Making macOS Bearable

I agree but barely ever use my MacBook not docked to my external monitor and keyboard. So for me I just stick to the Magic Trackpad in such cases.

I really love the trackpad on the MacBook; it's been the best experience by a long shot coming from other laptops. The problem is, most of the time the MacBook is docked and I prefer to use my external keyboard and display. And Vimium is just very fun to use, especially if you're using Vim/Neovim/Helix.

I know I am weird, but I detest using a MacBook trackpad. However, recently having used Asahi on one, I've found that it is the Apple software that makes it so. I find it really difficult to drag and drop (I would rather open Terminal and standard Unix tools than try anymore) and gestures are way too greedy IMO. Under Linux it is bearable for me (though I still have preferred others slightly for a better texture than the glassy feel).

I wonder if the author is like me in that respect? Not sure I would spend time like this, but I also spent months building my Linux environment from a tty in 2009-2010 (landed on XMonad, finally on River this year after 5 months in GNOME purgatory to force myself to move to Wayland). Last macOS machine I set up, I turned off a bunch of stuff in Settings and was instantly bored because I just didn't want to deal with the window manager at all. It is now my video chat machine because of Dell's "wise" decision to use IPU7 hardware…but I really don't like using it for much else (Asahi reboots are tedious).

Macbook trackpad is weird. On the other hand, it's excellent for most desktop tasks. But I just can't play almost any mouse-requiring game with it.

Not everyone uses a laptop as their desktop too.

Especially with all gestures enabled and used

I use Alfred a ton throughout the day. I have many workflows and other settings that I set up years ago that are absolutely indispensable to me.

I deal with a huge number of different projects at work, for example. I have a workflow that imports the master excel spreadsheet and builds an instantly searchable database of every project, with links to all relevant portals and information. I can just start typing a project name or number (or other relevant info) and instantly jump to the project’s Sharepoint page, my local files directory, emails about that project, the publicly-accessible portal for it, etc etc. I use it constantly every day.

I also use Alfred to search industry-specific search engines, to draft repetitive emails for me, and to file things away. I have many little conveniences set up, like a workflow that configures various laptop settings based on location (printers, audio devices, volume level, etc).

Honestly if I had to choose between “Mac OS with no Alfred” and “Windows with Alfred,” I’d stick with Alfred. It’s such a helpful app.

I really like Alfred, it's a worthy descendant of QS for sure. To be fair, it is possible to use Spotlight for the same kind of "invoke, start typing, hit return to launch" workflow (it's just uglier, and not extensible). Lots of Linux DEs have similar searchable launchers, and if you squint, Windows does too (but packed with extra crud - I think maybe PowerToys has something more QS-like?)

I am not a serious computer power user but raycast (also cmd + space + couple letters), cmd + tab, and cmd + ‘ get me around quick enough!

I also used to use Quicksilver back in the day. Now it's a mix of Alfred and Spotlight. Alfred for launching things and workflows, Spotlight for things like quick unit conversions and such. Alfred is bound to Cmd-Space while Spotlight is Cmd-Shift-Space.

I love and do the same thing with Raycast! But mostly with apps that do not have a designated "workspace".

Most of the time, I only have Spotify, chat clients, my browser, and the terminal open. And I do prefer every one of them just having a fixed place behind a shortcut, which at this point is just muscle memory.

  [[on-window-detected]]
  if.app-id = 'com.microsoft.teams2'
  run = 'move-node-to-workspace 7'
  
  [[on-window-detected]]
  if.app-id = 'com.hnc.Discord'
  run = 'move-node-to-workspace 8'
  
  [[on-window-detected]]
  if.app-id = 'com.spotify.client'
  run = 'move-node-to-workspace 9'

+1 for Alfred

I personally use a tiling window manager when I feel like it but also get how it's personal preference :)

It's one of the reasons I still get my work done with macOS, despite some of the more questionable decisions it's been subject to lately. Despite it all, the defaults are by far closest to what works for me. In less than 30m I can go from a clean install to doing work.

It's also why I have a difficult time with Linux. Even the environments that are closest relatives to macOS are still quite distant, and so I end up getting sucked down a black hole trying to tweak my way closer to parity, which of course never works out. Linux only works for me for single-purpose machines where the desktop environment basically doesn't factor in.

I really don't find the macOS windowing or application handling defaults to be tasteful or competently designed.

In order for me to work using macOS without constantly bemoaning what feel like obvious shortcomings I need aerospace and quite a few scripts.

I have macOS shortcuts hot branded in my brain.

I'd prefer to adopt a few of these programs than having to configure i3 and use ctrl for everything

"Getting productive" wasn't really my goal when configuring my system. I spend a lot of time in front of the computer and simply prefer using it this way because it feels natural. But, of course, you're entitled to your opinion :)

And since they don't have tasteful defaults, what's your nonyakshaving way out?

It's been a long time since Apple was really the home for sane defaults for me.

An easy example is how the workspaces rearrange themselves be mort recent use, and worse on iOS there's some seemingly random time interval at which they move themselves after use.

I just use phoenix with some special hotkeys to move windows into positions and tile them. Macos has recently added some 'tiling' controls in, but they aren't as flexible. I wrote this phoenix config at least 10 years ago and I just keep it in my dropbox to copy onto the latest work laptop. So while it is 'yak shaving' it's a yak i shaved 10 years ago, amortized over the lifetime i've been using it I would guess it's costing me under a tenth of a second per day at this point.

You could use real vim in there with ghosttext, but it's not a native integration, you'd have a separate editor window

Another upside is (if your editor is properly setup to not lose data) that a page crash will never lose your precious long carefully crafted comment since it will persist in the editor

I've heard of https://github.com/glacambre/firenvim but I've also heard you might run into issues clashing with browser keybinds

Aerospace is what you need! The exact reason I decided on sticking with it.

Aerospace solves this, and many other design problems with Mac OS windowing.

I don't need aerospace but I find Mac windowing to have a lot of cumbersome design shortcomings.

Long animations between spaces, fullscreen creating a new window at the end of the list (??), slow processes to tile windows and efficiently use space, a lot of shortcomings with multi monitor setups, lots of dragging via touchpad to move and size windows across spaces.

Make sure dock is on the bottom, right click, "show on each display".

As someone who probably has a similar setup on Linux to the author: why do you have 10 windows for an app open?

For me, grouping by app is terrible. Yes, they may all be "Terminal" or "Firefox" windows, but they are for very different things. I'd rather see things grouped by project regardless of "app". But that is what tagging window managers are for :) .

Given that macOS forces that (IMO) braindead tunnel vision paradigm, I think the response should be "Wù".

The following two ways should cover everything:

1) (can be visual) you can setup cmd-tab to move between apps and alt-tab to move between one windows within an app (for example with alt-tab app)

2) (non-visual) with your window management prefix key setup two left/right cursor pairs like "JK" and "M," and use one to switch apps and the other to switch windows within an app (or maybe JL and IK in the inverted T cursor unless you're using up/down for something else)

Take a look at Witch by Many Tricks:

https://manytricks.com/witch/

Among other features that might solve your problem, it lets you use your keyboard to filter by window title.

You mean something other than ⌘+` ?

The goal is to be able to switch to a specific window without needing to see the screen. If his setup means cmd+1 takes him to the terminal every time, it's easier than cmd-tabbing through all n windows. Think of it as the difference between constant time and linear time.

Here you go :) https://wallhaven.cc/w/8g5qr2

I've solved this (on Arc) by simply binding Prev/Next tab shortcuts to CMD+Shift+j/k, and have been pretty happy with it.