from Hacker News

Loop: Open-source macOS window manager

by edu on 6/18/24, 1:35 PM with 90 comments

  • by jasonrm on 6/20/24, 6:57 AM

    Open-source, except for the "new framework used to make Loop's settings window", so don't expect to build from source.

    https://github.com/MrKai77/Loop/issues/406

  • by tiffanyh on 6/20/24, 3:54 AM

    I always love indie apps and never want to discourage creators.

    Some unsolicited advice though … given macOS in a few month time will have Window Tiling natively built in - you might want to articulate how Loop is different/better.

    https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/12/macos-sequoia-window-ti...

  • by xs83 on 6/20/24, 4:58 AM

    I have been a long term Rectangle user on Mac and a WinSplitRevolution for decades on Windows, my biggest preference as a developer is for it to be keyboard centric.

    I love the use of a numpad as a positional reference for the screen.

    Hotkey + NumPad 6 = right side of screen full Hotkey + NumPad 5 = full screen Hotkey + Numpad 1 = Bottom left Quarter

    Repeated presses of these cycle between Half, 3rd and Quarter

    This reminds me of the Crysis UI which I still love as a weapon / armor switcher :)

  • by krembo on 6/20/24, 7:17 AM

    I really like Divvy for window management which takes a different approach from most of the others

    https://apps.apple.com/fi/app/divvy-window-manager/id4138575...

  • by jerieljan on 6/20/24, 7:52 AM

    Swish is the one that solved this problem for me. Feels similar to Loop and Penc, but is primarily trackpad-driven, but also customizable with modifier keys for additional functions. I wish it had more updates, but at least its core features have worked reliably.

    You don't even press the keyboard to start, but you position the mouse over the window's titlebar and just use two-finger swipes. The website's homepage does a better job demonstrating it under a minute.

    https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/

  • by fizlebit on 6/20/24, 5:33 AM

    Any chance of a window manager that lets you alt tab between windows instead of between applications. So Alt-tab-tab-tab takes you 3 windows ago, not 3 applications ago, or worse 1 application ago and 2 unrelated windows of that application?

    Man I really mis application menus being at the top of windows and being able to layer different windows from different applications in any order that I wish. VNC screen connections just make it into an even worse jumble.

  • by edu on 6/18/24, 1:36 PM

    Just found about it on X[1], and I'm quite impressed for how well it looks and work. A great improvement over Rectangle and other options I've tried at some point.

    1. https://x.com/JaceThings/status/1802996092616786259

  • by rcarmo on 6/20/24, 9:11 AM

    FYI, I've been keeping a list here: https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/window_managers

  • by Scotrix on 6/20/24, 10:04 AM

    Will test it and see if it’s a replacement for Magnet.

    I have another very annoying issue with 3 screens which recover from energy saving after sleep slightly delayed and screw up my window positioning once in a while where all open windows end up on the main screen (I’m using spaces + a single desktop for all screens).

    Does anyone know about a solution / tool here which rearranges windows on a previous saved state prior to sleep and waits until all screens are back detected before arranging them again?

  • by rpgbr on 6/20/24, 2:32 PM

    Am I the only one who gave up and embraced the messy windows spread all over the desktop? (Used to use Rectangle.) It's kinda liberating, tbh.

  • by stared on 6/20/24, 7:17 AM

    I am a big fan of Divvy (https://mizage.com/divvy/)—while both dated and paid, it has a wonderful feature of a visual tile map you can use. In all other cases I know, there are a bunch of shortcuts to make a window upper-top or something. But in many cases, it is not enough, as I need fine-grain control.

  • by 10729287 on 6/19/24, 6:32 AM

    Very impressive. I've been a very happy rectangle user for few years now but this new app is way more intuitive and visual. Good job guys ! Would love to be able to control the max size of the "maximize" behavior as I like to have the app in-focus to only fill 50% of my screen. Again, good job guys, it's very impressive and it already replaced Rectangle here !

  • by jiveturkey on 6/20/24, 5:43 PM

    more of a window resizing plugin, not a "window manager" at all. i guess that's what the mac users have gotten to calling these things though.

    how is it different than BetterSnap and the army of similar tools? and more important, how is it better. is the differentiator that it is the only open source such plugin? these advantages should be highlighted in the README, and the screen movie thing should show them. i only see half screen tiling demoed, this has existed for a long time with any number of tools.

    also how will it differ from sequoia.

    AFAICT the unique thing here is the radial menu. i do like that a lot.

  • by adamomada on 6/20/24, 7:13 AM

    A similar mouse/trackpad-based window manager: https://deniz.co/penc/

  • by csmeyer on 6/20/24, 12:19 PM

    How does this compare to magnet? Magnet has worked well for me for years, although recently I was trying to clean up my menu bar and realized there was no way to remove the menu bar icon. I’ll ask for some advice on that here actually since there are some Mac experts, is there some terminal incantation to remove a menu bar item?

  • by freeqaz on 6/20/24, 3:48 PM

    Previous thread from about 2 weeks ago on a related topic (another tiling WM)[0]. I'm a big fan of the i3-like modes. What is the draw for people towards a window manager like this?

    0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40596689

  • by ptdorf on 6/20/24, 3:49 PM

    Pass. https://www.hammerspoon.org/ is a true hacker's toolbox, not just for window management. And all scripted with Lua.

  • by rco8786 on 6/20/24, 1:38 PM

    Is this strictly mouse controlled? I use Divvy with a set of keyboard shortcuts to toss my windows around, and would be open to exploring a newer option...but not if it requires me to use the mouse.

  • by swah on 6/20/24, 10:06 AM

    Very good implementation, congrats! I mostly use a few commands from Raycast these days (next display is super cool) but will try this one for dragging.

  • by gigatexal on 6/20/24, 7:53 AM

    i love that there's work on this happening -- there are a lot of projects in this space: magnet, rectangle, yabai, this one, others I've forgotten to name (sorry!)

    i just can't wait until i can get tiling like i3 has on linux

    stacking, tabbed, infinite auto tiling, all keyboard driven with some mouse support all things i miss on macos :(

  • by outime on 6/20/24, 10:32 AM

    The title should be edited, this is only partially open-source.

  • by ferrantim on 6/20/24, 11:37 AM

    Gonna have to try this. Been using bettersnaptool for years.

  • by evadk8 on 6/22/24, 3:23 PM

    yet another wm but I use yabai.

  • by luckman212 on 6/18/24, 5:19 PM

    Been waiting for 1.0.0 for a bit. This is super nice!