Native Instant Space Switching on MacOS

Arhan's Blog

God damnit I didn't know until 15 seconds ago that the Space-switching animation in macOS was annoying. Thanks a lot!
Just wait until you notice that it’s inexplicably slower on 120hz monitors and that your input devices remain focused on the previous space until the animation fully completes!

> our input devices remain focused on the previous space until the animation fully completes

This strikes me as the fuckup more than anything else.

It’s insane and the worst part about Mac OS
This is true in iOS, too. Taps are ignored until any animation completes. Must be deep in the code!

I see yabai mentioned, definitely check out Aerospace. Ive tried multiple WMs after years of i3 on Linux and this is the best one I found (for me) with quite a margin. It just works (tm)

https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace

GitHub - nikitabobko/AeroSpace: AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS - nikitabobko/AeroSpace

GitHub
I was a heavy macOS Spaces user. Upon a recommendation to use Aerospace from somewhere else here a few months ago, I switched and love it. I considered Yabai, but some features required disabling SIP (System Integrity Protection).
Another happy aerospace here! IMO it does a great job with barely any configuration required (the default config works great, I have barely tweaked it over years of use), that said I’m not exactly power user of tiling WMs, I have one app per workspace 90% of the time

Same here. My only complaint is I wish there was a way to make apps floating by default and then you would specify which ones you want tiled.

IME a lot of apps are easier to use in their default state. I really only use my web browser, text editor, and terminal in tiled mode.

I switched to Fedora Asahi Remix[1] after being affected by this bug[2] after 5 releases of MacOS Tahoe. I am enjoying Asahi Remix with Gnome and it has sensicle window management.

[1] https://asahilinux.org/fedora/
[2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=JjptYWKGVc4

Fedora Asahi Remix - Asahi Linux

I also switched, but to https://asahi-alarm.org/ (the arch variant) with Sway, right after Software Update ignored my choice to NOT upgrade to Slophoe.
Asahi Alarm

I grew up with this animation so I didn't consider it annoying until I bought a new Macbook a couple years ago.

I noticed sometimes I would press keyboard shortcuts before my system's focus had switched. Just little stumbles here and there, some inoffensive, some annoying, but who knows maybe I didn't catch enough sleep.

Over time it happened often enough that I decided to google it, and it turns out my muscle memory wasn't failing me; the animation speed did change ever so slightly and was slower in new Macs with 120Hz displays [1][2] (newer MacBooks, 2021+). If you switch your screen to 60Hz it goes back to the faster animation.

Why is this animation slower now, and why does it depend on screen refresh rate? I have some technical theories but can't think of an organizational reason it happened and hasn't been fixed 5 years later at a 3.82 trillion market cap company. If you Google it there's plenty of discussions online about this. It's noticeable and annoying to people who have used the feature often enough.

[1]: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256124324?sortBy=rank

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNBWt4NvqHg

Switch Spaces via Trackpad is slower with… - Apple Community

I would assume it’s something based around whatever deacceleration animation it is calculating? So in the inverse of what you would see in games that don’t support uncapped framerates. It would at least explain why the refresh rate has an inverted relationship
Here's a script to install and configure, in case it's helpful for anyone's dotfiles: https://github.com/bfirsh/dotfiles/blob/48eff70daa754216eff9...
dotfiles/script/setup at 48eff70daa754216eff92f755312ea60561bc2ea · bfirsh/dotfiles

Contribute to bfirsh/dotfiles development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub