[HN Gopher] Show HN: FlashSpace - fast, open-source, macOS Space...
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       Show HN: FlashSpace - fast, open-source, macOS Spaces replacement
        
       I've recently launched a new open-source project aimed at enhancing
       the experience of switching between Spaces/workspaces on macOS. The
       built-in Spaces feature is often slow and unfriendly. This project
       is designed to boost your productivity :). Enjoy!
        
       Author : wojciech-kulik
       Score  : 239 points
       Date   : 2025-02-08 17:19 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | toddmorey wrote:
       | I've tried a lot of tiling window managers & Spaces replacements
       | and it's hard to take over that central piece of the OS reliably.
       | There's always at least one of my critical apps that freaks out.
       | 
       | What I want more than anything is just a terminal flag to turn
       | off the dumb animations on the built-in Spaces.
        
         | wojciech-kulik wrote:
         | Yep, tiling window managers usually cause a lot of glitches and
         | you spend more time on fighting with glitches than gaining time
         | using the app. That's why I built FlashSpace with no tiling and
         | annoying taking control over your computer :).
        
         | wojciech-kulik wrote:
         | And the terminal flag is not going to happen. Apple doesn't
         | care ;).
        
         | CharlesW wrote:
         | > _What I want more than anything is just a terminal flag to
         | turn off the dumb animations on the built-in Spaces._
         | 
         | You can turn on "Reduce Motion" to change it from a slide to a
         | fast cross-fade.
        
           | anon7000 wrote:
           | I ultimately stopped because the trade off is not being able
           | to see web animations (or most any animations in the OS) most
           | of the time, which isn't ideal as a web developer.
        
             | lelandfe wrote:
             | Looks like there's a Chrome command line flag to override
             | it: `--force-prefers-no-reduced-motion`
        
           | nicce wrote:
           | > You can turn on "Reduce Motion" to change it from a slide
           | to a fast cross-fade.
           | 
           | That is just an illusion. Time is the same. Instead, you need
           | to add abstraction on top of CMD + Left/Right keybinds to get
           | fast movement between spaces, for example.
        
         | Crowberry wrote:
         | And a hotkey to go directly to the space. Only seem to work for
         | spaces now and not fullscreen apps, which I make heavy use of
        
       | codecraze wrote:
       | Really nice. I will give it a try :)
        
       | jameschensmith wrote:
       | This looks great! I currently use Aerospace, but your usage of
       | macOS spaces has me curious.
       | 
       | 1. Does FlashSpace require disabling SIP?
       | 
       | 2. Aerospace documents the limitations of macOS spaces [1]. How
       | does FlashSpace deal with these limitations?
       | 
       | 3. Do you have any plans to support file-based configuration? I
       | like syncing my dotfiles between multiple computers.
       | 
       | [1]: https://nikitabobko.github.io/AeroSpace/guide#emulation-
       | of-v...
        
         | wojciech-kulik wrote:
         | 1. No
         | 
         | 2. Aerospace has significant performance issues with
         | workspaces. The problem has persisted for over a year, and
         | there are no plans to fix it. That's why I started building
         | FlashSpace - to make it blazingly fast. Which limitation is
         | especially interesting to you? FlashSpace addresses the
         | animation lag, the number of workspaces is unlimited, and you
         | can move apps between workspaces with hot keys.
         | 
         | 3. FlashSpace already supports JSON config files which are
         | stored by default in ~/.config/flashspace, so you can easily
         | sync them.
        
           | jameschensmith wrote:
           | Thanks for your response! Regarding question 2, I think my
           | initial understanding of FlashSpace was that it was using the
           | macOS spaces API, which has been known to have its
           | limitations (as documented in the Aerospace docs I shared).
           | Now that I've played around with FlashSpace, I believe it's
           | not using that API. So I think I'm clear on the questions.
           | 
           | I really like how FlashSpace plays well with macOS native
           | tabs. One follow-up question I had is how you manage your
           | windows? FlashSpace not managing windows on one hand is
           | really nice for floating windows (e.g., mpv), but in your
           | examples you have all the windows already set up with some
           | gaps around each. Is all that set-up done by dragging windows
           | around with your mouse? I use an accordion layout heavily,
           | and I don't see how I can make it work with FlashSpace.
        
