The ultrawide problem
- Maximized windows stretch lines of text beyond comfortable reading width.
- Halves are often still too wide, and macOS tiling only offers halves and quarters.
- Windows you leave floating end up scattered across a huge area.
- You want the important window in the middle, not at the far edge.
Options compared
| Approach | On an ultrawide |
|---|---|
| Maximize | Too wide for most apps |
| macOS tiling (halves, quarters) | Better, but halves are still very wide |
| Snapping apps with thirds (Rectangle, Magnet) | Good columns, but you place each window by hand |
| Grid tiling | Automatic, but widths change as you open windows |
| Scrolling strip (LanesMac) | Columns at fixed widths; opening one never changes the others |
A good ultrawide setup in LanesMac
- Set width presets such as 25, 33 and 50 percent in Settings › Layout, and cycle them with ⌃⌥R.
- Choose "Centre the focused column: Always" to keep the window you're working in straight ahead.
- Pin a chat or music window to an edge with ⌃⌥P so it stays put while the rest scrolls.
- Put related windows in one column with ⌃⌥S, like a terminal above its logs.
- Use the laptop screen as a second strip, and send windows across with ⌃⌥N.