If you’re just looking for a left/right split, macOS has had this for several years as part of their full screen mode. Hover over the green button and it shows full screen or tile left/right. You can also drag stuff around to do it in mission control.
The dragging to the left and right of the screen doesn’t really make sense for Apple’s implementation. It’s not something I use often, but I can understand why they did it the way they did. The drag and drop in mission control is the primary way it’s meant to be used. I think the zoom button hover was added to make it more discoverable.
Like any system, you have to spend a little time using it and learning how it works to take full advantage of it.
I think the lack of minimize in Gnome, and the expectation that people will open up a new virtual desktop and throw apps in it, and jump around desktops or move windows between desktops all the time when they just want to hide something for 2 seconds and bring it back, is a terrible UX, or at least something I can’t seem to get used to. There are tweaks to bring the minimize function back, but the whole thing is buggy. But I’m sure there are people on Gnome who really like this design pattern, they must if they made it.
I see zero reason why dragging a window to an edge shouldn’t 50% resize it and snap to another window border. Not sure whatever you’re referring to with Apple implementation either, it’s just a floating window UI that will benefit from this. Virtual desktops also have nothing to do with the resizing of windows. Also don’t really understand the unrelated rant against Gnome not having minimize.
macOS has never had a maximize button. Before they added full screen it was a zoom button. When they added maximize, they chose to go with full screen apps in their own virtual desktop to avoid obscuring everything else going or, or forcing people into a full tiling window manager on their main desktop.
Going with window dragging to the edge doesn’t make sense to create a new virtual desktop with only half the screen filled, which is how Apple’s tiling works.
It takes getting used to but it really is much better for multi tasking to stop using alt + tab and minimize altogether. Send one window to desktop 1 and another to desktop 2. Now you have consciously chosen where they are and can go there quickly (i. e. Win+1).
I always put the same program in the same place, just like organizing a toolbox/kitchen. Every tool has it’s place.
Both macOS and Windows have virtual desktops too though.
I’m fine with virtual desktop, just not the forced use of them as the only real tool for window management.
Having dedicated separate desktops for everything doesn’t really work for my workflow. The various pairings of apps I need change too frequently and it ends up feeling like a lot of extra work.
I’ve aspired to work that way, but I think I’d need a job where I was completely on my own where I could structure everything how I wanted and do all the work on my schedule without so much context switching.
I’ve never been a big KDE fan, though I haven’t used it in a while. I’m using xfce right now due to slow hardware, but it’s not my first choice either.
This is the paradox of choice. With so many options I expect I’d find my Goldilocks desktop, but haven’t, so I’m forever unsatisfied. I don’t really have this issue with macOS or Windows, because they just are what they are.
I can’t say that I agree with you as far as the Apple stuff, but as a long time Gnome user, I agree with you 100% about Gnome. I loved Gnome 2, but even after all these years Gnome 3 has not grown on me. I’m actually running it on my main desktop PC right now so it’s not for lack of trying. Maybe I’m just a dinosaur but I’d take some Gnome 2 with Compiz over this mess of a desktop environment even still.
I actually had to go find a video on how Gnome 3 was meant to be used. Every time I installed it, I would always go straight to the tweak tool to add in some functionality. Then one day I was like, no, there has to be a design here, what is it? It actually took a fair bit of effort to find.
Not long ago I was watching someone from Red Hat doing some work in Fedora and saw him use Gnome as designed, pop open the stage, move his window to another desktop to get it out of the way, and then go back to what he was doing. It was fairly quick when he did it, but it seems awkward. Had I not previous done the research in Gnome I would have found his actions there very odd.
I’ve always been a Gnome guy when it comes to Linux, and have been using macOS for a long time. So when Gnome 3 came out I figured it would be great for going between macOS and Linux. But I’m almost at the point where I’m willing to give KDE another shot, even though I’m not really a fan of the start-menu style interface. I know there are panels or apps I could use to simulate a dock, but I always found the add-on docks that are just launchers to kind of suck, since the system really wasn’t designed around them. I’m not sure of modem KDE has other better options. It’s been a long time.
Are they rich enough to be the only widget/panel? That has been my issue in the past. I couldn’t just have the dock, I always needed something else to fall back to for when the dock had issues or didn’t support a critical function.
It’s been working great for me. What do you need it to do? Mine is just like the MacOS dock: it has shortcuts on the left side and opened programs on the right side.
I’m trying to think back to my last attempt. I think it was certain OS functions, like shutdown and reboot, needed some other panel. On macOS those are in the menu bar, which is a key part of the OS. On Linux I had an extra panel that didn’t feel like it was part of the OS, it felt more like this extra thing of mostly wasted space, so I could pretend the desktop environment was designed differently than it actually was. It didn’t feel much different than running a dock app on Windows, and still needing the start menu and taskbar.
If you’re just looking for a left/right split, macOS has had this for several years as part of their full screen mode. Hover over the green button and it shows full screen or tile left/right. You can also drag stuff around to do it in mission control.
