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Comment by masihyeganeh | Hacker News Reader

I don't get it. Why anyone would need to use tile manager in macOS? How often do you need to have apps side by side? In most cases, just making the app full screen and switch between windows with 4 finger swipes does the job beautifully. Enlighten me please

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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.

If you ask me, this will cause more distraction than being productive. In your example, would Slack be needed all the time, so it would worth keeping a quarter of the screen? Then IDEs for example have a lot of menus, panes, buttons and everything. You would have much less space for the actual code if you not have it in full screen mode. It might be personal style, but I find having 3 full screen windows and swtiching between them (with the most used, browser, in the middle) with a quick swipe is the most productive.

> would Slack be needed all the time

For my work - mostly yes. If it's not needed, it's not there.

> Then IDEs for example have a lot of menus, panes, buttons and everything.

I've got them all closed. Whatever panes are needed, they're only open then.

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?

No no, I can't find a reason to use a highly configurable tiling manager tool for that. Something like Moom will do the job. But then I can't find a reason to have more than two windows in a viewport

That depends the size of the viewport

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

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