Tell HN: Cinch, W7-like window management for OSX | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Cinch, W7-like window management for OSX

irradiatedsoftware.com

54 pointspxlpshr39 comments

What a milestone for windows when people on OSX are using 3rd party apps to emulate its UX.

Still doesn't handle multiple monitors as elegantly as Win7 though, unfortunately. The Win7 windows management is so intuitive, most of the features I discovered accidentally, as I went about the process of manually doing what windows should have done for ages.

I've been using windows 7 since shortly after the first beta went out, and one of the things that I really love the OS (and why I've stuck with Windows in general) is how it handles my 3 monitors. Flicking apps and windows across my large central monitor and two 19" peripheral monitors with just a few keystrokes is really, really nice.

One of my New Years resolutions this year is to see if Win 7 makes life a little easier with 5 monitors. :) I hate context switching. I want it all in front of me at all times.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that it took them so long to start getting things right? How many of these things are right by design or accident?

How many of those people are recent switchers from Windows?

Concur. Check out customize.org for OS-X-like themes for Windows though.

The window management for OSX sort of... sucks. I've been using Windows for years and just bought a Mac and I was pretty shocked at how much effort it took to tile two windows.

I'm not a big OS X user (I had a Macbook pro for a couple of years, that's it), but it always seemed to me that the OS wasn't really based on the idea of "windows." Obviously it's possible to tile windows, but the way the top menu bar adapts to the action application, plus the way some applications like Photoshop work (with the toolbars being separate windows with no central background window) always led me to believe the intended paradigm of OS X was quite different than that of Windows.

Your experience with a new interface will be improved by making use of the affordances it offers rather than lamenting the ones it does not. To do otherwise is akin to eating soup with a fork.

Your comment might be more constructive if your offered the OP a solution to their actual problem of tiling two windows (or perhaps the underlying need to compare the contents of two windows easily). What affordances does OSX offer in this respect?

The problem of tiling two windows is one with many solutions, one of which is the submission itself. As to the actual problem expressed by the OP, my comment addresses that.

Who doesn't need to occasionally view two windows at once? Is that not one of the affordances that OSX offers. By the way, do I need to list all the feature of OSX that I do use for you not to assume I don't use them?

You are not talking about just viewing two windows at once. You are talking about a very particular way of doing so, which is the way you are used to. Everyone experiences this with all kinds of interfaces. If a new interface does not work that particular way, you have the options of: adapting yourself to the interface, adapting the interface to yourself (e.g. with third-party software), rejecting the interface, or complaining about the interface on message boards. I happen to believe that the former options are preferable to the latter.

And no, I do not need you to list anything. This is not a macho pissing match and I am not insulting your manhood. Use what works best for you.

I agree, but I'm still kind of an Mac noob so maybe I'm just doing it wrong. The two things that irk me most: having to hit that tiny triangle at the bottom right of the window to resize it (compare to Linux/etc window managers' shortcut of moving or resizing the nearest corner from anywhere within the window), and the seeming lack of fullscreen support in most apps, which really hurts on my tiny macbook screen.

This application is useful for resizing and moving: http://coderage-software.com/zooom/index.html

However, it's kind of ordinary that you have to pay $15 to get functionality that should be included in the WM.

I have no affiliation with this guy whatsoever but I just found this app and it's so amazing that I had to share it. It lets you 'cinch' windows side-by-side like in Windows 7, as well as easily maximize a window. I figured I couldn't be the only one looking for an OSX app like this..

Thanks for the tip! I've been using TwoUp for a while and have found it useful. This is even better.

Great find!

Here's a keyboard driven alternative that folks might be interested in as well: http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/

This is exactly what I've been looking for since I switched back to the Mac from Linux a few years ago. Thanks for the pointer!

This is quite possibly the best thing I have done to my mac.

Set it up like this and you will never forget the configuration:

http://zacharypinter.com/2009/06/15/keyboard-driven-window-m...

