Boost your MacOS PRODUCTIVITY with Amethyst | Tiling Window Manager
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- Опубликовано: 26 июн 2024
- Learn how to use Amethyst - a tiling window manager for MacOS - to boost your productivity.
With Amethyst you can get precise window layouts on every desktop and screen with just a few keystrokes.
Move between windows, move between spaces, move between screens - all from your keyboard.
#macos #productivity #shortcuts
Twitter: / tech_crafted
TIMESTAMPS
===========
0:00 - Introducing Tiling Window Managers
1:55 - Basic Window Management
5:10 - Installing Amethyst
6:36 - Amethyst Basics
9:45 - Moving Windows
10:45 - More Layouts
12:52 - Floating Windows
15:45 - Shifting Spaces
LINKS
===========
► Amethyst - ianyh.com/amethyst/
► Magnet - magnet.crowdcafe.com/
► XMonad - xmonad.
GEAR
=====
Camera: geni.us/Rbtab
Microphone: geni.us/O33Li
Audio interface: geni.us/eIov
Laptop: geni.us/BZoek0
Main Monitor: geni.us/k0DpoA
Second Monitor: geni.us/ydjX
iPad: geni.us/H0qJ
iPad Keyboard: geni.us/8uBg
AFFILIATE LINKS
==============
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Giving Macos a try again (coming from Linux and Windows) and am still bewildered by how primitive the native window management is. Thank you for the most detailed and useful video on mac window management i've seen so far.
I genuinely wonder what do you use on Windows?
To me it's the worst for this
What so you use for windows tiling window manager? I tried looking for one but there was nothing.
@@wolloify windows has native shortcuts to achieve it, not that advanced as Linux based ones but they work better than mac natively
custom keyboard shortcuts for pretty much any app built right in to the os? Not sure windows does that
@@workflowinmind I'll give you some windows shortcuts I use every day.
Win+Arrow - for snapping/minimizing windows.
Win+D - Minimize all apps. Do again to maximize.
Win+Shift+Arrow - move window between desktops.
Win+Ctrl+Left/Right Arrow - move between virtual desktops.
Win+Tab - show all windows, show virtual desktops, allows you to drag windows between virtual desktops.
And obviously intuitive window dragging/snapping with the mouse.
I'm not saying Mac is bad, I'm actually considering getting one, and preparing myself for a shock to my workflow as a Windows "amateur power user" :)
Shift+Meta key is the prefix.
J, K - moving between windows
H, L - resizing windows
space - cycle between layouts
d - fullscreen
- to make a different window the main window
Ctrl-J, Ctrl-K - move windows
This walk though is great. I love that you started by showing the built-in MacOS features as a base and then moved onto Amethyst. I've been using Amethyst for a couple months and have found it challenging to remember the keyboard shortcuts but for some reason as you go over them in your video they seem to make sense and be more intuitive than I thought.
I'm 100% windows 11 extremist, and I'm forced to work in macos. This is exactly what I was looking for. Well done my friend!
Very helpful, thanks for the vid! Really glad you highlighted the security aspects. Look forward to exploring more of your videos!
I just got a 49 inch ultrawide LG monitor for my MacBook Pro. It was soon clear that I needed a tiling window manager, but there are so many to choose from. Your video helped me pick Amethyst, and get started using it. The video contained just enough info to be very useful, but not an overwhelming amount, and it showed helpful examples. Thank you!
Really useful, thanks a lot, Rob. I never have used a tiling window manager, because I didn't really take the time to understand them, but you made it approachable and easy to understand. Really enjoying these tutorial videos (although I also did enjoy the honest product reviews tbh).
I will still review products but only those I’ve bought myself. I’m particularly interested in reviewing things I bought that I ended up really regretting, of which there are many 😩
Glad to see you back on RUclips!
This video is exactly what I needed now.
Thumps Up!
Greetings from Germany.
Superb presentation of the main features of a program I did not know existed on a Mac. Using dwm and hating the window management of macOS, I've been using rectangle so far. Amethyst, however, resembles much more what I'm used to on a Linux pc. I also like the way spaces can be used like dwm's workspaces.
Thanks for making me aware of this program and also for making extremely useful videos on how to use the Mac productively.
With Amethyst I find going back and forth between Linux and Mac much easier. Glad you found this one useful.
Rob! We're glad you're back! Thank you for all the awesome content!!
Thank you for making this. I sadly have to switch to using a mac at work from my Regolith linux setup I've had for the last 3 years and it helped to see an overview. For anyone tiling window manager curious, Regolith linux is the most superior OS + distro for productivity I've ever found and is quite easy to use.
