The problem with windows and spaces (which the fractal dives in this video are) that you jump to, is every time you lose context and relationship. People try to fix this with these little "minimaps" that number your spaces, but that is also a loss of context, then you have visual zooming interfaces which are completely lawless and just create total chaos.
Fractals are great, but no matter how closely I look at a fractal branch on a fractal limb on a fractal tree I can see the prior item, the parent limb, the trunk.
Even when moving through a street, context "jumps" don't occur but the further I get away from visual marker context (like in zig zag alleyways) the easier it is to get lost.
If I hike on a mountain and I am half way up, I can look at the rocks at my feet but I instantly regain my context by looking up, in a continuous, non jumping way, and little trees or features in the landscape help me know where I am.
Every jump in an interface, every popup out of context invokes the doorway effect.
This is fine, sometimes you need a blank slate, but moving to a new room and deleting context should be a conscious choice not something that happens while you are operating on the same project/effort.
oh damn this is incredible, this idea is what I always wanted, I prefer that over Niri and Niri support for macOS is not where to my liking (I tried a few and they're all clunky and/or don't support multiple displays nicely)
I’ve been developing FazerWM which is a Mac window manager inspired by Niri, I’m still grappling with if I should make it paid or donation ware, it’s taken over 9 months of development https://fazerwm.app
Thanks! That would be greatly appreciated, if you download and install it you get full features for 14 days and I'll happily extend until there is any form of payment. I'm grappling with price point (and if it's maybe better just to make it donation ware in the age of AI) and having testers be able to give feedback will be very helpful you can either join the Discord or contact me via email in my about text. I'd love to be able to do a video call while you install if that was possible
some feedback, it always feels scary trusting an app that records screen content, so if you made it open-source and donationware I would gladly donate and participate that way!
nothing from screen sharing goes off your machine, the only network data from Fazer is trial check and update check https://fazerwm.app/privacy/
I can even explain why screen sharing is required:
if you programmatically move a window so that more than 50% of it overlaps onto an adjacent display the window will be displayed on the adjacent display instead of the desired one, FazerWM uses screen sharing to stream the part that should be visible where you expect it, while the actual window is parked offscreen, also for grabbing thumbnails of windows for Overview and Recent windows features.
Tried so many window manager addons or replacements for macOS. Ultimately, the only thing that stuck was https://github.com/FelixKratz/JankyBorders which does nothing more for me than painting a big colored border around the currently active window.
Everything else, including tiling managers never worked for me. I prefer to have my main window centered and all the others nearby, but nothing ever quite fit perfectly.
Had been a fan of Rectangle until I re-discovered for myself a regular mouse (the one with a scroll-wheel and real buttons) on mac. Now I'm using "Easy Move+Resize", which replicates the linux experience of cmd+left-click-drag and cmd+middle-click-drag for moving and resizing windows.
I've been using Divvy for many years and am gutted that it seems to have been orphaned and won't be updated for apple silicon. I ended up switching a few months ago to Lasso, which does most of what I want. But I miss Divvy.
I also loved Divvy, but it recently started to make the little 'preview' desktops /spaces in Mission Control go blank. Looking for an alternative, I found Moom, which works also great. I can recommend that, too!
My solution to wanting a better window snapper - really I just wanted Windows style left, center (full) and right docking with specific keyboard shortcut ala windows was just to modify Rectangle to get of most of its feature and changes the shortcuts and behaviour a little.
I used and loved SizeUp until upgrading laptop and MacOS from 15 to 26, now most features don't work or are buggy, especially moving windows between spaces, desktops or sceens. Will be giving GridSnap a go asap.
Haven't tried it myself, but some apps lag horribly on resize. Seeing how this app immediately resizes them as you drag across the cells, wouldn't this end up horrible for some of those apps?
I recently came across Divvy (https://mizage.com/divvy/), and since it's closed source and hasn't changed in years, I built a lightweight open source alternative with Claude Code.
Press a shortcut, a grid appears, drag across the cells you want and the window snaps there, following your drag live. Any region can be saved as a preset with its own shortcut. It is simple Swift, has no dependencies, and requires no network access.
Tested on macOS 26 Tahoe. Feedback from anyone on earlier macOS versions is very welcome.
It's useful to me as is, and maybe it will be useful to someone else. Enjoy!
Related, I saw a project named "TrellisWM" posted on Twitter the other day. The developer calls it a "Fractal Window Manager". Looks interesting!
https://x.com/DanFessler/status/2109901960132305311
The problem with windows and spaces (which the fractal dives in this video are) that you jump to, is every time you lose context and relationship. People try to fix this with these little "minimaps" that number your spaces, but that is also a loss of context, then you have visual zooming interfaces which are completely lawless and just create total chaos.
Fractals are great, but no matter how closely I look at a fractal branch on a fractal limb on a fractal tree I can see the prior item, the parent limb, the trunk.
Even when moving through a street, context "jumps" don't occur but the further I get away from visual marker context (like in zig zag alleyways) the easier it is to get lost.
