Category:	Utilities
Price:	Free
Popularity:	Low
Version String:	0.21.2 (112)
Release Date:	2024-09-20
Architecture:	Intel & AppleSilicon(ARM)
Minimum OS:	macOS 10.15
Vendor Name:	Amethyst
Homepage:	ianyh.com

Description:

AMETHYST




Tiling window manager for macOS along the lines of xmonad.



A quick screencast of basic functionality can be found here. (It’s
rough, and I’d love to see a better one if someone has the skills and
inclination to make one.)



GETTING AMETHYST


Amethyst is available for direct download on the releases page or using
homebrew cask.

brew cask install amethyst

Note: that Amethyst now is only supported on OS X 10.12+.



USING AMETHYST


Amethyst must be given permissions to use the accessibility APIs under
the Privacy tab of the Security & Privacy preferences pane as shown
below.




Keyboard Shortcuts

Amethyst uses two modifier combinations.

Default Shortcut Description
------------------ -----------------------
mod1 option + shift
mod2 ctrl + option + shift

And defines the following commands, mostly a mapping to xmonad key
combinations.

Default Shortcut Description
------------------ -------------------------------------------------
mod1 + space Cycle layout forward
mod2 + space Cycle layout backwards
mod1 + h Shrink the main pane
mod1 + l Expand the main pane
mod1 + , Increase main pane count
mod1 + . Decrease main pane count
mod1 + j Move focus counter clockwise
mod1 + k Move focus clockwise
mod2 + h Swap focused window to counter clockwise screen
mod2 + l Swap focused window to clockwise screen
mod2 + j Swap focused window counter clockwise
mod2 + k Swap focused window clockwise
mod1 + enter Swap focused window with main window
mod1 + z Force windows to be reevalulated
mod2 + left Throw focused window to space left
mod2 + right Throw focused window to space right
mod2 + 1 Throw focused window to space 1
mod2 + 2 Throw focused window to space 2
mod2 + 3 Throw focused window to space 3
mod2 + 4 Throw focused window to space 4
mod2 + 5 Throw focused window to space 5
mod2 + 6 Throw focused window to space 6
mod2 + 7 Throw focused window to space 7
mod2 + 8 Throw focused window to space 8
mod2 + 9 Throw focused window to space 9
mod2 + 0 Throw focused window to space 10
mod1 + w Focus Screen 1
mod2 + w Throw focused window to screen 1
mod1 + e Focus Screen 2
mod2 + e Throw focused window to screen 2
mod1 + r Focus Screen 3
mod2 + r Throw focused window to screen 3
mod1 + q Focus Screen 4
mod2 + q Throw focused window to screen 4
mod1 + t Toggle float for focused window
mod1 + i Display current layout
mod2 + t Toggle global tiling
mod1 + a Select tall layout
none Select tall-right layout
mod1 + s Select wide layout
none Select middle-wide layout
mod1 + d Select fullscreen layout
mod1 + f Select column layout
none Select row layout
none Select floating layout
none Select widescreen-tall layout
none Select bsp layout


Available Layouts

Amethyst allows you to cycle among several different window layouts.
Layouts can also be enabled/disabled to control whether they appear in
the cycle sequence at all.

