BetterTile 0.2.0 Beta

BetterTile 0.2.0 Beta

The second public beta. Windows now land where you ask them to in far more
applications, layouts stop coming apart on their own, and per-app rules are
something you set deliberately rather than something that follows whichever app
happens to be in front.

Before you start

Re-grant Accessibility after updating. Betas are ad-hoc signed, so macOS
treats each update as a different application and discards the permission. Open
System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, remove BetterTile if
it is listed, and add it again. This will be true of every beta until the app is
distributed with a Developer ID certificate.

Your settings are upgraded automatically, and your existing preferences
carry over. If you go back to 0.1.0 afterwards, it cannot read the newer
settings file and will start again from defaults.

Windows land where you ask

Electron apps, Chrome, Microsoft Office, and — importantly — every application
while VoiceOver is running could previously place a window somewhere other than
the frame BetterTile requested. Those applications reinterpret geometry while an
accessibility attribute is active; BetterTile now sets that attribute aside for
the duration of a write and restores it afterwards, and only ever for apps that
had it enabled in the first place.

Layouts hold together

• macOS's own window commands no longer wreck a Bento layout. With two panes
  tiled evenly, using Window → Move & Resize → Right on one of them collapsed
  its neighbour to a 120pt sliver. A relocated window was being read as a dragged
  divider. macOS's commands now drive Bento through the same planner BetterTile's
  own shortcuts use.
• A single missed update no longer dismantles a layout. A window's absence is
  now corroborated before its pane is given up.
• Layouts adopt what is already on screen, including windows arranged by
  macOS's own tiling, instead of rearranging everything on sight.
• Failure messages tell the truth. A delayed check used to report "did not
  move" over an action you had already replaced with a drag or another command.
  It now reports a failure only when the window genuinely never moved.

Per-app rules, set by you

Some applications do not belong in a tiled grid — palettes, colour pickers,
session-restore prompts — and a few misbehave under any automated placement.

Open Settings → Per-App Rules and click Add App… to pick from your
running applications, or Browse… for one that is not running. Each app can be
set to:

• Manage Normally — the default
• Exclude from Bento — keeps its own size and position in Bento layouts,
  while shortcuts and drag snapping still work when aimed at it
• Ignore Everywhere — BetterTile never moves or resizes it

Rules are remembered per application, and an app that is not installed keeps its
rule. Setting a row back to Manage Normally removes it from the list.

Changed from the previous beta: rules used to apply to whichever app was
frontmost, both in Settings and in the menu-bar menu. Both of those are gone,
replaced by the list above. Any rules you had already set are kept.

One window on a desktop

Settings → Window Layout → "When a desktop has one window" now offers every
positioning action — halves, thirds, quarters, sixths, Center, Center Resize,
Maximize, Almost Maximize — or Leave Unchanged, rather than the three choices
it had before.

The behaviour changed as well. The placement is applied every time a desktop is
left with a single window, not once and never again. After it lands, the window
keeps whatever size you give it: resizing it by hand sticks, and it is not moved
when the Dock appears, the resolution changes, or you switch away and back. Open
a second window and normal tiling takes over; close back down to one and the
placement is applied again. The Repair button in the menu bar restores it on
demand, and no longer converts a manual desktop to Bento.

Also in this release

• Feature switches. Keyboard shortcuts and drag snapping each have a master
  on/off switch in Settings → General. Turning shortcuts off leaves your key
  bindings untouched, so turning it back on restores exactly what was there.
• Repair unsticks a stranded window. A window left floating by an earlier,
  busier layout stayed floating, and would not tile with the next window to open.
  Repair now clears that. When there is genuinely nothing to do, it says
  "Nothing to repair" instead of claiming a layout was applied.
• Visible floating windows are handled properly when a Bento layout is over
  its six-pane limit.
• Updates are delivered through the appcast attached to each GitHub release.
  BetterTile checks for updates, shows you the notes, and requires your action
  before downloading and again before installing. No system profile is sent.

Known limitations

• Accessibility permission must be re-granted after every beta update, as above.
• Bento manages up to six windows per display; beyond that, additional windows
  float.
• Rolling back to 0.1.0 resets your settings to defaults.

Feedback

Bug reports and feedback are welcome through Send Feedback… in the menu-bar
menu, or as a GitHub issue. Including the macOS version and the application
involved makes a placement bug much easier to reproduce.