If I hike on a mountain and I am half way up, I can look at the rocks at my feet but I instantly regain my context by looking up, in a continuous, non jumping way, and little trees or features in the landscape help me know where I am.
Every jump in an interface, every popup out of context invokes the doorway effect.
This is fine, sometimes you need a blank slate, but moving to a new room and deleting context should be a conscious choice not something that happens while you are operating on the same project/effort.
$80 for a window manager (or $24 / year) ... yeesh. Maybe I will try it when I get fed up with rectangle.
Holy crow! Divvy was like $15 for life.
oh damn this is incredible, this idea is what I always wanted, I prefer that over Niri and Niri support for macOS is not where to my liking (I tried a few and they're all clunky and/or don't support multiple displays nicely)
I’ve been developing FazerWM which is a Mac window manager inspired by Niri, I’m still grappling with if I should make it paid or donation ware, it’s taken over 9 months of development https://fazerwm.app
oh very cool, I am down to test it for you!
Thanks! That would be greatly appreciated, if you download and install it you get full features for 14 days and I'll happily extend until there is any form of payment. I'm grappling with price point (and if it's maybe better just to make it donation ware in the age of AI) and having testers be able to give feedback will be very helpful you can either join the Discord or contact me via email in my about text. I'd love to be able to do a video call while you install if that was possible
some feedback, it always feels scary trusting an app that records screen content, so if you made it open-source and donationware I would gladly donate and participate that way!
nothing from screen sharing goes off your machine, the only network data from Fazer is trial check and update check https://fazerwm.app/privacy/
I can even explain why screen sharing is required:
if you programmatically move a window so that more than 50% of it overlaps onto an adjacent display the window will be displayed on the adjacent display instead of the desired one, FazerWM uses screen sharing to stream the part that should be visible where you expect it, while the actual window is parked offscreen, also for grabbing thumbnails of windows for Overview and Recent windows features.
I just bumped trial period to 30 days as well.
Like everyone else, I love Divvy and am sad it's been orphaned. I'll check this out!
Tried so many window manager addons or replacements for macOS. Ultimately, the only thing that stuck was https://github.com/FelixKratz/JankyBorders which does nothing more for me than painting a big colored border around the currently active window.
Everything else, including tiling managers never worked for me. I prefer to have my main window centered and all the others nearby, but nothing ever quite fit perfectly.
Had been a fan of Rectangle until I re-discovered for myself a regular mouse (the one with a scroll-wheel and real buttons) on mac. Now I'm using "Easy Move+Resize", which replicates the linux experience of cmd+left-click-drag and cmd+middle-click-drag for moving and resizing windows.
I've been on Divvy for years, and on the latest OSX I'm noticing some issues. It seems completely unmaintained.
I was looking into alternatives, either free or paid or just making one myself... so this is good timing.
Expect a contribution from me soon, I already see one missing feature I need! :-)
If you like this idea, also check out aerospace, a full on window manager for macOS.
https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace
I've been using it for a couple of years now, and it's great. You can navigate between windows with the keyboard, etc etc.
I've been using Divvy for many years and am gutted that it seems to have been orphaned and won't be updated for apple silicon. I ended up switching a few months ago to Lasso, which does most of what I want. But I miss Divvy.
https://www.thelasso.app/
Second for lasso. Use it on both my personal and work mac. Great app
I also loved Divvy, but it recently started to make the little 'preview' desktops /spaces in Mission Control go blank. Looking for an alternative, I found Moom, which works also great. I can recommend that, too!
https://manytricks.com/moom/
Looking good, a bit outside of scope of what I needed but I can totally see the appeal! Good luck!
My solution to wanting a better window snapper - really I just wanted Windows style left, center (full) and right docking with specific keyboard shortcut ala windows was just to modify Rectangle to get of most of its feature and changes the shortcuts and behaviour a little.
I used and loved SizeUp until upgrading laptop and MacOS from 15 to 26, now most features don't work or are buggy, especially moving windows between spaces, desktops or sceens. Will be giving GridSnap a go asap.
Haven't tried it myself, but some apps lag horribly on resize. Seeing how this app immediately resizes them as you drag across the cells, wouldn't this end up horrible for some of those apps?
I haven't encountered that so far, and have been using it for a few weeks now, but am happy to receive any bug reports!
I do use it on M4 Pro though, so that is certainly a possibility!
[flagged]
Seriously why did divy never recompile for arm64?
I recently came across Divvy (https://mizage.com/divvy/), and since it's closed source and hasn't changed in years, I built a lightweight open source alternative with Claude Code.
Press a shortcut, a grid appears, drag across the cells you want and the window snaps there, following your drag live. Any region can be saved as a preset with its own shortcut. It is simple Swift, has no dependencies, and requires no network access.
Tested on macOS 26 Tahoe. Feedback from anyone on earlier macOS versions is very welcome.
It's useful to me as is, and maybe it will be useful to someone else. Enjoy!
https://github.com/konieczkow/gridsnap
You should submit it to this site too: https://macoswm.com/submit