This has been a serious problem since macOS Tahoe. Whoever signed off on the UI for Tahoe needs a serious schooling in UI/UX design principles - it's incredibly hostile to users. Not only does it make it impossible to distinguish between overlapping windows as this tool seeks to mitigate, there's many confusing UI elements and lack of contrast not to mention why it has so much padding on everything - you're left with far less usable space.
I believe it's named after a guy who likely influenced the direction of the macOS UI such that this app's development was necessitated in the first place.
Bizarre that this has not been fixed by Apple, it has been an annoyance well before Tahoe. Relying on the three dots in the top left corner to see which window is on top gets frustrating.
Always glad to see more software in the window management space, especially for MacOS.
Any reason to use this over JankyBorders? I'm using it alongside Aerospace right now and forget sometimes it isn't built-in. Kind of weird to me that after all this time this is such a sparsely implemented feature. But the combo with Aerospace works well. Only thing missing is support in Aerospace for a toggle to have a window expand to the size of it's container. Really liked that feature in Yabai, made working with multiple tiled terminals really nice
Seems nice but I'm afraid it would not be compatible with my main work setup: VS Code on my main monitor, my web browser on my external monitor, and my eyes going back and forth between these 2 windows every few seconds to either read code or check the effects on the hot-reloading app. If one of the windows is dimmed, it would be painful.
Am I the only one who can't see what the problem is in that screencast? Click on the window you want to use or tab through until you find the right one.
The recent direction of MacOS has been a good excuse to try out a few new linux distros. As someone who was away from linux for a while, the degree of UI customization continues to be both amazing and a little overwhelming, but it feels more polished than before. Taking a look at Niri and hyperland, it's hard to feel satisfied with the UI of MacOS.
Took a look at this and it feels like it is implemented using public macOS frameworks so it shouldn't break between macOS updates
My guess is that kAXWindowMovedNotification, kAXWindowResizedNotification, kAXMainWindowChangedNotification etc. are being listened to on the currently focused window using the Accessibility framework, and there is a callback which gets the latest position of the tracked window whenever it is fired, and uses that position as a reference to update the border position
The border window itself is most likely an NSWindow, which is why the tracking of the border with the target window feels quite sluggish
PopOS's Cosmic DE has this baked in. I was unsure about the feature at first, but it has proved itself useful. I wonder if this will eventually be Shirlocked into macOS.
I want the opposite, I want to remove that annoying drop shadow from the active window, something that does not exist in other OS UIs like Windows. It's simply distracting to me.
In the default config, tmux panes _do_ have a highlighted border. It takes a bit to get used to how it’s done when there’s only 2 panes though (half the border is highlighted for each pane)
Different apps on macOS use different corner radii, so I’m wondering whether the apps can use any API to get the exact window bounds in order to draw the correct corner radius.
if you do not wish to install another app, check "increase contrast" in the mac settings under accessibility>display. it will draw borders around windows and text entries. Much welcomed.
36 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 52.0 ms ] threadBizarre that this has not been fixed by Apple, it has been an annoyance well before Tahoe. Relying on the three dots in the top left corner to see which window is on top gets frustrating.
Any reason to use this over JankyBorders? I'm using it alongside Aerospace right now and forget sometimes it isn't built-in. Kind of weird to me that after all this time this is such a sparsely implemented feature. But the combo with Aerospace works well. Only thing missing is support in Aerospace for a toggle to have a window expand to the size of it's container. Really liked that feature in Yabai, made working with multiple tiled terminals really nice
https://hazeover.com/
My guess is that kAXWindowMovedNotification, kAXWindowResizedNotification, kAXMainWindowChangedNotification etc. are being listened to on the currently focused window using the Accessibility framework, and there is a callback which gets the latest position of the tracked window whenever it is fired, and uses that position as a reference to update the border position
The border window itself is most likely an NSWindow, which is why the tracking of the border with the target window feels quite sluggish
https://gist.github.com/cfe84/901411ee43450e7ee0e50e88cf029f...
It’s probably the highest crime within Apple to state some things are not useable
Different apps on macOS use different corner radii, so I’m wondering whether the apps can use any API to get the exact window bounds in order to draw the correct corner radius.
https://hazeover.com
I'm not affiliated, but I love it and recommended it to friends.