             | wojciech-kulik wrote:
             | In the video, I think they were manually dragged. But I
             | also use Rectangle Pro for moving windows around with
             | simple shortcuts (many apps have this feature, another one
             | is Raycast). I don't use tiling managers though. Most of
             | the time they cause too many problems and glitches.
        
       | shaarmar wrote:
       | Good timing, I was exploring my options again in this space and
       | settled on aerospace. Will give this a try
        
         | semi-extrinsic wrote:
         | Any insight on the pros/cons versus yabai?
        
           | Secretmapper wrote:
           | Not needing to disable SIP is a big one.
        
       | wrs wrote:
       | Will this, or anything else, make Safari restore its windows to
       | the spaces they were in when it quit? Chrome does better but only
       | succeeds part of the time. This is so annoying that I'll consider
       | switching to any browser that does it!
        
         | CharlesW wrote:
         | Hey, are you familiar with Spaces' "Assign apps to spaces"
         | feature? It doesn't have an "assign to Space where last used",
         | but it does let you assign an app to any Space (or every
         | Space). https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/work-in-
         | multiple-sp...
        
           | wrs wrote:
           | I don't want to assign _Safari_ to a space, I want each
           | Safari _window_ to stay where I put it. It makes no sense for
           | Spaces to assume every window of an app is being used for the
           | same task, especially a browser app.
        
       | cyberax wrote:
       | Super nice! I wish you could add a grid view of the workspaces. I
       | miss TotalSpaces...
        
         | CharlesW wrote:
         | I wonder if SpaceCapsule (https://spacecapsule.app/) could work
         | with FlashSpace?
        
           | wojciech-kulik wrote:
           | Probably not, because as far as I can see, it relies on macOS
           | spaces. FlashSpace doesn't use native spaces.
        
             | CharlesW wrote:
             | Sorry, yes, "could" is doing _wayyy_ too much lifting
             | there. I was thinking you could potentially work together
             | on an integration (and /or leverage the existing
             | integration you mention in the README) that would provide
             | the experience _@cyberax_ is looking for.
             | 
             | In any case, I'm very excited to try FlashSpace after
             | reluctantly giving up on Spaces! And thank you for linking
             | to SketchyBar as well -- it's always great to learn about
             | new, well-regarded power-user utilities.
        
         | user3939382 wrote:
         | What's wrong with TotalSpaces?
        
           | chrisvalleybay wrote:
           | Doesn't work properly with newer versions of MacOS and
           | requires you to disable SIP.
        
           | cyberax wrote:
           | The author disappeared, and the last available version barely
           | works on the modern macOS.
        
       | rane wrote:
       | Is this compatible with Amethyst? I want tiling windows but
       | without the delay in switching spaces.
        
         | wojciech-kulik wrote:
         | Just try it out :D. There is almost no setup required.
         | Basically, the app only shows and hides apps, so it depends on
         | how well Amethyst handles it.
         | 
         | FlashSpace is not interruptive - it doesn't actively try
         | restoring your workspace, so there shouldn't be any "fight"
         | between a tiling manager and FlashSpace.
        
       | matanrubin wrote:
       | The biggest pain point with macOS spaces is how it handles
       | multiple windows of the same app. It drives me crazy. What is
       | FlashSpace's approach for solving this?
        
         | wojciech-kulik wrote:
         | Could you explain what you mean? The app only allows assigning
         | the whole app to a specific workspace. So you can't have one
         | window of the same app in workspace A and another in workspace
         | B. It's done this way because it's the most efficient way so
         | far, but of course I understand that sometimes people may want
         | to have multiple windows in different workspaces. I'm going to
         | investigate a possibility to manage apps on a window-level
         | basis. But macOS is the limitation here, if it's slow then my
         | hands are tied.
        
