[HN Gopher] Vim-like "jump" cursor for Mac OS Window Management
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Vim-like "jump" cursor for Mac OS Window Management
Author : pyinstallwoes
Score : 165 points
Date : 2023-04-05 08:29 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.homerow.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.homerow.app)
| likeclockwork wrote:
| I've been looking for a utility that will let me look at a window
| on another monitor, see a hint, focus it. It seems as though this
| utility only works within windows rather than between them
| though, if I have understood the sales pitch correctly.
|
| I'm coming to MacOS from a Linux tiling WM. I'm so used to being
| able to jump between monitors and switch windows directionally
| without having to grab the mouse.
|
| Alt-tab / window search workflows are a non-starter: I can see
| the window I want to focus, I shouldn't have to pick it out of a
| menu or have to type the window title.
|
| Does anyone know of any utilities that might fit the bill?
| galoisscobi wrote:
| I also came from a TWM (i3) to macOS. It took a while to get to
| a good solution but I have it down now with yabai and skhd for
| window management. For launching apps, I wrote something around
| the launchAppOrFocus API in hammerspoon, assigning hot keys to
| my commonly used apps. I also have a rule set in yabai that
| launches certain apps in set desktop spaces.
|
| I use spotlight search for the apps I don't open so frequently
| but having something closer to dmenu (or a fuzzy find app
| picker) would be nice.
| sixhobbits wrote:
| not exactly what you want but I use alfred hotkeys tied to
| "open" actions for specific applications. If the app is already
| open it activates it instead so I have shortcuts for safari,
| firefox, slack etc.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| I have used phoenix for some functionality in the general area
| https://github.com/kasper/phoenix
| afry1 wrote:
| For my emacs friends, here's a wonderful package that provides
| the same functionality: https://github.com/abo-abo/avy
|
| And, if you're interested in some historical context for this
| "type characters and jump to point" functionality, the Canon Cat:
| https://youtu.be/o_TlE_U_X3c
| phil294 wrote:
| I made this for Linux recently too:
| https://github.com/phil294/vimium-everywhere (X11, Wayland coming
| soon)
| lelandfe wrote:
| Having tried in vain to automate apps' interfaces in the past,
| I'm confident Homerow can not work with a lot of the applications
| I use.
|
| > Homerow works with most native macOS apps and a growing set of
| non-native web-based apps
|
| Yeah, that tracks - thankfully Electron does make that a breeze.
| I wonder if this at least supports Catalyst apps, like Messages
| or Weather.
| meatjuice wrote:
| I found an app named "Scoot" recently and it works just as I
| wanted. It works in literally any situation by its grid-based
| navigation feature.
|
| https://github.com/mjrusso/scoot
| absoluteunit1 wrote:
| Cool app; does it use the same MacOS api as the Voice Control
| feature? (If you're in voice control and ask for it to "Show
| Number", it will append a number to every clickable element
| currently in view
| systoll wrote:
| Yes.
| tincanner wrote:
| anyone aware of a quick switcher like this but for open
| windows/tabs on Mac? AltTab which seems to be the popular options
| doesn't seem to have a quick switch/fuzzy finder.
| gregwebs wrote:
| finda for Mac. can also switch to specific tabs in browsers and
| VSCode. https://keminglabs.com/finda/setup/
| js2 wrote:
| https://manytricks.com/witch/
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I do this with hammerspoon, it's built in to the hints module
| with the "vimperator" style setting.
|
| https://www.hammerspoon.org/docs/hs.hints.html#windowHints
| philsnow wrote:
| I didn't like the default cmd-tab behavior or expose so I
| also used hammerspoon to "fix" it: https://gist.github.com/ph
| ilsnow/d6ba054f57e2d304f0d4d18f247...
|
| This is off-topic because this thing is about cmd-tab
| switching instead of typing a couple keys to switch to a
| particular window, but I just wanted to second the mention
| for hammerspoon as a "can probably solve your issues with
| macOS interface" multitool. Since you write in lua (or
| anything that compiles to lua, like fennel) it's incredibly
| easy to iterate on.
| tincanner wrote:
| kicked the tires with Hammerspoon, seems quite powerful,
| thanks for sharing! the windowHints are quite slow to load
| but it's a start!
