Support configuration for notched vs un-notched built-in displays

[chrisbarrett]

Hello,

I have a configuration that's shared across two MacBooks, one of which has a display notch (an M3) and another which doesn't (an M1). I haven't found a way to account for the clearance needed for the menubar in a way that works for both machines.

I'm wondering if there's a mechanism I've missed that could make a shared configuration work for both hardware types; if not, this is probs a duplicate of #115.

Thanks so much for implementing and maintaining this project. 💜

Detail

The issue seems to be that the origin AeroSpace uses for window management differs on notched vs un-notched hardware; I vaguely understand this corresponds to how things work in the macOS APIs.

• on the M1, point 0,0 seems to be the corner of the display

  • the menubar is rendered at 0,0
  • therefore top padding needs to be applied for AeroSpace to tile windows clear of the menu bar

• on the M3, point 0,0 seems level with the bottom of the notch

  • the menubar is rendered above the origin
  • therefore no top padding should be applied to clear the menu bar.

I don't see a solution that allows one configuration to handle both cases out-of-the box.

1. aerospace list-monitors reports Built-in Retina Display on both machines; therefore per-monitor configuration wouldn't work
2. I don't see a documented command that can set padding settings dynamically.

Can you think of a way to configure this via the existing configuration mechanisms?

Workaround

The workaround I'm contemplating is templating the TOML configuration file; my nix-darwin config knows which machines have notches, so I can apply different padding values for different systems that way. But it's obviously not the nicest way to accomplish this. :)

Checklist

• [x] I've searched for duplicates. My search queries were (please don't forget to search in closed issues too):

  • notch
  • padding
  • dynamic

  Relevant hits:

  • 74 involved non-notch external display, solved via per-display configuration (would not apply here)

  • addressing #115 would provide a general solution.

• [x] I've read the documentation https://nikitabobko.github.io/AeroSpace/guide & https://nikitabobko.github.io/AeroSpace/commands

• [x] I've searched in the documentation. My search queries were:

  • config
  • padding Hits relate to querying, rather than updating

    aerospace CLI client version: 0.14.2-Beta 0cb8dbdfc5ee73b8cbc200f175f467ebead55201
    AeroSpace.app server version: 0.14.2-Beta 0cb8dbdfc5ee73b8cbc200f175f467ebead55201

[nikitabobko]

Your use case is indeed is not supported

Once #278 + https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace/issues/60#issuecomment-2170067042 are fixed, smth like this could become possible (draft):

gaps.outer.top = '''
  if test %{monitor-name} == "Built-in Retina Display" do
    if test %{hostname} == "M3_WITH_NOTCH" do
      echo 100
    elif test %{hostname} == "M1_WITHOUT_NOTCH" do
      echo 50
    end
  else
    echo 20
  end
'''

or as you correctly mentioned, #115 is an alternative