Organizing computer windows

← Back to Kevin's homepagePublished: 2022 November 13

I find it satisfying to have a large physical desk, where the top surface lets me spread out the stuff I’m working on in various piles, with plenty of drawers to hide stuff away for later.

The physical affordances of printed documents, file folders, and small cardboard boxes are exceptional: They can be quickly moved, stacked/unstacked, and strewn about without conscious thought or precision motor control.

Unfortunately, the same isn’t true for virtual documents and file folders. Most MacOS windows require substantial mental effort to rearrange and manipulate — both to visually locate and then to precisely move the cursor to one of a few “safe” regions where the window can be manipulated. Even determining where a window can be picked up is hard, as fashionable minimalism has eliminated visual cues and interactive widgets like tabs have invaded the formerly sovereign title bar regions.

Can you tell exactly where this window is safe to “pick up”?

It’s even harder when the window isn’t focused (click to toggle), which is the typical case when you are trying to move several windows at once.

I can tolerate these limitations on my small laptop screen, where I usually just switch between two fullscreen windows. However, on a larger monitor (or when using multiple), the limitations of MacOS windows manager grates on my nerves. As I mindlessly try to arrange two windows to be side-by-side, I can’t help but recall Nielsen’s 1996 Anti-Mac Interface:

The dark side of a direct manipulation interface is that you have to directly manipulate everything

How I organize my windows

Thankfully, there are dozens of fellow nerds upset with this status quo, and some of them have done the grueling, thankless work of reverse engineering and patching up MacOS internals to provide a set of tools to get closer to that tangible “it’s fast to shuffle working papers around on a surface and throw the rest into grouped boxes to pull back out later” physical ideal.

Here are my requirements:

Many of these requirements come from fond memories of using XMonad on Linux in the late 2000’s. Basically I just want that, but on Mac (because I also want battery life, to drag my signature onto PDFs, and the ability to print).

A concrete example

(Note: the following would be much clearer as a screen recording or animation, which I’ll backfill eventually.)

To give a concrete example of the workflow this supports, here are some hotkeys:

Imagine I have two side-by-side monitors with no open windows. The left monitor shows an empty group 1 and the right monitor group 2.

Say, I’d like to build a web app, so I open up my code editor on the left monitor (group 1), which automatically becomes fullscreen.

I then focus the other monitor (alt k), and open some documentation to review while I’m writing code. I can use alt j/k to switch focus between monitors.

When I’m ready to see my app-in-progress, I focus the right monitor (alt j/k again), have it display an empty new group (alt 3), and open up a terminal and web browser there, which will automatically resize to evenly fill the screen.

I can then work on the code (on the left monitor) and see both the app and log output (on the two windows on the right monitor) simultaneously.

If I want to switch back to the documentation, I can use alt 2 to bring it up fullscreen instantly.

I find it quite helpful to have persistent groups like this — I can keep my music player on one group, slack and other chats in another one, etc.

How it’s implemented

The workflow described above is implemented with:

I have also been happy with Shortcat, which cleverly allows one to “click” on anything by typing a few characters and matching descriptions provided by the system accessibility APIs. This works particularly well in Chrome, and navigating the web via the keyboard this way can be substantially faster than dragging the mouse around. (It reminds me of the Conkeror Emacs-inspired web browser, another fond 00’s memory.)

TODO / notes

I’ve been using this system for about a month, and so far it works OK:

I suspect I’m close to the limit of what can be bolted on otherwise hacked onto a consumer-centric window manager.

At some point, I’d love to work with a team to explore more substantial ideas and designs that lean into windows as a foundational interface to to the computer. A window manager that, for example:

Defining the commands I want using Yabai

#!/Users/dev/.dotfiles/bin/bb
;;explicit path above because I can't figure out how to update Karabiner-Elements's PATH to find babashka via `env`.

