Spectacle: Feature request: useless gap

[jeromenerf]

Hey there,

I like having "useless gaps" around tiled windows, especially with mac drop shadows.
I have written a patch years ago (still using it today) for dwm (x11) explaining the idea: http://dwm.suckless.org/patches/uselessgap

• https://gist.github.com/jeromenerf/56a6bd951c1d08c2f851
• screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8x2c2bxv3y3xmzn/Screenshot%202014-11-12%2018.32.47.png?dl=0

For now, I run my own spectacle hack but I would really love to see this feature upstream, with a configurable gap width.

[pnoguchi]

I agree with your thoughts. You mention using a patch on Spectacles to get this effect; can you elaborate?

[jeromenerf]

@pnoguchi terre is a patch attached to the issue :)
It uses hard coded gap width value and maybe not behave nicely with some
apps (Xcode for instance).

Patching spectacle to add gaps is trivial but I don't know anything about
Xcode and Mac apps dev to make the gap width configurable with a decent gui.

[eczarny]

This isn't a feature I would want to add, sorry.

[pnoguchi]

I am sorry too. How about, in addition to 1/3 width something a bit less than 1/2 width, maybe 5/8?

[jeromenerf]

@eczarny Sad to hear that. I guess I will need to maintain my fork for a while then.
Anyway, thanks for spectacle!

[pnoguchi]

I have been following this issue on the Spectacle github. I am not a
programmer, so I wonder if I could request a copy of the Patched
Spectacle. I agree with the concept of useless gaps, and like you have
used SizeUp with this feature in place. It add tremendously to me the
ability to clearly distinguish windows.

Best regards,

Phil Noguchi

Jérôme Andrieux mailto:[email protected]
November 25, 2014 at 6:33 PM

@eczarny https://github.com/eczarny Sad to hear that. I guess I will
need to maintain my fork for a while then.
Anyway, thanks for spectacle!

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[naggie]

I would also like to use the useless gaps fork. @jeromenerf do you still have/maintain it?

[jeromenerf]

@naggie Well, I have my set of patches, my custom build I send to @pnoguchi sometimes.

If you have xcode & cocoapod installed, you can apply https://gist.github.com/jeromenerf/c7630ac1c74415f13338 and build your own I guess.

Not a brilliant patch but a working hack :/

[pnoguchi]

Hello Jerome,

I see that Spectacle is up to 1.0.6 now. I wonder if you had any
experience with your patched spectacle with El Capitan 10.11.6b2? I am
back using Sizeup but have one machine still using the patched
Spectacle. The only problem with that is that it always seems to want to
update to the official build and I waste a minuscule amount of time
ticking the Not this time buttont, and with no apparent way to disable
it, and the developer still is totally against UG!.

I wonder if disabling the asking for updates could be patched as well as
UG? I would prefer to be able to use your patched Spectacle if possible.

my best regards,

Philip Noguchi

Jérôme Andrieux mailto:[email protected]
June 5, 2015 at 12:05 PM

@naggie https://github.com/naggie Well, I have my set of patches, my
custom build I send to @pnoguchi https://github.com/pnoguchi sometimes.

If you have xcode & cocoapod installed, you can apply
https://gist.github.com/jeromenerf/c7630ac1c74415f13338 and build your
own I guess.

Not a brilliant patch but a working hack :/

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[jeromenerf]

Linux/dwm is my primary environment. On macos, I switch to Amethyst, from
https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst/pull/298, since it features the same
dynamic approach.

My patch was a quick and dirty hack, sufficient for my use case but not
tested, without a gui config...
I am pretty sure the patch would no longer apply, but the binary might
still work on the latest macos versions.

[pnoguchi]

Jerome,

Thank you for your note. Every time I try Amethyst I get frustrated
trying to understand it.

Best regards,
Phil

Jérôme Andrieux mailto:[email protected]
June 22, 2016 at 5:09 AM
Linux/dwm is my primary environment. On macos, I switch to Amethyst, from
https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst/pull/298, since it features the same
dynamic approach.

My patch was a quick and dirty hack, sufficient for my use case but not
tested, without a gui config...
I am pretty sure the patch would no longer apply, but the binary might
still work on the latest macos versions.

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[mimiflynn]

With the large monitors available today, these useless gaps would be nice. I've been tinkering with i3-gaps on my home Ubuntu machine and its quite nice to be able to differentiate between various windows.

It would be nice to have this feature available with Spectacle when I use it with my large monitors at work. I know this is an old thread, but I think you should consider these useless gaps as a UX feature. Please refer to the i3-gaps screenshot as an example of what we mean.

[adamalbrecht]

I would love to see this feature. On a large monitor, the padding not only looks nicer, but it makes it easier for your eyes to tell where one app ends and the other begins.

[albertovalzgris]

I am now thoroughly using Spectacle since a few months and it's a nifty window manager. Thank you @eczarny for this. The Useless Gaps feature as available in i3 would make it just perfect!

[rxhanson]

@dwillie put in an initial pull request to Rectangle (a swift app I made based on Spectacle) that prompted me to add support for useless gaps. You can now grab it at https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle/releases/tag/v0.19

Note that you need to configure it via command line (there's no config for it in the UI). See https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle