Question: is it possible to auto-stack new windows?

[alextremblay]

Hello,

Fisrt off, that you for making yabai and being so incredibly helpful to those who use it. it's appreciated :)

Is it possible to configure (on a per-space basis or globally) a rule like yabai -m window --insert stack, so that new windows created in that space automatically stack onto the most recent window?

My use case is that I really like stacks, but i also really like bsp layout and the ability to have more than one stack in a given space.
If i set the layout of a space to bsp, i can have multiple stacks but all new windows cause splits
If i set the layout of a space to stack, all new windows stack, but it's no longer possible to split a stack and have multiple stacks

I'm stuck on this one. Any advice or direction would be greatly appreciated

[dominiklohmann]

You can cause the next insertion to happen in stack mode on the focused window whenever the focused window changes:

yabai -m signal --add event=window_focused action='yabai -m window $YABAI_WINDOW_ID --insert stack'
yabai -m signal --add event=application_front_switched action='yabai -m window --insert stack'

You can hide the insertion overlay by setting the config option insert_feedback_color.

yabai -m config insert_feedback_color 0x00FFFFFF

[alextremblay]

awesome, thank you!

That's almost perfect

The only time it fails is if you close a window and create a new one. I added

yabai -m signal --add event=application_terminated action='yabai -m window --insert stack'
yabai -m signal --add event=window_destroyed action='yabai -m window --insert stack'

and now it's working great.

Thank you so much!

[stefanopagliari]

@alextremblay and @dominiklohmann thank you for this. It largely address what I was looking for.
Would it be possible to modify this so that new windows are stacked only if there are currently 3 windows on the screen?
I have a wide-screen and by default I prefer not to have more than three windows

[pyinto]

awesome, thank you!

That's almost perfect

The only time it fails is if you close a window and create a new one. I added

yabai -m signal --add event=application_terminated action='yabai -m window --insert stack'
yabai -m signal --add event=window_destroyed action='yabai -m window --insert stack'

and now it's working great.

Thank you so much!

Does this still work for you? Did you add anything else? I still see that windows sometimes open not in the stack.

[gennaro-tedesco]

I too see no effect in bsp layouts with the above configurations, namely new windows still open in a new tile (horizontal or vertical) rather than stack on the existing ones.