(require '[clojure.java.shell :refer [sh]]
         '[cheshire.core :as json]
         '[clojure.core.match :refer [match]])

;;Space indexes aren't persistent, seems like MacOS rearranges them somehow.
;;So use labels s1, s2, ..., s10 for all spaces so they can have a consistent identity
;;Moving spaces between monitors tears the background =( https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai/issues/781


(def yabai
  "/opt/local/bin/yabai")

(def placeholder-space-label "s11")

(defn active-display-idx []
  (-> (sh yabai "-m" "query" "--displays" "--display" "mouse")
      :out
      (json/parse-string true)
      :index
      str))

(defn current-state
  []
  (let [spaces (->
                ;;yabai takes about 20--30ms to run
                (sh yabai "-m" "query" "--spaces")

                :out
                (json/parse-string true)
                (->> (map #(update % :display str))
                     (map #(assoc % :idx (str (:index %))))))]

    {:display->spaces (reduce (fn [m {:keys [idx display] :as space}]
                                (assoc-in m [display idx] space))
                              {} spaces)
     :spaces-by-label (into {} (map (juxt :label identity) spaces))}))


(defn focus-space!
  [idx]
  (sh yabai "-m" "space" "--focus" idx))


(defn focus-display!
  [idx]
  (sh yabai "-m" "display" "--focus" idx))


(defn move-space-to-display!
  [{:keys [display->spaces spaces-by-label]} space-label display-idx]
  (let [space (spaces-by-label space-label)
        old-display-idx (:display space)]
    (when (not= display-idx old-display-idx)
      (let [only-space-on-old-display? (= 1 (count (display->spaces old-display-idx)))]

        (when only-space-on-old-display?
          ;;have to put placeholder on old display first, so that moving the space to the new display always works.
          ;;there's no atomic space swapping in yabai yet: https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai/pull/555
          (prn "Space" space-label "is only space on" old-display-idx ", moving placeholder to take its place")
          (sh yabai "-m" "space" placeholder-space-label "--display" old-display-idx))

        ;;move space to new display
        (sh yabai "-m" "space" space-label "--display" display-idx)

        ;;if the space we're moving was visible, then swap whatever was on the target display to the old display.
        (when (:is-visible space)
          (let [new-display-visible-space-label (->> (display->spaces display-idx)
                                                     vals
                                                     (filter :is-visible)
                                                     first
                                                     :label)]
            (sh yabai "-m" "space" new-display-visible-space-label "--display" old-display-idx)))))))


(defn switch-to-space-on-active-display!
  "Switches current display to space and focuses it. If space is already visible on another display, swap the current space to that display"
  [state space-label]
  (let [display-idx (active-display-idx)]
    (move-space-to-display! state space-label display-idx)
    (focus-space! space-label)
    (focus-display! display-idx)))


(defn focused-space
  [state]
  (->> (vals (:spaces-by-label state))
       (filter :has-focus)
       first))


(defn toggle-stack!
  [state]
  (let [{:keys [idx type]} (focused-space state)]
    (sh yabai "-m" "config" "--space" idx "layout" (case type
                                                     "bsp" "stack"
                                                     "stack" "bsp"))))

(defn focus-window!
  [state next-or-prev]
  (let [{:keys [label type]} (focused-space state)]
    (case type
      "bsp"
      (or (= 0 (:exit (sh yabai "-m" "window" "--focus" next-or-prev)))
          (= 0 (:exit (sh yabai "-m" "window" "--focus" (case next-or-prev
                                                          "next" "first"
                                                          "prev" "last")))))
      "stack"
      (or (= 0 (:exit (sh yabai "-m" "window" "--focus" (str "stack." next-or-prev))))
          (= 0 (:exit (sh yabai "-m" "window" "--focus" (case next-or-prev
                                                          "next" "stack.first"
                                                          "prev" "stack.last"))))))))


(time ;;hmm, most commands are still on the order of 100ms, probably the query and json parsing...
  (let [state (current-state)]
    (match (vec *command-line-args*)
      ["info"]
      (clojure.pprint/pprint (current-state))

      ["active-display"]
      (prn (active-display-idx))

