Blazingly Fast Window Management on macOS (No Mouse Needed!)

[@bernardolago]

This content is a game changer! Thanks for sharing in such a detailed way!

[@ИльяПащенко-л8х]

Exactly what I was looking for after buying my first Mac! Thank u!

[@V3ktra]

That's awesome! It's the thing I didn't know I needed but it makes so much sense. I've been using Rectangle for long time and recently came upon Karabiner when I was looking for ways on how to change the function key to mute my mic on the OS level. I will definitely give this a shot. Thanks

[@SudeeptoDutta]

Hi Henry. Please look into Aerospace for macOS window management as well. I hope you make a video on it soon as well. Awesome video BTW. Keep going 👍🏾

[@henrymisc]

Thanks for the recommendation! Added Aerospace on my list to try out :) I've never been a fan of the concept of tiling windows though. I usually like keeping my active window front and center with everything else in the background. But Aerospace looks really powerful, so maybe it'll win me over!

[@NidrixGlandda]

Aerospace is great. it comes close to Linux Tiling Window Managers like i3 or Sway.

[@serhgoch]

Great video! Raycast also allows assigning shortcuts to any app and helps with window management

[@henrymisc]

Great tip! I have yet to try it out. Thanks :)

[@joey2545]

Awesome video! Can't wait to give this a try.

[@paulhammond8583]

This is brilliant. Thanks for sharing!

[@linkarzu]

Thanks for the shoutout! I watched your entire video, really great content and quality, love it. I initially set my hyper key to capslock, and after using karabiner for around a year, it caused serious forearm pain, so I switched my hyper key to right command, and it's been 1,000 times better, the pain is gone, I also changed to a split keyboard (but that was just an excuse so the wife approved the purchase 🤫). Hope it helps and you don't suffer the same pain I did because I use the hyper key thousands of times a day

[@henrymisc]

Of course, love your videos! You make a great point about the ergonomics of this setup. It works fine for me, but I fully agree that relying heavily on the pinky to hold down a key isn't optimal. Using right cmd sounds like a smart alternative! I'm curious though, are you using homerow mods? I use a split keyboard too, and in my setup, I have cmd on F (left) and J (right). If I mapped hyper to right cmd (i.e. J), I'd run into issues like pressing cmd+t to open a new browser tab. It'd mean holding F+T, which isn't super comfortable. Did you face similar challenges, and how did you work around them?

[@linkarzu]

@@henrymisc I watched the wonderful video "This weird keyboard technique has improved the way I type" by "Dreams of Code" and decided to give it a try, but then I realized it would take way too long for me to change everything around, so I just decided to keep my setup. I use the modifier keys a lot, like for example tap left_cmd to copy, tap left_option to paste, tap left_shift to shift to my alternate tmux session, so I just decided to keep my keymaps for now. But homerow mods seem like a good idea, just too much for me to switch right now

[@henrymisc]

I'll check out the video-thanks for sharing! Also agree, sometimes we need to be pragmatic about our configs as well and not move everything around too frequently :)

[@sjkba]

Nice video! Josean Martinez seems to have been on a similar journey and landed on raycast having tried aerospace. It looks to me like karabiner has fewer UI config options but provides all the functionality free and fast. I use claude to help write the scripts so I don't really have to do that either. I give it examples from the examples repo as baseline which usually works well. I really like how you set up the shortcuts. I might end up copying that.

[@henrymisc]

@@sjkba Hi thanks for the feedback! Pretty good use case for AI you have there! Personally, I actually prefer the lack of UI. I find that having config stored in a file makes it easer to back up and replicate on another machine.

[@sjkba]

@@henrymisc I get the pros and cons of UI vs config file. With LLMs json type config options become more viable for normies 😂

[@muizzyranking]

You might need to check "checktime" and create an autocmd on focus gained to run the command. It'll reload the file if edited in another app

[@henrymisc]

Oh that's really cool! Wasn't aware of this feature. Thanks!

[@xiaoluabei]

Great method !!!

[@vladislavgrin7122]

Hi, thank you for the video. You made it clear for me that it is the software I need. I'm having a slight issue though. It seems that when I define conditions for sublayer E it can't understand the part about sublayer W being turned off, as if I'm using a variable before declaring it. Because when I temporarily remove the condition for sublayer W from E, only then it loads hyper_sublayer_e variable and after that I can add the condition back. So this procedure of removing if statement for variable W, letting it load E, and then adding back W to E, I need to do on every start up

[@vladislavgrin7122]

Ok, idk why, but now that switched from using false to 0, true to 1 - just as you do - it started to load all the variables. Strange.... very strange

[@henrymisc]

Thanks for watching, glad if it was helpful :) The issue you're facing is strange indeed. In the karabiner docs I found a section saying "If the variable is not set to a value, the value is treated as 0". So, perhaps this 0 as default behavior explains why it works with 0/1 instead of true/false.

