually run into a shortcut conflict within the first few minutes of actual day-to-day use.

I switched to Aerospace about a year ago. I hide everything behind a leader key: alt+space. That brings me into Aerospace’s normal mode. I have a few alt-shortcuts there for quick access: e.g. alt-{hjkl} for moving between panes. But most things are in a dedicated mode. I have a ‘go-to’ mode and a ‘move-to’ mode. Once in either mode, pressing any letter or number will go to/move a pane to space corresponding to the letter/number. So for instance, if I want to move my terminal to space ‘t’ then I type `alt+space g t`. To move to the space I type `alt+space m t`.

I’ve been enjoying this setup because it feels like a natural extension of my terminal setup: zellij/tmux with leader key ctrl+space and helix (also modal) inside.

One thing I constantly struggle with in Aerospace, though, is its tendency to keep windows hidden after switching screens. You have to hunt for them in the bottom-right corner and just hope you can drag them back into view.

I tried Aerospace but the default was to map all alt keys to 26 different workspaces, eradicating all the built in emacs-like key shortcuts available in every app.

That plus there's zero tutorial on the basic key mapping, just a bunch commands and no hints about where to look for how to use it...

It is the most hostile piece of software I have encountered in years and I just spend the past few weeks mucking with sway and hyprland on Linux, and mucking in Linux bootloaders so that I can enter the disk encryption password both by serial port and the physical keyboard.

So I solved it by deleting aerospace and waiting to try a different rolling window manager, which will be Rift. I suspect in the end I'll just write my own tiling window manager. It certainly seems like there's one for every person who has ever had the whim to do so...

I did something similar. I use Karabiner and I mapped the right Option key on my external keyboard to Option+Shift (A1), and right Control key to Control+Option+Shift (A2). I've configured Aerospace such that if I want to change focus, I use `A1 + hjkl` to move the focus around, and if I want to move windows around, I use `A2 + hjkl`. I use `A1 + ui` to switch workspaces, and `A2+ui` to move windows between workspaces. For shifting focus between monitors its `A1+m,` and moving between them `A2 + m,`

By far these are the shortcuts I use most often and if there are apps with conflicting shortcuts, I change those to something else. I haven't thought about it much but I'm sure I can extend this pattern further for better ergonomics. It works great so far.

Meh (ctrl alt shift) and hyper (ctrl alt shift cmd). And I bind caps lock to meh on long press and esc on tap.

This gives me plenty of easily reachable hot keys. Eg I can switch between spaces with meh + number. I have terminal hot window bound to meh + space. Moving focus between windows is meh + hjlk.

I use MiroWindowsManager (Hammerspoon plugin) to get what I need for window management on MacOS: the ability to position any window in any quadrant by 3 different variations of chord division, at will .. with the same hotkeys.

This means I can put things where I need it in milliseconds.

I've been using divvy, had no idea it isn't maintained... but I'm not sure if I'd need any more features outside of what it already does. What items do you want to see them add?

"Highly opinionated" indeed ;)

One reason I prefer Divvy^1 is that my custom keyboard shortcuts are usable whether typing directly the on laptop w/ trackpad, or (more frequently) on external keyboard.

1. https://mizage.com/divvy/

Moom is an absolute crucial piece of software that I've gladly paid for upgrades to over time to support it.

There's also BetterSnapTool, which I used to use, but I think switched to Moom for specific features at one point in time. It's even cheaper and still receiving updates to continue working.

Is there an equivalent for Linux?

The main reason I use Moom is being able to move and resize windows using nothing but the keyboard, which is something most tiling window managers completely ignore.

Literally all the time. Slack on the right quarter. The rest is browser / terminal / ide / others in various combinations depending on the task. Quite often it's browser + log tailing. Every app also has subdivisions: vs code can be multi-file + terminal. Terminal itself is multiplexed. Browser is Zen with side-by-side pages quite often.

I won't speak to "needing" a tiling window manager but "just making the app full screen and switch between windows with 4 finger swipes does the job beautifully" - you you.

I have disabled most gestures, animations, and multiple desktops (spaces?) in macos. The swiping between each of these full screen apps is painfully slow to me. It's compounded by needing to pass through an app to get to one on the other side, meaning it could be 2 or 3 swipes before the app I need is the one on screen. When I see someone swipe the wrong direction and quickly swipe back it makes me cringe.

When I want an app on screen I don't want to perform mental calculation for how many steps away, nor do I ever want to have to pass through an app to get there.

Not on MAcOS, but I imagine the reason is the same as mine for using tiling on Linux.

If you are using a small laptop your argument holds.

However, the larger your monitor the more the benefits of having things side by site. I do it all the time. A document I am writing an email about and the email open side by site. Editor, terminal and VCS GUI open at the same time. Documentation and code open side by side. Template and web browser. Accounting software and bank statement. File manage and absolutely anything. Chat window and whatever you are discussing.

I find it easier and more productive most of the time.

