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Comment by oidar | Hacker News Reader

I use the open source system tray app Rectangle for this.

Yeah, there are some third party addons, but the built in window management is appallingly primitive. It’s just bad.

Isn't that basically why you get Apple stuff in the first place, to have primitive but well-working things? They're not exactly famous for catering to professionals or people who want a customized experience.

No that is not "basically why you get Apple stuff in the first place". I have never in my life seen either Apple or its fan base market their products this way. That is a post hoc rationalisation for their operating system missing quite a basic feature.

Really? "It just works" isn't something you've ever heard from someone who uses Apple products? Or "I might not be able to change X, but at least I know what's there works well"?

But it doesn't work. It isn't present. There's basically no window management.

I mean, it is present. Just because it's not as advanced as you'd like it to be, doesn't mean it's not there. You can move windows, you can cycle between different active windows, you can minimize windows and so on. That's window management.

Yes, super basic, but so is most features of Apple software. Simple, basic and without customization, just like how many Apple users like their software.

Stage manager was a mistake.

Uh, Mission Control, formerly Exposé? Spaces? Full screen windows? The tiling shortcuts that appear when you hover the green window button?

If you don't use them, that's fine, but they do exist and they are well-used.

What does "It just works" have to do with "primitive" (your word) things? Besides, when was the last time Apple even used that turn of phrase?

> They're not exactly famous for catering to professionals

If Mac OS wasn't famous for catering to professionals for a full decade, there would not be any Apple Computers inc. Of course the point still stands that Apple is famous nowadays for its phones, but macOS is still seen by many as the golden standard in window management. That it achieves its reputation without window snapping is a detail.

I can only assume the people who find it to be the gold standard have never used any other window manager and/or have very low requirements/APM.

I work in an environment where they won't let me download any applications like this!

That, to me, seems like an employment problem.

Can confirm Rectangle works really well and consumes close to none ram or cpu. You can even disable it from the menu bar so it feels very native

Is it like Grid or whatever?

It supports halves (horizontal/vertical), thirds (vertical), quarters (vertical or 2x2), and sixths (3x2), plus some variations (move to edge, "almost maximize", bigger, smaller, etc). Also supports variations on those, eg. "middle two quarters" or "right two thirds" if that's your thing.

I have an ultrawide external display, and keyboard shortcuts to quickly tile two or three windows at once is where it's at, though it also supports dragging the window to an edge for various snap effects.

Installed ;)

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