Great video. Really well thought out and presented. Thank you
Awesome video. Thanks a lot Rob 🙌🏻 Really like your content. Keep up the great work 💪🏻
A video packed with good information. Thank you so much!
From starting till end, every second of this video was useful
Thanks mate
I recently got a Mac Mini for Logic Pro X, among other things. I use i3 on linux as my main tile manager. This is so fluid, and I enjoy using vim keys. This has been a seamless transition. Thanks
I’ve been a Magnet user for a while now but missed having an auto-layout feature. Amethyst fills that hole perfectly. Thanks for another great video!
Add a hyperkey with with karbiner and your navigation can be reduced to 1 or 2 commands. Hyper + arrows. Hyper + f = fullscreen etc key combo’s with 3 modifiers will slow you down a lot. Great video!
Finally, I found a free tiling window manager for Mac. Thanks. In case someone has problems with iTerm2, edit your terminal profile and set the Space option to Current Space.
Excellent! Glad you are back! You always cover things that others don’t and I like that you cover things power users would want to know.
Thanks Rob. I idly searched for macOS tiling window manager and found Amethyst. I normally dislike video tutorials, but this was excellent.
This is awesome. As Linux and Mac user, this was something I was missing in Mac. I did not know you can bind an app to a workspace like I do with i3 on Linux. Thank you so much!
Same on my case 😃
eyyy a fellow mac and linux user. usually u just get mac or windows or linux and windows people not often u get someone that uses mac and linux. really liked dualbooting linux on my macbook before the silicon chips came out. now i just carry 2 laptops cause i can
I recently switched to macos from swaywm. But it seems like it still has a lot to do to match window management of i3/sway. I don't see anyway to tab or stack full screen windows in a single desktop/workspace.
Same!!
Great content again. Thank you for this unique content!
This is great, thank you for the detailed review.
Very helpful video. Thank you!
glad you're back ❤️
I’m glad to be back.
Brilliant! Thank you, Rob, I was certainly missing something like Amethyst since I've got 4k monitor last summer, so now routine tasks are going to be accomplished much faster. It's one of those great little gems I always loved Macs for in a Classic era.
A small notice: as a long time Mac user, every time I hear 'Alt', it' always makes me do a mental translation, as this key is called 'Option' in the Mac part of the world since the very beginning ;)
Amazing video, thank you for sharing. I found it very intuitive, switching from magnet to amethyst
Thanks, this was great!
Hugely useful. Thanks.
Very useful! Thank you very much. So far I was playing around with Rectangle but I figured it was time to learn a tiling wm. +1
Coming from Linux and i3 I found this very useful, thank you!
Love your content!
Thank you for showing the shortcut key, because I am a visual learning type. 🎉
This is a life saver...I was struggling to setup yabai but it was just too complex
great video. I'm trying to use this amethyst right now. It is a little buggy. But ok, let's see in the future. Thanks for the video!
Thank you Rob!
Being a maintainer for i3 (and i3-gaps) and switching to Mac looking to get a somehow familiar setup I really appreciated this video.
Thanks! That means a lot - I love i3!
Been using linux for 12 years and now I work for a company that requires using mac. It's really annoying not having control over such basic stuff.
This is really helpful.
im monad for years on linux ...now I have a MacBook Pro and needed something ...this looks like the one..
thanks mate
Pretty useful content, thanks a lot (:
as a SWE with two 4k monitors, this is perfect! Thank you@
Thank You!!!
Great video -- love the mic 🙂
Currently using Hammerspoon (very primitive but I was used to it), and this looks much better.
PS: Ctrl-up didn't work for me until I enabled it (I used F3 normally). Also I didn't have the assign to Desktop on my options until I enabled something else - dunno what. Finally, macOS calls them desktops not spaces nor workspaces (they used to have spaces which were topologically connected like screens are).
As you can tell I'm still tweaking. I'm also still using port, so will switch to homebrew when I can.
A tad long, but really useful video. Thanks man, I was a linux user and so far, mac seemed boring and slow. You are getting me to start liking it.
Thank you.
I just switched from Linux, and this really helps.
Amazing presentation. As a long time yabai user (read sufferer), I instantly deleted all that noise after your video. Team Amethyst ftw
Thanks a lot great overview! I'm sold.
Btw seems like this 16:20 is now solved
Briliant!
Interesting for sure, but I think I’ll stick with yabai. Yabai with SIP disabled just adds so much more to my workflow (instant space switching, hold a key to move or resize windows, proper borders, opacity changes and so on)
Check rectangle ,Its awesome !
I have a long flight coming up so I’ve downloaded to Thai try out.
