v0.18.0-Beta

[nikitabobko]

This release primarily features performance improvements, the new icon and contributions from the community.

Previously, AeroSpace suffered from major performance problems caused by the fact that AeroSpace was a single-threaded application, and macOS accessibility API is a blocking API. If at least one application was unresponsive, it'd block the entire system. Starting from this release, AeroSpace implements thread-per-application model, which allows it to stay responsive even in the mentioned case. On top of that, the accessibility requests were made cancellable, which helps to avoid doing unnecessary work when consecutive accessibility requests could be coalesced.

AeroSpace is migrated to Swift 6 strict concurrency mode which hopefully will help to prevent data-races.

The performance problems are not fixed entirely, but the release lays down a good foundation for future fixes. In particular, Godot (and maybe some other apps) still introduces half a second delay for AeroSpace, but it doesn't entirely block the system anymore! (tracking issue for investigating Godot: #218) Another optimization direction is to entirely avoid accessibility requests to windows which are located on invisible workspaces (tracking issue: #545)

Thread-per-application is a significant shift in AeroSpace architecture, I expect quite a few bugs in this release. Please report bugs as usual, but I encourage you to check if the bug is introduced in 0.18.0.

Performance improvements

• Delay/freeze when switching focus & workspace #131 AeroSpace now implements thread-per-application model. More details: Delay/freeze when switching focus & workspace #131 (comment) Delay/freeze when switching focus & workspace #131 (comment)
• Delay/freeze when switching focus & workspace #131 Coalesce idempotent refreshSession calls triggered by event handlers #1249 Coalesce idempotent accessibility requests. By @rickyz

New features

• New icon
• Add pageUp, pageDown, home, end, forwardDelete #748 Support pageUp, pageDown, home, end, forwardDelete
• 2bb435b Support European/ISO sectionSign key in config
• Feature: Support --boundaries-action fail #1073 Add fail action to --boundaries-action. By @MediosZ
• Add layout type to list-windows output #846 Add workspace-is-focused and workspace-is-visible query data types. By @xiamaz
• Add [key-mapping] preset = 'colemak' #730 Add Colemak keyboard layout preset. By @ll1zt

Bug fixes

• Dead windows in aerospace list-windows --all #1257 Fix bug: Dead windows may appear in aerospace list-windows --all. By @rickyz
• Binding reload-config in the main binding mode is unreliable #1231 Fix bug: Binding reload-config in the main binding mode is unreliable. By @rickyz

Met vriendelijke groeten,
Nikita Bobko

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This discussion was created from the release v0.18.0-Beta.

[Hugo-Persson]

Wow! AeroSpace feels so much snappier. Great work! Loving the project tons!

[EvansMatthew97]

THE PERFORMANCE IS AMAZING NOW THANK YOU!!!

[pabloverduzco]

Massive improvement in performance. Thank you!

[wolterkam]

With more complex layouts I'm seeing the focus change confusing nodes between workspaces on different monitors, I'm not exactly sure what's happening there but it was not a problem in the earlier release.

[geert-plessers]

Thank you! Everything is lightning fast now ⚡ 😄

[FA-TAAA]

For real. Switching workspaces feels very so fast.

[ajaxbits]

You rule! Thank you!!

[SamEdwardes]

Thank you for the great work. I use Aerospace daily and love it.

[SamWraith]

Thank you so much for such an amazing release. It is very snappy now!