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Comment by smoldesu | Hacker News Reader

Yabai looks very neat, but I've always wondered if it's replacing the window server on MacOS or merely existing on top of it. Does it disable things like the dock and menubar when they're not in use, or are they still loaded and consuming CPU/GPU resources?

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It does the latter and unfortunately it doesn't compare to i3/sway for that reason. It feels way too sluggish and clunky, with windows often not conforming to the right size.

Agreed, I tried to use it and its just too slow compared to sway

you can't replace windowserver. period.

How yabai and amethyst work is by using bits of accessibility and other APIs, though Yabai also injects some bits into Dock binary I believe.

Is it necessary to turn off SIP to let Yabai do that?

For most basic features, like tiling, Yabai doesn’t need SIP disabled. However, for transparency, borders, and other more complex features, SIP does need to be disabled for Yabai to inject features into the dock.

The main feature that requires SIP to be disabled is managing multiple workspaces without animating the swap between them which saves a ton of time and is key to the seamless feel. There are some workarounds of course, but there's no way to get around the 1-2s animation without turning off SIP.

Under accessibility toggling reduce motion serves a similar purpose. It is not instantaneous like yabai but I’ve found it quick enough to not be frustrating as someone who utilizes spaces heavily.

It’s a scripting and behavior layer on top of the native WindowServer.

Gotcha, thank you!

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