The only thing I changed is that I have the center window mapped to cmd+opt+ctrl+k. This is so you can quickly do a left side keyboard command and then center the narrower window. I do this because sometimes windows look funny open all the way on a wide screen monitor and you only want one window open in the think app.

I like it. It's actually very close to what I did with sawfish back in the day. Being a vim guy myself, I bound left/down/up/right to hjkl. I may steal some of your ideas as I experiment with my SizeUp bindings though.

I am glad you like the article but alas, I stand on the shoulder of giants as it is not my article. My only contribution is the addition of the screen centering method.

Ok, using pxlpshr suggestion, I just updated the website and screencast with a tip on how to better use Cinch with multiple displays: http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/cinch/

Thanks pxlpshr!

This is immensely useful. Would love to see support for custom drop-zones with custom actions. For example, allow the user to change the width from 1/2 screen to 1/3 or 1/4. Or even 1/2 width and 1/2 height instead of 1/2 width and full height.

+1 - I use a 30" monitor at work, half the screen is too much. But I'd love to be able to split it into thirds, with the top target area being the middle third.

Probably the single greatest flaw of OS X, from my perspective, is how it renders large monitors so much less effective than two medium size monitors - nobody I know would prefer a 30" monitor to two (2) 24" Monitors - If someone could only write a windowing manager that converted a single large monitor to two simulated physical monitors, that would be a start. Even better would be to recognize you need to treat a 30" Monitor differently than a 17" Monitor from a windowing perspective.

That and get Terminal.app to actually _tile_ sanely. If I had a _single_ feature request for 10.7 - it would be a window manager that gave you sane tiling capability.

Arguably in the Windows world this is even worse. The default reflex in Windows is to maximise every window you have. At least with on OSX the default way of making a window bigger is just to "zoom" it to a better size.

Also regarding tiling terminal.app you should really have a look at GNU Screen. You can use it to create multiple sessions in one window that are split in a 'sane' way.

Cinch is great. I've been using it for a couple days now and it's made managing windows easier on large screens.

If you're just looking for a proper maximize in OS X, wrongzoom[1] is a great free alternative. After installing, most apps will maximize and restore instead of zooming when you click the green button in the titlebar.

[1] http://github.com/spicyj/wrongzoom. For Snow Leopard 64-bit support, build from http://github.com/nesty/wrongzoom instead.

Hey, people actually look at what I write! I didn't realize my version isn't 64-bit compatible. I'll see if I can fix it in my fork later today.

I use the Zooom/2 (http://coderage-software.com/zooom/) windows resizer since long time. Not W7-like but it's great 'anyway'.

I've been a SizeUp user for about 8 months, and use it every day. The Cinch/SizeUp developer has been responsive and open to user feedback and suggestions. Highly recommended.

Since this sort of Window management stuff is clearly possible, why isn't it also possible to have XMonad or something lime it do DWM on OS X (or Windows, for that matter)?

This is great, I've been wanting something like this for OS X for awhile.

It would also be nice if you could make windows snap to various edges, as well as offer a virtual "pane-splitter" to adjust the dimensions of stacked windows (and maybe group certain windows together, though I suppose Spaces could be used for that)

Anything like this that will run in a linux windows manager?

If you run a tiling window manager like AwesomeWM or Xmonad it's the default.

Great!

A little difficulty with multiple monitors, but workable.

one of the guys I work with had a good suggestion that's working well for me. Nudge the monitor down just a tad so there's a small 'wall' in the top (or bottom) corner to catch...

http://grab.by/1kfI

FYI to other readers, Cinch won't trigger itself if you drag a window to the "seam" between monitors on your desktop if you're using multi-monitors. It only appears to trigger if you drag to an edge on your desktop.

But pxlpshr's fix above appears to work fine. :)

it works with dual monitors but you just have to be very delicate and move the mouse extremely slow which defeats the purpose.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com