           | atombender wrote:
           | Not OP, but the way I use macOS Spaces is to differentiate
           | between work and private. I use Chrome for both, so I have
           | some Chrome windows in my work space, and some in my private
           | space. I do similar things for other apps like iTerm. It's an
           | important feature. I once tried having two different browsers
           | for work/private, but it was a chore to manage which browser
           | I opened links in, so I gave up.
           | 
           | My biggest problem with Spaces is that it never remembers
           | which space anything is in. When I reboot, everything is in
           | the wrong space and has to be moved around.
        
             | SebastianKra wrote:
             | Right click the app icon > options > Assign To > This
             | Desktop
             | 
             | Also noteworthy: assign to all desktops. I use this to keep
             | my browser and messaging apps in all spaces.
        
               | maroonblazer wrote:
               | That doesn't solve parent's (and my) problem.
               | 
               | I have collections of tabs in different windows and I
               | assign those windows to different spaces. Every time I
               | reboot Chrome all windows are assigned to whichever space
               | is active when I launch Chrome.
               | 
               | I seem to recall that Chrome used to remember these
               | assignments, so maybe it's not a macOS problem, but
               | rather a Chrome problem...?
        
               | ttul wrote:
               | This is also how I use Chrome with spaces. I'd love
               | someone to solve this problem.
        
               | snippety wrote:
               | Btw. Zen Browser or Arc have great management of spaces
               | in the browser. You can quickly switch between profiles
               | without unloading them. So you can be even on a call
               | using work space and switch to personal space. This way
               | you don't need to have separate windows per profile
               | unless you need to see the content of both at the same
               | time.
        
               | atombender wrote:
               | I'm of course assigning apps to specific spaces. But my
               | browser has to be in all spaces. MacOS still doesn't
               | remember which window is where when the app restarts or
               | the OS reboots.
        
               | kurayashi wrote:
               | I've been using the Orion Browser a lot recently. Each
               | profile pretends to be its own app as far as I can tell.
               | You get separated spaces for work and private and links
               | open in the last used window. This might solve your issue
               | of assigning multiple windows to different spaces.
        
             | brainbag wrote:
             | I've been using Choosy.app for easily managing different
             | browsers for work and personal (and testing), and it works
             | great. You set it to your default browser, and then anytime
             | something opens a browser it pops up a picker. Lots of
             | global and per-site configuration options like browser
             | profile selection, private windows, etc.
        
               | Quiark wrote:
               | Does it also handle (let you pick) when opening a web
               | link from another app?
        
             | toisanji wrote:
             | same reason I would like this feature
        
           | dchuk wrote:
           | Being able to have windows of the same app assigned to
           | different spaces would be the big unlock for me to able to
           | use your app. Not only do I do things like separate work and
           | personal Chrome profiles (with a window open for each),
           | frequently I'll have a Chrome window open for a specific
           | project with tabs just for that project, so I can switch
           | fully into that context when I want to work on something. I
           | also frequently have sensitive tabs open that I group into a
           | window so I don't risk oversharing something when on a Zoom
           | call for example as I flip through my tabs.
        
           | throwaway314155 wrote:
           | Just echoing the others here. I get it in principle, but in
           | practice I treat 2-3 separate windows of Firefox as their own
           | "app".
        
             | cjonas wrote:
             | Or vscode. If I was going to use this, I'd ideally want a
             | space per client.
        
           | schlumpf wrote:
           | Another example: I use Screen Sharing to manage multiple Macs
           | on my network. Each host gets a Screen Sharing window, and I
           | maximize each window (whose virtual resolutions are forced to
           | my physical monitor size) and then toggle between them and
           | other workspaces using Spaces. I need the screen real estate
           | so I would never have multiple host windows in the same
           | workspace.
        