I have no need to see the content before upvoting. You covering a WM is worthy enough.
I’ve developed that love of messing about with window managers that seems afflict tech people occasionally.
VIM commands to move around 🤩🤩🤩
Very good explanation. Unfortunately I cannot get it to do what you say it can do. Back to rectangle...
I'd like to begin by saying it's an awesome Amethyst presentation.
I've been using it for some time now but I'm still trying to figure out if it's useful or not. I'm not a fullscreen app user, and never have been. Other than when I'm using Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro, or ZBrush, apps that make sense to run in fullscreen mode, other than that, I don't get this workflow. Yes, I mean in macOS. Web browsing for me is nonsense to be tiled.
I could say that probably another use for it could be on terminal emulators but that would be another discussion too. I've been an iTerm user for some time but no more. Terminal, the default terminal emulator on macOS lacks at least 2 features and because of that I started to use Alacritty and/or kitty. By that I felt the need of tmux and tmux changed everything. You will get the point if you know already what I'm talking about or when you get there.
Thanks
Thanks very much! Much appreciated.
Nice vid. I'd love to see some shortcuts for Mac, since Apple released the app for the platform
I've been working on some interesting automation for Mac stuff with a mix of AppleScript, Automator, Shortcuts, HammerSpoon and the StreamDeck.
@@tech_craft nice, looking forward to it
Is there a way to disable “opening app in space #2” when I am on an external monitor ? I have an ultra wide I don’t use spaces on it
they should add an option to disable the slow animations when switching desktops
I’ve been using yabai for a long time but this convinced me to give amethyst a try. I love yabai but configuration and setup can be a hassle, you’re sort of fighting the OS all the time.
Would love to see a video going over XMonad similarly!
You might have seen it already but Derek at DistroTube has some excellent XMonad content: ruclips.net/video/3noK4GTmyMw/видео.html
@@tech_craft yeah I have! Would still love to see yours as well 😬
@@Perrolini I'm looking into ArchARM with XMonad on the RaspberryPi at the moment. I think that would make a nice video.
@@tech_craft yes that would be awesome!
I'm waiting for my Mac for my new job, and as a long time Linux and i3wm user, I really hope that this app can make me feel at thome
It’s definitely not as feature-packed as i3/xmonad but it’s easy to set up and gives you a good core set of features to play with.
If you’re an i3 user and you are okay with disabling SIP, then yabai gives you more options and will feel more familiar.
I think I'll be OK with disabling SIP, but not the company since it's a work machine 😆
is there a way to restore the switch to desktop 2 and 3's option's? they seem to be gone now.
I have not found a way to focus floating windows with amethyst, is it possible to do so?
Please do a little video on the latest beta feature, support for custom config file in your home directory. ~/amethyst.yml. Maybe share your configuration too. I think this could be a very interesting feature going forward, especially if/when they will support XDG based directories so you can get your file the hell out of your home directory 😂
find a certain lag or flicker when changing spaces using amethyst . I love the window management when I operate with multiple windows , but I don't like it takes me full screen when I open only a single application. Is there any way to stop this
And what does the window resize interval do ??
Danke!
thanks! very useful video. beside my mac i use a linux laptop with arco linux and xmonad. i like the feature to throw a window to another space by numbers shortcut on the linux machine very much and i always missed it on my mac. i use rectangle a lot, and its fine, but it wont be able to get a window to a different space by number, so i always looked for something to get me this on the mac. and now i found your video, i already subscribed to your channel in the past, but i havent watched all your videos, i wish, i had done this :)
Thanks for the support! I really appreciate it. If you like XMonad you might also like Yabai for the Mac.
@@tech_craft Thanks for the advice, for me is amethyst perfectly adequate cause i dont want to disable the SIP for installation Yabai. But again, thank you very much, i like your channel and your work!
Here from i3wm rice... I've been used macOS for years and I ever thought about something like this, but I've never knew it was possible. Thank you, now I can continue to use macOS on my macbook instead of dual boot with linux🤣🤣
It’s one thing that drives me mad - constantly moving overlapped windows around/. Looks like this app (with the help of this video) can help me fix that
This is brilliant, thanks Rob. I am curios how you use a 5k2k screen for your dev workflow.
My usual setup is three columns, with the editor in the middle, docs to the left, and a terminal to the right.
I'll often have something like entr running in the terminal to automatically run tests/builds etc as the source changes. If I'm doing web work, I might swap the terminal for a live reload window showing the output.
Quick question (and sorry if I'm not wording this correctly). While in a two-pane setup, any advice on how to move my main window (positioned on left side) the the right side? I've had no issue setting up my keyboard shortcut to have the focused window go to the main window position, but no luck creating a command to have the window to the right side.
