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Ask HN: Scrolling Window Manager for macOS?

9 points by NayamAmarshe ↗ HN
I've been using PaperWM on Gnome, which is a scrolling window manager extension. The idea is to have seamless horizontal scrolling between application windows as they get tiled in a queue fashion. The windows are horizontally resizable, and you can quickly switch between applications by swiping horizontally with three fingers on your touchpad.

This proved to be a massive productivity boost for me as I not only know where I'll find my application windows, but it became much easier to switch between applications and see them side by side in real-time.

It's almost like having multiple monitors on a laptop, it's an amazing and painless experience! The concept is kinda like multiple desktops, that are stitched together, but are horizontally resizable and visible on screen at the same time.

I am now on macOS and I find the experience subpar compared to Linux, I'm new to PaperWM but I can't imagine living without it now. Are there any good scrolling window managers for macOS that I could try? or anything that gets close enough? Here's a (relatively old) video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbQqBtbYXL4

Thanks!

7 comments

[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 17.9 ms ] thread
paustint
I have no idea about answers to your question, and this may not be useful at all to you, but find I am very productive using spectacle[0] for window sizing and multi-monitor window arrangement.

cmd+tab to change applications (like on every OS), but also cmd+~ on macos to change windows within active application (e.x. cycle through all web browser windows)

I don't use multi workspaces at all, so sorry if this comment isn't useful, but thought I would throw it out there just in case.

[0]https://www.spectacleapp.com/

stormking
https://github.com/mogenson/PaperWM.spoon is a plugin for https://www.hammerspoon.org that is directly inspired by PaperWM.
NayamAmarshe
Amazing! Thank you so much! I'll give it a try.

EDIT: This is perfect! Thanks a lot! There aren't any touchpad gestures but the keyboard shortcuts would do for now :D

stormking
I use BetterTouchTool to map three-finger-swipes to the respective keyboard commands:

- Swipe left to focus the column on the right, swipe right to focus the column on the left (reading it, it seems counter-intuitive but doing it is almost perfect).

- Swipe up and down to slurp in/out.

argo_navis
That's why I love Hacker News. I've never heard of PaperWM before, and now I'm a convert. I'm sorry I can't help you with your question, but your question certainly helped me. Thank you.