       | whatever1 wrote:
       | This is awesome. But Apple needs to get their act together.
       | Window management, specially in multi monitor/ space setups is
       | unbelievably bad.
       | 
       | What is the purpose of the dock? It does not tell you what apps
       | have windows visible, preview these windows or inform you where
       | these windows are. Absolute waste of screen real estate.
       | 
       | And to add to the injury they seized another 10% of the
       | horizontal space for the even more useless stage manager.
        
         | wojciech-kulik wrote:
         | Totally agree. I even created a feature request to allow
         | disabling animation when switching between spaces. But I don't
         | have any faith in them. I enabled auto-hiding of the Dock. When
         | I use FlashSpace I don't need to see the dock anymore because I
         | know what is where. I also integrated the number of messages on
         | my Sketchybar, so that I know if there is a new SMS or Slack
         | message without Dock.
        
           | loremm wrote:
           | Not for speed (that was only allowed in past versions of
           | macos) but even now, you can go Accessibilty -> Reduce motion
           | blur and it at least won't do the horrible slide animation,
           | just fade in and out. The other one made me nauseous if I was
           | doing it so often
        
         | cosmic_cheese wrote:
         | On the other hand, the ability to switch virtual desktops
         | independently between monitors as macOS has been able to for
         | ages remains absent on Windows and is present only on some
         | Linux desktops which feels insane to me. That single feature
         | reduces the amount of twiddling with window arrangements and
         | such I need to do to almost nothing.
        
           | hysan wrote:
           | Every year I spend a month trying out Linux distros to see if
           | it's in a good enough place to switch back to. Every time I
           | do this, I'm surprised by how few desktop environments
           | supports this. Either it's not popular or using multiple
           | monitors isn't common. This isn't the only reason I haven't
           | switched back, but it's one of the more surprising ones
           | because it feels so natural to treat monitors and workspaces
           | like this.
        
             | cosmic_cheese wrote:
             | My guess is that among Linux users, multimonitor is
             | unusual. Even most Linux laptop users seem to prefer single
             | monitor clamshell mode vs. keeping the laptop open as a
             | secondary screen. There's a fair number of Macbook users
             | who do clamshell too but secondary-laptop-screen setups are
             | much much more common in the Mac crowd.
        
               | doubled112 wrote:
               | At some point I realized I'd rather one large 4K screen
               | to any multi monitor setup I ever had.
               | 
               | I'm not sure if it's a coping mechanism for using Linux
               | desktops or not, but it does avoid a few issues.
               | 
               | It also makes window management simpler in the sense I
               | can just sprawl them out and still see everything. Kind
               | of like moving your project from a small desk to a big
               | kitchen table.
               | 
               | I tend to have two workspaces. One for what I'm doing.
               | One for background stuff, like mail and music.
        
               | zuhsetaqi wrote:
               | I really like having 2 4K 27" displays. I even have a
               | third monitor in vertical orientation but don't use it
               | that often. Most often I have my editor on one screen and
               | my browser with developer tools on the other screen.
        
               | cosmic_cheese wrote:
               | I'm not sure that a single large screen would work for
               | me. The value in both separate physical monitors and
               | virtual desktops is the ability to distribute windows
               | across screens and desktops according to purpose. Size
               | factors in here too; I think my cap for usability sits at
               | about 32" (preferably at 6k), with anything larger than
               | that making me likely to get lost at sea in an ocean of
               | windows.
        
               | fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
               | I use a single large screen (55") but I keep my MacBook
               | open so I can send things like my music player there
               | where I can glance at them.
        
               | hysan wrote:
               | This seems to confirm my lived experiences (ran Linux as
               | my main OS for about a decade). I remember spending so
               | much time hand configuring X11, installing drivers, and
               | endlessly debugging things to get my triple monitor setup
               | working in the past. It was fun and it led me to my
               | distrohopping hobby, but eventually I realized that not
               | many people ran a setup like mine. So I moved away to
               | Apple which has much better multi-monitor & workspace
               | ergonomics (for me).
        