There are definitely times it is useful. For example, a web browser with docs next to an IDE, or perhaps some other workflow where you are transcribing from one app to another. I will agree most of the time I do prefer full screen and use virtual desktops to swap back and forth, but it depends on the scenario. Also, some apps just don't need that much screen real estate (like my terminal, spotify, discord, chatgpt, etc.) and often look perhaps even odd full screen, so I just tile them into quarters on one virtual desktop.

I used to switch spaces but it’s worst for mental load than having everything on the same screen for big screens. I have 3 32inch screens (2 vertical on each side) and full screen apart from IDE like does not often makes sense. So splitting is like having smaller screens at all time and remove the need to find back which virtual screen has which apps. Like there is chrome on several virtual spaces if you cmd-tab on chrome it does not always choses one one you want. You have to get back manually at the screen which is cumbersome. When I use only the MacBook I tile less and use more virtual screens to organize the windows because there is less real estate. Slack, several chrome (render of code, doc, clickup etc), terminal, IDE, postman, datagrip all within a shortcut of being focused and without changing the whole screen. I guess that depends on your needs but having the equivalent of 8 screens the size of the MacBook at all time it’s really awesome and makes me really productive, r-cmd allows me to focus on app app with a shortcut so it’s really fast. No more switch between desks is a relief to find back where my windows are

Nobody needs anything, it's all about preference. I keep apps side-by-side all the time, but by using the same style of window manager across each OS I use (I use Mac, Win, and Linux) I'm able to keep a similar workflow, instead of needing to cater to each OS' prescribed workflow.

All the time. 49'' screen is built for that.

The usual setup = terminal is the central half with nvim being one half of that, sometimes also split into two side by sides, sometimes not; two terminal tabs in the right pane (zellij). Browser = left quarter. Right quarter is whatever, slack, gmeet etc.

Animations take too long with the swiping. Having apps on the same virtual desktop all the time.

On a larger screen: Opening a terminal alongside the editor or a browser. Or opening two browser windows when working on two documents.

If I’m writing something using a reference text (code+docs or anything else), if I have to fully the transition the screen between the editor and the reference, I will forget whatever I just read and intended to write. I need the reference in my peripheral vision so I can rapidly glance back and forth between the two.

Because I like it a lot better?

You sound like you're asking me why my favourite colour is red, because it's perfectly fine to have blue as a favourite colour. Of course it is fine, I just like red better.

You cant think of any reason you’d want two windows in a viewport at the same time? Not one?

Do you do all your work on a laptop? Side-by-side is a must for external monitors.

What do you use to manage window arrangements?

Here you go: https://github.com/bromanko/nix-config/blob/main/packages/ri...

I personally hate full screen mode. Not sure why it bothers me so much to not see window decorations and menus, but it drives me crazy. I go out of my way to ensure they fill full screen, but just a maximum size, not full screen mode. To each their own I guess.

Something like sidebarapp.net?

Not sure why it doesn't install automatically, but you should be able to install nightly with `rustup toolchain install nightly`.

After playing with it for all of 30 seconds, my thoughts are: 1. It's ridiculously fast. Not that it matters that much, Aerospace is fine for me. 2. I somehow doesn't require any accessibility permissions... so it "just works" after running the CLI... 3. One thing I immediately noticed, is that it looks like moving a window to be accordion can be done in the same workspace?

So far I'm very impressed... not sure if I'm impressed enough to switch yet though... but being in rust does make it slightly easier for me to contribute

yabai uses native macos spaces and generally requires sip to be disabled to have a good experience(windows can't be moved between spaces without)

rift is essentially aerospace but implemented in a yabai style. yabai style meaning using low level, private apis and generally focusing more on performance. whereas aerospace prides itself on only using one private api.

usage wise, aerospace and rift both use a virtual workspace system where all of your (work)spaces are in one macos space so no red tape has to be cut in order to move windows from ws -> ws and so forth

Same boat, but vs amethyst. It's worked very well for me the last few years.

Yep, Loop does all I need and is not in my way.

in rift each screen/space has its own virtual workspace manager so they are fully isolated from eachother!

I use aerospace combined with karabiner, the latter of which allows me to set caps lock - a key I never really use, to meh & hyper. Worth checking out if youre missing a mod key

This is not true. The private api's we use are not hacks to work around macos spaces and are actually the basis of how appkit and the os in general works. They are essentially guaranteed to be stable and also not to be removed because they have been in use for many many years with no change.

The private api's that have been broken (as experienced by yabai) are strictly related to things that rift does not interact with like moving windows between macos spaces(since we use a virtual workspace system).

I think the root cause is that the default window manager was just horribly designed for a long time. Instantiating new windows of an App is still a horribly designed, deeply frustrating workflow on Mac OS that is just seamless and easy on Linux and Windows. I ended up linking Aerospace to some godawful Applescript just to be able to open a new Safari window without being flung across spaces to an existing Safari window first.

Apple does some things best in class but the core design of windowing & using applications is just awful imo.