|
| what i do at the moment, which is fairly fast, is launch
| Finder and type the first couple letters of the window i want
| to switch to--99% hit rate.
| philsnow wrote:
| By Finder do you mean Spotlight? My gripe with Spotlight is
| the instability of the pre-selected item after you type a
| few characters.
|
| On my mac, if I'm trying to go to Finder, I get
| cmd+space (Spotlight Search) f F(inder.app)
| i Fi(nd My.app) n Fin(d My.app)
| d Find( My.app) e Finde(r.app)
|
| so quite often I'll see Finder.app show up as the result,
| but I've already told my fingers to type the 'ind', so
| there's a race between "type these keys", "see Finder",
| "type return", and "see Find My".
| westh wrote:
| https://contexts.co/
| squeegee_scream wrote:
| I'd love to use an app like this but I've tried a few and they
| are too slow for me and they only work about 90-95% of the time
| which is enough to start relying on it but when it doesn't work
| it's jarring and then I have to use the mouse, which makes the
| entire interaction slower than just using the mouse in the first
| place.
| johncoltrane wrote:
| The feature this app mimics has never been part of Vim proper, so
| I am not sure what is "Vim-like" about this.
| aikinai wrote:
| You can use f, F, b, B, /, etc to quickly jump around native
| Vim and act on distant text, so makes sense to me.
| johncoltrane wrote:
| That app doesn't provide those features, though.
| absoluteunit1 wrote:
| They probably meant "Vimium-like"
| tmtvl wrote:
| Seems more avy-like.
| aliceryhl wrote:
| Most browsers have a vim emulation plugin that provide a
| feature like this when you press `f`. So really, it's "browser-
| vim-emulator-like".
| johncoltrane wrote:
| EasyMotion-like would be more accurate.
| bilekas wrote:
| This is cool, after only recently discovering Vimium which is a
| game changer for me, I'll definitely be checking this out.
|
| Can't say I'm too keen on the pricing though.
| masukomi wrote:
| I feel like $29 for "use it forever" is pretty reasonable for
| something that would likely qualify as a "game changer". How
| many sales would they have to make at say $5 to pay for all the
| time they spent developing it + all the time they will spend
| maintaining it as apple changes things out from under them?
|
| If we assume a $5 price, and a standard US contract rate of
| ~$100hr (cheap for US contracting actually) and we ignore the
| cut taken by credit card companies and such (ha!), then we're
| talking 20 sales to pay for 1hr of development. I don't think
| they made this plus the site with < 20 hrs and I assume they'll
| be spending at least 1hr doing email support so 400 sales just
| to cover their time making it. Or 420 sales to break even...
| for an extremely niche product.
|
| Still think $29 is too expensive?
| al_be_back wrote:
| for many apps recently, the pay $$ "use X forever" has
| evolved to mean "pay $$ for version X and use it forever",
| then bring a new paid version of X every year or so.
|
| I'm all for monetising projects - just can't see a one-off
| $29 making them much, it's a niche product (as you say).
| nomilk wrote:
| For clarity $29 is "use it forever" but with updates for only
| 1 year. If only for security patches, best to keep software
| updated, so for most it becomes $29 annually.
|
| Also:
|
| > you can use Homerow without a license. An unintrusive
| prompt will show every 50 activations.
|
| So you can try before you buy.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| It's a bit surprising how consistently the amount of work
| that goes into developing an app and then maintaining it is
| underestimated, particularly with how there doesn't seem to
| be any price point other than free that won't prompt
| reactions of "that's too expensive". As someone who's more
| inclined towards developing little desktop utilities than
| some kind of SaaS it's dissuading.
| bilekas wrote:
| > Still think $29 is too expensive?
|
| For only one machine, yeah.. the 29 is fine but I need a new
| license for every machine?
|
| This also suggests the app needs be online too .. Will be
| getting it but it feels strange to me. That's all.
| curious145454 wrote:
| Are there any alternatives for KDE/Wayland?
| hs86 wrote:
| Alternative: https://shortcat.app/
| asciii wrote:
| Thanks! I'm in love with this and needed something similar to
| Chrome's Vimium extension
| aikinai wrote:
| Have you tried both? Any tips on which might be better?
| tincanner wrote:
| just tried both, homerow seemed noticeably faster to me.