               | markles wrote:
               | I can't think of a single Linux user I know who doesn't
               | use a multi-monitor setup. I have three monitors on my
               | desktop and it works fine on Cinnamon and Plasma. Maybe
               | the dozen I know are outliers, but I think multi-monitor
               | setups are fairly common.
        
         | rplnt wrote:
         | They make more money that way, by having terrible desktop ux
         | that needs to be supplemented with dozen of extra apps. Not
         | sure if that was their intention, but they do.
        
           | JSR_FDED wrote:
           | How on earth do "they" make more money that way? The support
           | costs of different users on different window management
           | solutions obliterates any small fraction of application sales
           | they earn on the App Store.
        
           | 10729287 wrote:
           | Not sure they are doing extra money because official apps are
           | generally opened by free, community driven, ones, but yeah,
           | this is my main issue with Macos nowadays, official apps are
           | so flawed the os needs to be heavily customed out of the box.
        
         | escapecharacter wrote:
         | I'm noticing that every single time I wake my (recent) MacBook
         | from sleep, it forgets it's attached to external monitors for
         | at least 10 seconds. So, a bunch of windows do this confusing
         | jump around and I have to wait for them to settle before I
         | started anything!
        
           | Tagbert wrote:
           | It depends on how long that external monitor takes to wake up
           | and respond to the display connection to confirm that it is
           | there. If the monitor is still active then that is almost
           | instant.
        
           | Aurornis wrote:
           | I had this problem with a cheap monitor I had to use at the
           | office for a while.
           | 
           | Not a problem with any other monitor I've used.
           | 
           | It's the monitor taking a long time to wake up.
        
         | zuhsetaqi wrote:
         | > What is the purpose of the dock?
         | 
         | It's an app launcher. Since I only open app with
         | Spotlight/Alfred, my dock auto hides and doesn't waste any real
         | estate.
         | 
         | The stage manager in my opinion should have been iPad only. But
         | if you ignore the button in the control center it's easy to
         | forget that it even exists.
        
           | Brajeshwar wrote:
           | This is also what I do. The auto-hidden Dock is my way to
           | check for Open apps (at times). Otherwise, I still do
           | Alfred/Spotlight to go to an App.
        
             | 10729287 wrote:
             | Are you aware of the AltTab app ? Highly customisable and
             | best way to switch between opened windows on Macos.
             | https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/
             | 
             | Couldn't go back.
        
         | fujinghg wrote:
         | Just tell the dock to auto hide. I don't use stage manager. I
         | don't know why it exists to be fair.
         | 
         | Window management is "meh" but I don't care. I use virtual
         | desktops and the desktop Apple magic touchpad. Good enough.
        
         | creativenolo wrote:
         | This stuff is so divisive. You can find seemingly a roughly
         | equal number of people who passionately think the opposite on
         | many of these very-different-from-windows UX choices. I'm one.
         | The dock tells me what apps are running and available. There
         | are other ways to find the windows, and running apps don't need
         | windows.
        
           | whatever1 wrote:
           | Every single running UI app needs a window. The ones that run
           | in the background and do not need a full fledged window go in
           | the menubar next to the clock.
        
             | philistine wrote:
             | That's how Windows does it, but macOS just does it
             | differently. Is it better? Depends who you ask.
        
             | newdee wrote:
             | > Every single running UI app needs a window.
             | 
             | I'm sorry, but this is false. The default/conventional
             | behaviour is for apps to keep running even if all their
             | windows are closed.
             | 
             | There's actually a toggle for this behaviour on the app
             | delegate.[0]
             | 
             | You may be thinking about LSUIElement, which is loosely
             | related, but doesn't mandate that windowless apps must
             | quit. [1]
             | 
             | 0: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsappli
             | cati...
             | 
             | 1: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresource
             | s/in...
        