      ["switch-to-space" space-label]
      (switch-to-space-on-active-display! state space-label)

      ["toggle-stack"]
      (toggle-stack! state)

      ["focus-window" next-or-prev]
      (focus-window! state next-or-prev)

      :else
      (prn "Unknown: " *command-line-args*))))

System-wide keyboard shortcuts

;; See: https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo/blob/master/tutorial.md
;; Keys specified as physical ones (i.e., ignoring alternative keyboard layouts like colmak, dvorak, etc.)
;; update by running:
;;
;;     GOKU_EDN_CONFIG_FILE=~/.dotfiles/scripts/karabiner.edn goku

;; !  | means mandatory
;; #  | means optional
;; C  | left_command
;; T  | left_control
;; O  | left_option
;; S  | left_shift
;; F  | fn
;; Q  | right_command
;; W  | right_control
;; E  | right_option
;; R  | right_shift
;; !! | mandatory command + control + optional + shift (hyper)
;; ## | optional any

{:applications {:chrome ["^com\\.google\\.Chrome$"]
                :emacs ["^org\\.gnu\\.Emacs$"]}

 :templates {:yabai "/opt/local/bin/yabai -m %s"
             :yabaik "/Users/dev/.dotfiles/bin/yabaik %s"}

 :main [{:des "Caps lock to control"
         :rules [[:##caps_lock :left_control]]}

        {:des "Yabai"
         :rules [
                 [:!Oj [:yabaik "focus-window next"]]
                 [:!Ok [:yabaik "focus-window prev"]]

                 [:!Ou [:yabai "display --focus prev || /opt/local/bin/yabai -m display --focus last"]]
                 [:!Oi [:yabai "display --focus next || /opt/local/bin/yabai -m display --focus first"]]

                 [:!OSu [:yabai "window --display prev || /opt/local/bin/yabai -m window --display last"]]
                 [:!OSi [:yabai "window --display next || /opt/local/bin/yabai -m window --display first"]]

                 [:!Ospacebar [:yabai "space --rotate 90"]]
                 [:!Otab [:yabai "display --focus recent"]]

                 [:!Oy [:yabaik "toggle-stack"]]

                 [:!O1 [:yabaik "switch-to-space s1"]]
                 [:!O2 [:yabaik "switch-to-space s2"]]
                 [:!O3 [:yabaik "switch-to-space s3"]]
                 [:!O4 [:yabaik "switch-to-space s4"]]
                 [:!O5 [:yabaik "switch-to-space s5"]]
                 [:!O6 [:yabaik "switch-to-space s6"]]
                 [:!O7 [:yabaik "switch-to-space s7"]]
                 [:!O8 [:yabaik "switch-to-space s8"]]
                 [:!O9 [:yabaik "switch-to-space s9"]]
                 [:!O0 [:yabaik "switch-to-space s10"]]

                 [:!OS1 [:yabai "window --space s1"]]
                 [:!OS2 [:yabai "window --space s2"]]
                 [:!OS3 [:yabai "window --space s3"]]
                 [:!OS4 [:yabai "window --space s4"]]
                 [:!OS5 [:yabai "window --space s5"]]
                 [:!OS6 [:yabai "window --space s6"]]
                 [:!OS7 [:yabai "window --space s7"]]
                 [:!OS8 [:yabai "window --space s8"]]
                 [:!OS9 [:yabai "window --space s9"]]
                 [:!OS0 [:yabai "window --space s10"]]

                 ]}


        {:des "Remap emacs-muscle-memory to similar keys outside of emacs"
         :rules [
                 ;;arrows
                 [:!Tl :down_arrow :!emacs]
                 [:!Tr :up_arrow :!emacs]
                 [:!Ty :right_arrow :!emacs]
                 [:!Tn :left_arrow :!emacs]

                 [:!Tu :escape :!emacs]

                 [:!Cr :page_up :chrome]
                 [:!Cl :page_down :chrome]

                 ]}]
}