Terminal Window Manager for OS X

As always, I recommend Hammerspoon [1] when these sorts of things come up. If you can program Lua (or you know JS or Python, which is close enough), you can create any kind of window management system you want, saved layouts, contextual layouts across multiple monitors, adjust wifi&#x2F;sound based on location, tab multiple windows, and a lot more.<p>There are a lot of hammerspoon configurations around that will give you some cool ideas. Mine is below [2].<p>1. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hammerspoon.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hammerspoon.org&#x2F;</a><p>2. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;STRML&#x2F;init&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;hammerspoon&#x2F;init.lua" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;STRML&#x2F;init&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;hammerspoon&#x2F;init.l...</a>

&quot;ll&quot; may not be the best choice of default alias - it&#x27;s pretty common for people to already have it aliased to &quot;ls -l&quot; (or -la, or -lah, or whatever their preferred default flavor), especially for the type of power users this is targeted toward.<p>I realize this is a bit of a moot point since the user can always change the alias, but it&#x27;s generally better UX if the default is something most people will use.

I like Spectacle[0] for this. It works for any window, not just terminals.<p>Though what I really want is native xmonad in OSX.<p>0. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;spectacleapp.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;spectacleapp.com&#x2F;</a>

Hey guys, I&#x27;m a creator of termitile. Many of you have pointed out that there are lots of window managers for OS X and my intention wasn&#x27;t to create just another one. What I really needed was a bunch of script that I could alias and use directly from the terminal without cluttering my global keyboard shortcuts. I couldn&#x27;t find any other programs that had a terminal API, so I&#x27;ve just hacked this one :)<p>So just to be clear, it&#x27;s not intended to be a replacement for Amethyst, Divvy, or any other universal manager, but just a quick solutions just for the terminal, because you can control it with regular commands!<p>I hope you like it!

Many of these sorts of apps reposition windows and scale to half or quarter of the screen. What I really want is intelligent repositioning so that none of my windows overlap. (xmonad, without resizing the windows.) Failing that, magnetic edges.<p>Unfortunately, what I want is really the job of a window manager, or should be done at the OS level. On the Mac, there is no true user-serviceable window manager that can be replaced.

I&#x27;m a big fan of the BetterSnapTool available on the App store. It costs $1.99, but it works with all widows and has drag-to-snap, shortcuts keys, etc.<p>I&#x27;m still surprised Apple hasn&#x27;t just incorporated this into OSX.

Use the free Bettertouchtool (and also helpful e.g. for middle clicking links with three finger tab) and enable &quot;Window snapping&quot;.

I use Emacs in full screen mode on OSX. Then I split into usually 3 or 4 panes and launch a terminal in one of them. Then I have a todo list in another and the code I&#x27;m editing in another.<p>Works great for my use.

All you need is Moom for every window, not just terminal. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;manytricks.com&#x2F;moom&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;manytricks.com&#x2F;moom&#x2F;</a>

I&#x27;m an i3 Linux user, and it&#x27;s always sad to see the state of tiling window management on OS X. I use OS X on my work machine, and while I&#x27;m able to mimic some of i3&#x27;s behavior on OS X, it&#x27;s never quite the same, and I always find it frustrating.<p>There are a number of tools that provide some subset of the functionality, but they always lack some critical piece (oftentimes FFM, multi-monitor support, or window containers).

Just looking at the plethora of solutions for this problem, that are recommended in this thread, makes me think that there is something here that is being radically missed by the OS decision-makers that don&#x27;t implement these kinds of tiling features by default in the OS. So many solutions to the same problem! Surely this is a sign that there are features missing in the Window manager, which should be making it into the OS at some point?

It&#x27;s cool but <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jigish&#x2F;slate" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jigish&#x2F;slate</a> ?

Bears mention here, Spectacle[1] is a general purpose window manager which offers the same features using keyboard shortcuts for any OSX window.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;eczarny&#x2F;spectacle" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;eczarny&#x2F;spectacle</a>

If someone is interested, the same can be accomplished on X by using xdotool [1].<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.semicomplete.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;xdotool&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.semicomplete.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;xdotool&#x2F;</a>

Good idea to have a &#x27;leader&#x27; (ala Vim style) and then have the intuitive shortcuts follow. Example &#x27;zll&#x27; instead of &#x27;ll&#x27;. ll is almost always &#x27;ls -l&#x27;.

Another (not yet mentioned here) tool is Mjolnir. It requires some lua scripting but seems to be really flexible.<p>I stick with bettertouchtool combined with some keyboard shortcuts though.

I admit I am boring. I use the &#x27;Save Windows as Group&#x27; feature in a tiled four square, found under the Window menu in Terminal.app<p>iTerm2 handles split panes quite nice as well.

Nicely structured AppleScript (which is not an easy feat).

TotalTerminal [1] with tmux works well.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;totalterminal.binaryage.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;totalterminal.binaryage.com</a>

Nice, although I think there should also be an &#x27;fs&#x27; option for Full Screen.

why not just install a global window manager? <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;spectacleapp.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;spectacleapp.com&#x2F;</a>

You should look at SizeUp, it basically does the same thing except for any window :D

What is the real reason to make this tool platform-specific?