| ChrisLTD wrote:
| Shortcat is my favorite of these sorts of apps. I just wish
| there was a way to make all of them faster. The delay between
| requesting the link hints and then actually displaying on
| screen is painful enough that I haven't been able to
| incorporate it into my workflow.
|
| Most of these apps seem to tie into MacOS's accessibility
| framework for the hinting, and I'm guessing the delay is being
| caused by waiting for and then acting on these response from
| that framework.
| brentm wrote:
| Just tried this one, works great on M1 Max. No delays.
| dmix wrote:
| I'm using it on a M1 Max and it's pretty slow to initialize
| the yellow key options... even when the setting is on
| "immediate".
|
| I took a screencast: https://imgur.com/a/xL5CgJ2
|
| With Vimium when you hit "f" it actually appears
| immediately. It takes a full second with Shortcat.
| ChrisLTD wrote:
| Yep, this is exactly what I'm talking about.
| philsnow wrote:
| The app in the screencast is Firefox; if you run
| Accessibility Inspector.app and try to inspect, for
| instance, the "NN minutes ago" link text in your comment,
| this is what it looks like in Firefox [0] and this is
| what it looks like in Safari [1].
|
| Firefox (and Chrome) look like giant completely opaque
| windows to the macOS accessibility API, the only things
| you can "see" to click on are the close/minimize/maximize
| buttons, whereas Safari exposes its entire interface and
| a lot of the web page to the API.
|
| It looks like Homerow is somehow scraping a short list of
| apps, "Popular non-native apps such as Chrome, Firefox,
| Brave, Arc, Visual Studio Code, Spotify, Slack, Discord,
| and Obsidian are supported. I'm working on supporting
| more non-native apps." I don't know how shortcat etc do
| it.
|
| [0] https://snap.philsnow.io/2023-04-05T10-04-07.bmgoq2rk
| wxqmy28... [1] https://snap.philsnow.io/2023-04-05T10-01-
| 44.gdj1z3ukbq712zw...
| dmix wrote:
| I don't think it has anything to do with FF. Happens with
| every app I've tried including the macOS settings app.
| I'll try Homerow.
| chris_st wrote:
| There's a customizable delay in Shortcat that you may have
| set. Otherwise, buy an M2 Air like mine and see it fly :-)
| ChrisLTD wrote:
| I have it set to immediate, and I'm using it on a M1 Pro
| machine :-D
| rideontime wrote:
| that icon has such Mac OS X energy, I love it
| dmix wrote:
| I remember wanting to buy a Mac after seeing the Transmit app
| icon.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| the icon is incredible!
| morgango wrote:
| This is super cool, a great addition to Alfred for typing
| goodness.
| anamexis wrote:
| Looks like the app download is broken. I get taken to a page at
| install.appcenter.ms that says "Our services aren't available
| right now"
| cipher_system wrote:
| Pretty cool app that could be useful. Works quite like Vimium in
| Chrome.
|
| Only annoying thing is that you have to press shift to enter
| uppercase letters.
| freeCandy wrote:
| Not really the same thing, but I found warpd to be the most
| usable keyboard navigation solution for Linux
|
| https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd
| xept wrote:
| Great app, thank you for the recommendation. There's only one
| problem I've encountered so far. I use `maim -s` to take
| screenshots, and I've tried to combine it with the dragging
| mode in warpd, but it doesn't work. As soon as I activate
| warpd, the maim seems to exit. Or if I enter warpd first, I
| can't launch main anymore. It would be nice to take screenshots
| from keyboard only. Otherwise, warpd is awesome. History mode
| is interesting in particular.
| p2hari wrote:
| Yes, I agree. I use it and love it. Occasionally it keeps
| falling to move down on pressing 'j'.
| blakedietz wrote:
| If you haven't used leap or its alternatives in vim, I highly
| recommend giving it a try. It's the closest thing to a direct
| brain to computer interface that I've used. Love the other
| comments in here. I'll have to check out shortcat.
| piskov wrote:
| I knew I've seen it before :-)
|
| This is Vimac that gone commercial
|
| https://github.com/dexterleng/vimac
| AlexErrant wrote:
| A source-available alternative for Windows:
| https://github.com/zsims/hunt-and-peck
| spark3k wrote:
| I use the UHK keyboard which has butter smooth home row keys
| mouse movement so I never need a mouse anyway.
| https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/
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