There's no explicit shortcut to move the main window. Instead you'll have to focus on the main window and then move the focused window.
can you have true linux style focus follows mouse especially on a multi screen setup?
You can certainly enable focus follows mouse. I can't speak to how well it works on multi-screen setups because I very rarely work with more than one screen. From reading around on the Amethyst issue tracker it seems there are still some rough edges with focus follow stemming from the fact that the developer doesn't use that feature himself.
Awesome , an alternate to Stay which is a paid app , can Amethyst launch a bunch of apps and apply the designated layout??
Sadly not. That's a feature I love from my xmonad setup.
Tiles is like Magnet but much better, with animations and a better UI overall. Also, it's free.
Check Onemenu form Marko!
I have tried Amethyst and the only thing that bothers me, is the amount of keys I have to press. If I could find I way to map like ctrl+alt+shift to a specific key like caps lock for example, that would be great. I think this can be done in Karabiner but I haven’t looked into it yet.
It's definitely possible to create shorter mappings using BetterTouch Tool so I imagine Karabiner can do the same.
Yep, there are a few Hyper implementations easily found for Karabiner. That plus HammerSpoon is my current manual tiling set up.
Is it possible to get rid of window decoration/boarders? On my i3 i have a 1px border around windows, thats it, and how i like it!
Sadly not with Amethyst. I think I'm correct in saying that removing borders means turning off SIP and Amethyst doesn't have a mode for that. You could look at Yabai which has more features but requires SIP to be turned off.
This is an good option but still nothing beats Fancy Zones from WIndows :(
Floating over lapping windows FTW
you can get this on windows, it's called "amethyst windows" and it will do the same thing but on windows instead of mac.
The only thing I can't seem to find out how to do is make the current window "small and centered", similar to a feature Yabai has. Sounds small but it's the only thing keeping me from using Amesthyst
I think this is possible with a custom layout and I keep meaning to do just this. I’ll dig in and share the result when I have it.
How can I create a new window instead of opening the previous application.
I can only use command+n in one application now, is there any other way?
Amethyst shouldn't bind to Cmd-N. Which apps are you facing issues with?
God bless u
I cannot live without Yabai but maybe I will give amathyst a try to see if this works for me :) my .config files save my yabai config but maybe there is a way to do that for amathyst too?
I don't believe there is a way to get a config file out of Amethyst. That would be nice for sure.
xmonad master race my guy.... yooooooo.... 😏😎😫
Such a great piece of software.
No xmonad video? 🥺
The thing that really bothers me about tiling on MacOS is that you can see the window in the floating state for a frame, before it snaps into position. Both Yabai and Amethyst have this, so I'm guessing it's a limitation of MacOS, and not something that can be fixed by the developers.
I wish MacOS had native support for tiling, or if this issue was somehow fixed, but that first one will never happen.
coming to macos from linux and windows (mostly for gaming) i'm shocked at how trash macos is out of the box. this video really helps a lot, but i'm almost certainly still ditching this thing for a proper linux machine.. I tried amethyst but it's still pretty limited. Also, setting the layout order is a big help to ensure you start in your default and have favorites close by
Hi. I’m new to this, but is it possible to have a configuration file almost like yabairc? Where you can set up all your configuration and hotkeys?
Sadly not. This is the biggest drawback of Amethyst for me. I use xmonad on Linux and would love a similar system on Mac. Yabai seems close, but is limited by what Mac allows.
@@tech_craft oki thank you. Yes I know, I was looking into yabai but I don’t want to turn off SIP even if it’s my home machine. And a lot of work setting up. I’m totally new to tiling manager but after watching your video I’m all-in now 👍🏻 Another question I have…
Do you use the default mod1 and mod2 keys? Or du you use custom hotkeys, like caps + letter/number? I would love to have custom keys ONLY for Amethyst. But that’s not possible either I guess?
One option is to use something like Better Touch Tool. You can set Caps Lock to 'Act as Hyper' and then use that as the modifier for your Amethyst shortcuts.
Hyper has the nice benefit of rarely clashing with other apps.
@@tech_craft Yes that’s what I was talking about. I’m using Karabiner for setting up my Hyper key and some other shortcuts. But, do you use hyper with Amethyst or the default? I’ve only played around for two days but already getting pretty used to the default bindings… but I haven’t really decided yet.
@@tech_craft another issue I’m having is to make Alfred float. No matter what I’m doing I can’t make it happen. I’ve added the app itself to the list + added Alfred Preferences in the menu. Do you have any solution?
