Comment by piskov | Hacker News Reader

Comment by piskov | Hacker News Reader

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You don’t get it

Spaces are not for fullscreen but for basically virtual desktops i3 linux style

Here is superior user experience:

1. Install moom. Its keyboard windows arrangement is second to none. Its two-step tiling is a killer. Ie caps-a to show a popup with all the shortcuts, then “a” letter for vertical 1/3 of the screen. Or s for middle 2/3. Or q for top left third — you can assign any letter for any portion of the screen.

2. Use option1-6 to switch between desktops

3. For example alt-4 is a desktop where you have all on one screen (suppose you have 6k xdr like i do): safari, mail, messages, telegram, hey email, reeder

alt-3 is your productivity desktop where you have things, calendar, basecamp, notes, ia writer

alt-1 and 2 is for your main work like rider ide or what have you

Alt-5 for your remote stuff like remote desktop, servers, what have you

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So with this you have a mental model of where everything is always and instant switching to it. Want to see your todos and notes? Alt-3. Want to see your browser and messaging? Alt-4. You get it.

Moom is better than tiling manager for screens like 6k 32” xdr.

Otherwise tiling managers are perfectly fine. For instance on windows I use komorebi

This is similar to how I use Spaces. I haven't hotkeyed desktops, but each one is designated for a particular task or theme. The concept extends further with a secondary display, with the primary monitors' spaces being assigned "main task" duty while the secondary displays' spaces get "aux task" duty — so e.g. IDEs and browser windows immediately relevant to the task at hand go on a main monitor desktop while secondary display desktops are used for things like chat, music, and documentation.

This is a core part of my workflow and is one of the reasons why I would have a difficult time using Windows as my primary OS: its virtual desktop support is far too weak in comparison. It can't even switch desktops independently per-display.

Like I’ve said, on windows you have komorebi that does exactly that

I tried to live like this for a while but found I could not separate applications into spaces

I would try setting up a space for, eg, all my communication stuff. But suddenly I’d need to drag-and-drop an image from my image editor into Slack. Or I’d want to drag a graphic from Safari into Final Cut Pro. Or any number of cross-workspace operations

How do you handle this with spaces? Do you initiate the drag, tap the space hot key, then drop?

> Do you initiate the drag, tap the space hot key, then drop?

Yes.

That’s why with trackpads I enable three fingers for dragging, so I don’t need to press anything

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Also if you drag your file and hold on app’s icon in dock, it will show that app

This is exactly what I do -- but I have space split up by persona (Personal, work 1, work 2, Play), and then each space is managed with Moom. Love it.

You will still run into shit when one application instance is used in two spaces

Finder, chromes, etc. it will cause automatic switching.

Also, cmd-tab doesn’t have a filtered mode for the active space

Cmd-~ actually works better when using stage manager, because it goed through all active windows across all apps

In system settings for desktop and dock you may want to experiment with:

1. When switch into an application switch to a space with open Windows for the application.

2. Automatically rearrange space is based on most recent use.

Tried everything

Nothing provides structure, and separation

Ideally I’d just run 6 users in 6 spaces

The whole cmdtab shouldn’t show applications without windows nor als with no window in the current space

I'm really confused - I downloaded Moom because of this comment, but can't find a feature to switch Spaces. Am I missing something?

Moom is not for switching spaces.

You can use the app in in this post for that.

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Or if you want the animation, switching is built-in on macos

What you need to do:

1. Create 6 spaces. This is a crucial first step.

2. Go to system settings — keyboard — keyboard shortcuts… — mission control — expand mission control — manually set “switch to desktop 1” to alt-1; rinse-repeat till 6.

3. Go to system settings — desktop and dock — disable “automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use”

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