[@vladislavgrin7122]

​@@henrymiscAh, that explains this behavior. Thank you again!

[@kubakakauko]

Have you seen Aerospace?

[@henrymisc]

Yes, but I haven't tried it yet. It seems a bit excessive for what I need. I'm also hesitant to add another app to my setup-I want to avoid making things too bloated. I'll probably try it and some point though. Let's see :)

[@deHaanA]

Sensible setup, … for me having a configurable ergonomic keyboard (Moonlander) takes away the need for much configuration in Karabiner.

[@henrymisc]

Interesting. May I ask how you configured the Moonlander to achieve this behavior?

[@deHaanA]

@ Sorry I was not very precise, not the behaviour of the keys, more the setup of the keyboard keys, like having a hyper key can be configured (online app - keyboard is flashed). The window management with shortkeys I still have in Hammerspoon, not suggesting that’s better.

[@henrymisc]

Ah I see, thanks for sharing! What's your experience with Hammerspoon? I saw it in a video from Devops Toolbox the other day and it looked interesting.

[@0xc0ffee_]

Why not aerospace?

[@henrymisc]

@@0xc0ffee_ I've never been a fan of the concept of tiling windows, especially on a wide screen. I usually like keeping my active window front and center with the inactive ones behind. Occasionally I like to have two windows side by side, but for this purpose a simple resizing tool like Rectangle is enough.

[@0xc0ffee_]

@ great choice!

[@KnowYourOptions]

very nice

[@rickdutta942]

I am trying to setup for c++ but i am unable to do so. Can you please guide how to do that or make a video setting up c++ compiler and debugger.🙏🙏

[@edwardferrari7342]

Won't this remove repeating behavior for tab though? I mean tbh, who ever key repeats tab lol. Nice vid!

[@henrymisc]

Good catch, it will! But yeah, I never found myself holding down tab either. You could alternatively use Capslock instead. I've just assigned it to Escape already. Glad you liked it :)

[@edwardferrari7342]

@henrymisc yeah, I've started to use my caps lock key as my esc key recently. I'm trying it out as a replacement for ctrl +[ for esc, as I sometimes miss the bracket when going fast. Keep up the good work!

[@henrymisc]

@@edwardferrari7342 First time I hear someone map ctrl+[ to esc. Interesting approach! If it's for Vim, a lot of people also use j+k for esc. Just as an alternative in case capslock isn't working out for you.

[@edwardferrari7342]

@@henrymisc Yeah, I've heard of j+k as well, it seems like a pretty good approach, esp. cus you don't really need to extend your fingers too much outward. I'm currently using Zed, so that would indeed be interesting to see if I can (or perhaps if someone already has) implemented j+k functionality. I'm still a fairly new vimmer, at it for around two months, so caps lock already seems a lot better than ctrl+[ to remain even more focused without having to deal with misclicking one of the two keys. I love vim though, and I don't think I could ever go back to using the mouse, as using the mouse feels like there is always room for improvement. Your videos helped me a lot in learning the basics and even the lesser-known but useful vim bindings in a quick time. Honestly you deserve way more subs, it is clearly apparent you invest a lot of your free time in the channel and it's a highly admirable quality not every developer nowadays has. Edit: Oh and adding on to the Ctrl+[, I don't know if this is only a Mac thing but it is a system level thing on mac, Ctrl +[ is natively seen as esc for pretty much all programs. It's pretty cool!

[@PetrSUsername]

You might like better touch tool. Even more tools for macos.

[@henrymisc]

Thank you, I'll check it out!

[@rekkalee2408]

Just use raycast. This setup is too complex and hard to maintain.

[@David-oy6ck]

In tandem with Aerospace if you need workspace management as well.

[@СтаниславПетров-л4с]

Never ever again install karabiner on your mac and you will be much happier! This makes so much stuff under the hood that at some point you will end up trying figure out what the fu is going on with your system even after its complete removal!

[@henrymisc]

I have never had any issues with it. What are you using instead to remap keys?

[@СтаниславПетров-л4с]

@@henrymisc i would suggest better touch tool, also it costs like 10 bucks for lifetime so its no brainer to me. Also is a lot more straightforward in what it does and does not hide under the hood additional scripts and modifications like karabiner for instance.