I tried Amethyst and didn't like it. It kept tiling windows that I open-very annoying to me. I didn't watch this whole video: TLDR. What I need is a way to save my Finder window set(s) and reestablish them quickly via a menu or keyboard shortcut. The only window manager that comes close is "Simple WindowSets", but is often too slow to be practical. Does Amethyst allow me to save specific Finder window sets? Presently, if I wish to save and recreate window sets (both Finder & Apps), I use Keyboard Maestro, which works perfectly but requires a lot of work to setup each window set, especially when I move to other Macs I have.
That’s not something you can with Amethyst but you might like Emmet which does exactly that. It’s $10, built by a high-schooler in the US and fits the exact use case. I use it for repeatable layouts for my screencasts.
Ctrl + Shift + Alt + k?! Why are they so keen on making you play twister with your fingers? I can never remember three-key shortcuts, let alone four-key ones.
I use FancyWM on windows and amethyst looks better.
Any reason why xcode is not toggling?
Not sure. I don’t use Xcode much at all so can’t really say
@@tech_craft red hering. Sometimes, some windows just don't toggle. App restart resolves the issue.
This gonna be an absolute lifesave until Asahi is ready to completly replace macos on m1/m2. After i3 for nearly a year now, i feel it's impossible to work work floating windows, like for real.
i just dont wanr that macos put a fullscreen in a new space xd and i dont want multi desktop
I tried multiple window managers like Yabai, Amethyst, Aerospace, etc. However, after all, I ended up with a conclusion that most of the time window managers are to fight with you, not to help you. They flicker, annoy, interrupt, etc. Unless you are using a super wide screen, most of the time you are going to waste time with layouting poups, modals and windows that you don't want to be layouted.
At least in my case, I usually want to have a single window per space/workspace. If I want to open something temporarily usually I don't want it to mess with my layout. Therefore, I ended up with Rectangle just for quick shortcuts to move around windows and Aerospace to stop using Spaces and instead use virtual workspaces which are faster.
Also, I switched my workflow to terminal, so tmux is enough most of the time :).
I don't want to rant but the window management on macOs is bad. The multiple desktop solution is laughable compared to Windows and Linux. Don't even get me started on multiple monitors... I used to see people talking wonders about how the productivity on Mac is so great. Productivity = multiple desktops + multiple monitors. On Linux I can have multiple virtual desktops with different apps opened (the same app opened in different desktops each belonging to that desktop). I usually split my desktops based on tasks and that extremely annoying to do on mac because it treats desktops as spaces. And then you have that one "desktop" with only one app maximized. Really? MacOs sadly is half baked and I feel sad for picking a macbook based on fanboy hype.
I’m a huge xmonad fan, so you won’t hear me disagreeing. But you can definitely get better than the stock Mac experience
@@tech_craft This week I shared my screen in a conference and it randomly jumped to my other "desktop" and I had my email opened. It was so embarrassing. What happened is that I had google slides maximized in one space and then I pressed esc to exit full screen. Then, instead of showing a normal size window of my slides, it jumped to another "desktop" in which my email was opened. I am 100% sure if I was on Windows, this wouldn't happen because they have proper virtual desktops.
Thanks for you reply tough. I will try some tools to ease my life while I'm forced to use this crap.
@@tech_craft You were right. Amethyst improves the window management a lot. Now I can work better with multiple desktops. It is not ideal but it is way better (cmd + tab shows everything opened).
window management on macs is far from optimal… but using rectangle or magnet or amethyst + the ability to independently cycle virtual desktops in multiple monitors makes it far better than gnome, trailing behind of course linux tiling wms like i3, xmonad etc… now… the productivity in mac os comes from apps like alfred, keyboard maestro, better touch tool, hazel, all the omni group software, continuity, handoff, universal control and many more exclusive to macos productivity software, that destroy everything that windows or linux have to offer… it is not even funny how much superior the apple ecosystem is when you invest on it….
Nice presentation, but please stop calling it fullscreen, when it's not. Fullscreen takes up the entire screen and creates its own space. That's what fullscreen means in Mac Os. That means no space at the bottom, no top bar. What you're doing is just maximising the window, not making it fullscreen.
As for the app itself... I'm not sure I see the appeal. Memorising a bunch of unintuitive keyboard shortcuts, the most arcane installation process (why the hell isn't it just an app you drag from a .dmg file?), and I don't see any advantage vs something like bettersnaptool, which is a proper app, with a normal mac os installation procedure, good UI, and much more intuitive to use.
it works like 💩, may be it had conflicts with the default shortcutcs, but moveing windows was horrible, yabai+skhd works much better, but with bugs too. i've uninstalled this app after five minutes of usage