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Comment by Tagbert | Hacker News Reader

For Mac OS users who care about it, we usually install one of the third-party window management tools: Moom, BetterSnapTool, and Magnet are popular options.

I usually forget that there are even rudimentary tools built in.

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i've just started using amethyst; it's a tiling window manager. it's not as powerful as the alternative yabai, but amethyst doesn't require you to disable system integrity protection or modify system files. shockingly simple out-of-the-box experience, very gentle learning curve, trivial to enable or disable on-demand. highly recommend.

I was coming to say exactly this. This is just a criticism of someone not familiar with the Mac ecosystem. I use Moom myself and it's been perfectly adequate for my (Macbook) needs.

That's fair, I have been reluctant to dig into the ecosystem.

This isn't exactly rational, but something about having to install amphetamine to disable system sleep really set me on edge about the MacOS ecosystem. It just felt kind of aggressive: like Apple wanted to ensure that I had somebody other than them to blame for a dead battery, and they wanted this so badly that they removed functionality that is a system setting literally everywhere else.

It made me afraid to let this MacBook contribute to my "for problem W on platform X use config Y on app Z" problem any further. I can't put my finger on it precisely, but something about Apple's design decisions makes me uncomfortable.

My experience has been that tools like this built on top of the accessibility API are laggy and cause jerky window movement. Has that improved any recently?

I use Magnet and I've found it works well, maybe you are pickier than I am (but I'm pretty picky).

I've used Moom and BetterSnaptool and have not run into any jerky movement. neither one required any special security level to install, either.

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