- _Tall_ > The default layout. This gives you one “main pane” on the
left, and one other > pane on the right. By default, one window is
placed in the main pane > (extending the full height of the screen),
and all remaining windows are > placed in the other pane. If either
pane has more than one window, that pane > will be evenly split into
rows, to show them all. > You can use the keyboard shortcuts above
to control which window(s), and > how many, are in the main pane, as
well as the horizontal size of the main > pane vs. the other pane.
- _Tall-Right_ > Exactly the same as _Tall_, but the main pane is on
the right, with the other > pane on the left.
- _Wide_ > The rotated version of _Tall_, where the main pane is on
the _top_ (extending > the full width of the screen), and the other
pane is on the bottom. > If either pane has more than one window,
that pane will split into columns > instead of rows.
- _3Column-Left_ > A three-column version of _Tall_, with one main
pane on the left (extending > the full height of the screen) and two
other panes, one in the middle and > one on the right. > Like
_Tall_, if any pane has more than one window, that pane will be
split > into rows. > You can control how many windows are in the
main pane as usual; other windows > will be assigned as evenly as
possible between the other two panes.
- _3Column-Middle_ > Exactly like _3Column-Left_, but the main pane is
in the middle, with the > other panes on either side. > (In previous
versions of Amethyst, this layout was known as _Middle-Wide_.)
- _3Column-Right_ > Exactly like _3Column-Left_, but the main pane is
on the right, with the > other panes in the middle and on the left.
- _Widescreen-Tall_ > This mode is like _Tall_, but if there are
multiple windows in the main pane, > the main pane splits into
columns rather than rows. > The other pane still splits windows into
rows, like _Tall_. > This layout gets its name because it probably
makes the most sense on very > wide screens, with a large main pane
consisting of several columns, and all > remaining windows stacked
into the final column. > Other layouts that work well on very wide
screens include any that allow for > more than two columns (to take
advantage of the screen width), such as > any of the _3Column-*_
layouts, or _Column_.
- _Fullscreen_ > In this layout, the currently focused window takes up
the entire screen, and > the other windows are not visible at all. >
You can rotate between each of the windows using the “focus the next
window” > shortcut, as usual.
- _Column_ > This layout has one column per window, with each window
extending the full > height of the screen. > The farthest-left
window is considered the “main” window in the sense that > you can
change its size with the “shrink/expand the main pane” shortcuts; >
the other windows split the remaining space evenly.
- _Row_ > The rotated version of _Column_, where each window takes up
an entire row, > extending the full width of the screen.
- _Floating_ > This mode makes all windows “floating”, allowing you to
move and resize them > as if Amethyst were temporarily
deactivated. > Unlike the other modes, this will mean that windows
can be placed “on top of” > each other, obscuring your view of some
windows.
- _Binary Space Partitioning (BSP)_ > This layout does not have a main
pane in the way that other layouts do. > When adding windows, any
given pane can be split evenly into two panes along > whatever axis
is longer. This is recursive such that pane A can be split in > the
middle into pane A on the left and pane B on the right; pane B can
then > be split into pane B on top and pane C on bottom; pane C can
then be split > into pane C on the left and pane D on the right; and
so on.


Setting Up Spaces Support

Spaces are, unfortunately, not supported right out of the box. To enable
it you must activate Mission Control’s keyboard shortcuts for switching
to specific Desktops, as Mac OS X calls them. This option is in the
Keyboard Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard preferences pane. The shortcuts
will be of the form ctrl + . Amethyst is only able to send a window
to the nth space if the shortcut ctrl + n is enabled.



Amethyst currently supports sending windows to up to 10 spaces, despite
macOS’ limit of 16 spaces per display.

_Important note_: You will probably want to disable
Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use (found under
Mission Control in System Preferences). This setting is enabled by
default, and will cause your Spaces to swap places based on use. This
makes keyboard navigation between Spaces unpredictable.



CONTRIBUTING


If you would like to see features or particular bugs fixed check out the
Trello board here and vote on things. It’ll give me a better sense of
what people want so I can prioritize.

If you’d like to contribute please branch off of the development branch
and open pull requests against it rather than master. Otherwise just try
to stick to the general style of the code. There is a setup script to
guide you through the process of installing necessary tools and getting
dependencies built. To get started run

$ ./bin/setup.sh



CONTACT


If you have questions or feedback you have a plethora of options. You
can email me, tweet at me, or get on gitter.



DONATING


Amethyst is free and always will be. That said, a couple of people have
expressed their desire to donate money in appreciation. Given the
current political climate I would recommend donating to one of these
organizations instead:

- American Civil Liberties Union
- Planned Parenthood
- Southern Poverty Law Center
- National Resources Defense Council
- International Refugee Assistance Project
- NAACP Legal Defense Fund
- The Trevor Project
- Mexican American Legal Defense Fund
- ProPublica

And a bunch of technology-oriented ones:

- National Center for Women & Information Technology
- girls who code
- MotherCoders
- Trans*H4CK
- Black Girls CODE

Alternatively, I have a Patreon page set up here. Any proceeds will be
donated to one of the above organizations.