How to manage windows on MacOs using Amethyst

Amethyst — by Ian Ynda-Hummel

What it looks like

Amethyst is a tiling windows manager. It automatically resizes opened windows according to pre-defined layouts. Also, it supports global shortcuts for moving, focusing and changing size of the windows, as well as cycling through the layouts.

In this post, I'll try to briefly explain it's setup and core features, so you can start using Amethyst right away!

Starting out

To install Amethyst, run:

brew cask install amethyst

When you start the app, it comes preloaded with a bunch of layouts, but I only really use two of them: tall and fullscreen. It also comes with a lot of preconfigured keyboard shortcuts, but we'll only need a few.

To follow along with this post, make sure you edit you in app preferences to look like this:

The Basics

With the tall layout set as default and the app running, you are all set.

When you open a window, it will automatically resize to fit the whole screen. Also, this window will be flagged by Amethyst as your main window:

Each additional window that is opened will then automatically be resized and arranged in a column right next to the main window:

After opening a few windows, this is basically what the tall layout looks like. It is divided in two columns: one containing the main window, and other containing the additional windows:

From this point on you can do a few different things:

Modify window size

The size of the main window pane can be increased or decreased:

opt+shift+L expand main pane

opt+shift+H shrink main pane

Modify window disposition

Also, the pane count in the main window pane can be increased or decreased, allowing you to customize your layout:

opt+shift+cmd+L increase main pane count

opt+shift+cmd+H decrease main pane count

Inputing opt+shift+cmd+L from the starting picture will result in:

Increasing main pane count

After doing this, if a new window is added, it will continue filling the right column:

Navigate between windows

When a window is created, it will become focused automatically. You can cycle between your windows, changing your focus accordingly.

opt+shift+J move focus clockwise

opt+shift+K move focus counter clockwise

Change window position

It's also possible to change the position the focused window occupies within the layout.

opt+shift+enter swap focused window with main window

In the previous picture, focusing SUB 1 and inputing opt+shift+enter will result in the following:

Other way to change the position of the windows follows the navigation pattern.

opt+shift+cmd+J swap focused window clockwise

opt+shift+cmd+K swap focused counter clockwise

From the previous picture, focusing SUB 2 and inputing opt+shift+cmd+K will result in:

Changing between layouts

Finally, to maximize the focused window, all you have to do is change from the tall layout to fullscreen

opt+shift+A select tall layout

opt+shift+D select full screen layout

From the previous picture, focusing SUB 1 and inputing opt+shift+D will result in:

Once in fullscreen mode, you can cycle through your windows using the same opt+shift+J and opt+shift+K shortcuts as before.

Also, inputing opt+shift+A from this position will return to the tall layout and restore every change you made to it, including size and pane count.

To reset everything back to normal, simply close the Desktop and create a new one.