               | whatever1 wrote:
               | Apologies, I was not clear. Obviously in MacOS an app can
               | be open without a window. My question is why?
               | 
               | What is the point of having for example Word or Safari
               | running without a window? If they want to run a
               | background task that requires some user interaction (eg
               | outlook checking email and calendar), the menubar is the
               | perfect place for it.
               | 
               | In the past the argument was that people want their apps
               | warm started so that they open faster. But this is a moot
               | point in 2025 with SSDs of pulling 5gb/s and tons of ram
               | that allow for ample intelligent caching.
        
               | bobbylarrybobby wrote:
               | One reason is to be able to close the last window of an
               | app without quitting it. Always bugged me how on windows,
               | if I closed, say, the only word doc I had open, I had to
               | relaunch word again (with all the loading time that that
               | entailed) just to open a new doc. On a Mac you can close
               | windows without worrying that you're also going to quit
               | the app (except for apps that only support one window,
               | although I do think it's silly that every app doesn't
               | just support multiple windows).
        
               | whatever1 wrote:
               | Why the app has to be scrubbed from memory immediately
               | after you close the last window? We are not in the times
               | with 512kb of RAM memory. This is not something that the
               | user should have to worry about today.
               | 
               | This is the simplest caching scenario I can think of.
        
               | creativenolo wrote:
               | The menu bar? God no. Cluttered enough.
               | 
               | It's not like it's hard to quit an app. You push Apple-Q
               | for the app, Apple-W for a window.
               | 
               | What's the point in having a window if it doesn't need
               | it. Do I need to check if this is the last window so I
               | don't lose my download, stop my render, etc. These things
               | bite me on Windows. There is not the one way.
        
         | Aurornis wrote:
         | > What is the purpose of the dock? It does not tell you what
         | apps have windows visible, preview these windows or inform you
         | where these windows are. Absolute waste of screen real estate.
         | 
         | Auto-hide. First thing I turn on when I do a fresh install.
         | 
         | Some keep it as an app launcher and quick switcher. I prefer to
         | only open it when necessary.
        
       | yisonPylkita wrote:
       | Thank you! I've just installed it and so far it works great
        
         | wojciech-kulik wrote:
         | Thank you for the feedback!
        
       | adamredwoods wrote:
       | I don't use VWS on OSX, because I'm faster without it. Flashspace
       | looks like an improvement (faster), but I don't know if it's how
       | I work. I may try it.
       | 
       | The biggest complaint I have, is why doesn't alt-tab work
       | smarter? Here's an example of using alt-tab and window management
       | differently: https://justinnoel.dev/2020/12/22/macplus-software-
       | demo-of-c...
        
         | fragmede wrote:
         | https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/
        
           | maleldil wrote:
           | This is a good solution. It interacts weirdly with programs
           | that use native tabs (e.g. each Ghostty tab shows up as a
           | separate window), but other than that, coming from other OSs,
           | it works as you'd expect.
           | 
           | I tried getting used to the "macOS way", but this is just
           | better.
        
       | donfotto wrote:
       | This is much needed on mac os. But why? Back in the day, mac os
       | was supposed to "just work", and linux was for weirdos who had
       | too much time and customized everything. But now, it's the
       | opposite. Vanilla flavor ubuntu just works out of the box. And
       | mac os needs tons of third party customization. Same with
       | external monitors, on mac one needs 3rd party software for
       | properly scaling the UI on a 4k monitor. That's core OS
       | functionality, not something one should need an extension for.
        
       | locusofself wrote:
       | Is there a similar app for Windows? I work at Microsoft and while
       | I'm allowed to use other OSes it's not really practical.
        