Sounds like they should probably improve their terrible UX. People say they have good UX somehow?
The dragging to the left and right of the screen doesn’t really make sense for Apple’s implementation. It’s not something I use often, but I can understand why they did it the way they did. The drag and drop in mission control is the primary way it’s meant to be used. I think the zoom button hover was added to make it more discoverable.
Like any system, you have to spend a little time using it and learning how it works to take full advantage of it.
I think the lack of minimize in Gnome, and the expectation that people will open up a new virtual desktop and throw apps in it, and jump around desktops or move windows between desktops all the time when they just want to hide something for 2 seconds and bring it back, is a terrible UX, or at least something I can’t seem to get used to. There are tweaks to bring the minimize function back, but the whole thing is buggy. But I’m sure there are people on Gnome who really like this design pattern, they must if they made it.
I see zero reason why dragging a window to an edge shouldn’t 50% resize it and snap to another window border. Not sure whatever you’re referring to with Apple implementation either, it’s just a floating window UI that will benefit from this. Virtual desktops also have nothing to do with the resizing of windows. Also don’t really understand the unrelated rant against Gnome not having minimize.
macOS has never had a maximize button. Before they added full screen it was a zoom button. When they added maximize, they chose to go with full screen apps in their own virtual desktop to avoid obscuring everything else going or, or forcing people into a full tiling window manager on their main desktop.
Going with window dragging to the edge doesn’t make sense to create a new virtual desktop with only half the screen filled, which is how Apple’s tiling works.
It takes getting used to but it really is much better for multi tasking to stop using alt + tab and minimize altogether. Send one window to desktop 1 and another to desktop 2. Now you have consciously chosen where they are and can go there quickly (i. e. Win+1).
I always put the same program in the same place, just like organizing a toolbox/kitchen. Every tool has it’s place.
Both macOS and Windows have virtual desktops too though.
I’m fine with virtual desktop, just not the forced use of them as the only real tool for window management.
Having dedicated separate desktops for everything doesn’t really work for my workflow. The various pairings of apps I need change too frequently and it ends up feeling like a lot of extra work.
I’ve aspired to work that way, but I think I’d need a job where I was completely on my own where I could structure everything how I wanted and do all the work on my schedule without so much context switching.
So use KDE or xfce or …
In Linux you have choice
I’ve never been a big KDE fan, though I haven’t used it in a while. I’m using xfce right now due to slow hardware, but it’s not my first choice either.
This is the paradox of choice. With so many options I expect I’d find my Goldilocks desktop, but haven’t, so I’m forever unsatisfied. I don’t really have this issue with macOS or Windows, because they just are what they are.
I can’t say that I agree with you as far as the Apple stuff, but as a long time Gnome user, I agree with you 100% about Gnome. I loved Gnome 2, but even after all these years Gnome 3 has not grown on me. I’m actually running it on my main desktop PC right now so it’s not for lack of trying. Maybe I’m just a dinosaur but I’d take some Gnome 2 with Compiz over this mess of a desktop environment even still.
I actually had to go find a video on how Gnome 3 was meant to be used. Every time I installed it, I would always go straight to the tweak tool to add in some functionality. Then one day I was like, no, there has to be a design here, what is it? It actually took a fair bit of effort to find.
Not long ago I was watching someone from Red Hat doing some work in Fedora and saw him use Gnome as designed, pop open the stage, move his window to another desktop to get it out of the way, and then go back to what he was doing. It was fairly quick when he did it, but it seems awkward. Had I not previous done the research in Gnome I would have found his actions there very odd.
I’ve always been a Gnome guy when it comes to Linux, and have been using macOS for a long time. So when Gnome 3 came out I figured it would be great for going between macOS and Linux. But I’m almost at the point where I’m willing to give KDE another shot, even though I’m not really a fan of the start-menu style interface. I know there are panels or apps I could use to simulate a dock, but I always found the add-on docks that are just launchers to kind of suck, since the system really wasn’t designed around them. I’m not sure of modem KDE has other better options. It’s been a long time.
KDE has docks. It’s just another Plasmoid (i.e. a desktop widget). It’s not as smooth as MacOS’s, but it looks decent and gets the job done.
Are they rich enough to be the only widget/panel? That has been my issue in the past. I couldn’t just have the dock, I always needed something else to fall back to for when the dock had issues or didn’t support a critical function.
It’s been working great for me. What do you need it to do? Mine is just like the MacOS dock: it has shortcuts on the left side and opened programs on the right side.
I’m trying to think back to my last attempt. I think it was certain OS functions, like shutdown and reboot, needed some other panel. On macOS those are in the menu bar, which is a key part of the OS. On Linux I had an extra panel that didn’t feel like it was part of the OS, it felt more like this extra thing of mostly wasted space, so I could pretend the desktop environment was designed differently than it actually was. It didn’t feel much different than running a dock app on Windows, and still needing the start menu and taskbar.