       | boronine wrote:
       | I have been using AeroSpace for this purpose for over a year. I
       | simply disable all the tiling features in the config and only use
       | two shortcuts: switch to workspace and move current window to
       | workspace. It's absolutely essential when working on a small
       | screen.
       | 
       | AeroSpace does indeed suffer from a performance issue but this
       | appears to be inherent to the available macOS APIs:
       | https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace/issues/131
       | 
       | The way you reproduce it is open Factorio.app and quickly switch
       | between workspaces _while the game is loading_.
       | 
       | FlashSpace seems to suffer from this problem as well based on a
       | quick test.
       | 
       | With regards to configuration, I think it's cumbersome to
       | configure shortcuts per workspace. In AeroSpace, every letter and
       | number on the keyboard is automatically a workspace and shortcuts
       | are global.
       | 
       | All that said, this is a fantastic tool and I would prefer a tool
       | like this that addresses the pain of macOS workspaces as its
       | primary goal rather than being part of a tiling window manager.
       | 
       | EDIT: After more testing it appears that FlashSpace does not
       | support having different windows of the same app on different
       | workspaces, this is a dealbreaker for my workflow :(
        
         | foofoobar wrote:
         | How do you disable the AeroSpace tiling, are you just using the
         | floating layout? Can you share your config?
        
           | boronine wrote:
           | Here you go: https://www.boronine.com/2025/02/09/Instant-
           | Workspace-Switch...
        
         | snippety wrote:
         | Regarding the performance, the app uses native api to show/hide
         | so I don't think it is possible to make it faster than it is
         | now. If it lags it's probably not the app lagging but the
         | system because of the heavy work going on.
         | 
         | Btw. I had the same adventure with Aerospace, I disabled whole
         | tiling just to have workspaces, but they become unusable
         | because anything going on on the computer could cause lag like
         | 5 seconds between switching workspaces. And as a developer I
         | often build apps and switch between workapaces.
        
       | gregoriol wrote:
       | Nice work, but I won't use it: the transitions between spaces
       | actually allow me to change focus in my mind; with a direct
       | switch, without any visual indication, it will take a few moments
       | to scan the screen, realise the change and adapt in my mind
       | 
       | Also, assigned apps are not how I work: I don't assign a task per
       | space, I assign a project per space, so within many spaces I'll
       | have browser, editor, notes, ... a window of each in each space.
        
         | rpdillon wrote:
         | >it will take a few moments to scan the screen, realise the
         | change and adapt in my mind
         | 
         | I'm consistently astonished at how visual so many people are in
         | their usage of a computer. The array of icons I see folks
         | scanning on their phones to pick and app is like that, but so
         | are Apple's window managers. That's fine, but they don't offer
         | any alternative.
         | 
         | I maintain a list of spaces in my mind and have them assigned
         | to numbers. I think this comes from using tmux and screen for
         | so long. I just want my display to instantly teleport me to
         | that space. The idea that they are layed out on a table and
         | have to slide out of view is a weird skeumorphic thing that I
         | wish they would at least allow folks to disable, since it eats
         | keyboard input during the animation.
         | 
         | If any other company had done this, people would deride them
         | for the thoughtless design.
        
           | parentheses wrote:
           | I believe you can turn off all the movement animations and
           | configure the switching time to be near instant using
           | `defaults`
        
             | rpdillon wrote:
             | Sadly, after many hours troubleshooting this, the answer is
             | that you cannot. Even with reduced motion and turning off
             | as much animation as possible, there is a 1,000 millisecond
             | input delay in switching workspaces on Mac. That is a
             | fundamental limitation of the core operating system APIs.
        
               | oliviergg wrote:
               | If I remember correctly there is a command line option. I
               | do it many year ago on my Mac, and I can switch space
               | without any delay / animation Edit : You're right, there
               | is some Fade transition between space, but it is not 1000
               | ms. defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-
               | duration -int 1; killall Dock
        
           | gregoriol wrote:
           | I do agree that alternatives and options for power users must
           | be available, everyone should be able to tweek things until
           | they are satisfied as everyone is different
        
       | marliechiller wrote:
       | Interesting - does this also manage my app window placement like
       | a tiling window manager? I personally hate having to organise
       | windows rather than just have them fill half my screen without
       | thinking
        
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