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Moving a macOS window by clicking anywhere on it

mmazzarolo.com

111–120 of 314 posts

Re: Moving a macOS window by clicking anywhere on it

#111

I don't understand how MacOS is constently praised for its UI while half the comments here mention a third party app just to make it usable. Maybe it's just me, but I owned a Mac for over 5 years and I could never wrap my head around how MacOS handles windows and open apps.

A number of the other comments explain how to configure the UI to allow for similar functionality; e.g… with 3 finger drag.

I found the article to be a little odd… awing at 3rd party apps basically replicating baked in features.

Although to be fair I am super meticulous in going through the accessibility and gesture features to get the UI feel just right for my tastes. MacOS, to me, feels like a clunker out of the box.

Re: Moving a macOS window by clicking anywhere on it

#113
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incredible, thank you for posting this. A few things I've discovered after playing with this for a few minutes: It works for the corners too - option+drag the corner of a window, and the whole thing resizes symmetrically. Hold shift and it preserves the aspect ratio of the window Double click + holding option on an edge will expand both edges to full screen size You can hold and release option / shift while d…

Wait... you can actually maximise without going full screen? I thought Apple would never back down on that - I use a third-party app to do this usually. If there's a similar thing to let me make a window full height and half width, and to center a window, I can get rid of that app altogether...

That seems to be the case!

Double clicking on an edge will cause it to expand to the edge of the window. The shift + option trick doesn't just expand to the first edge it hits, it looks like both edges expand as much as possible.

So when combined with double clicking on a window corner, that makes all for edges expand to display size (even if the window was partially off the monitor).

Re: Moving a macOS window by clicking anywhere on it

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you need any proof of this, just click the little green dot in the upper left of an open window… It goes full-screen - isn't that an expected outcome?

Personally, I would find it far, far more useful if it maximised the window rather than full-screening it. At the very least, having it configurable would be nice.

If you want the application to make the window as large as useful w.r.t its current content (which was the old behavior) you can Option-Click.

Re: Moving a macOS window by clicking anywhere on it

#115
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incredible, thank you for posting this. A few things I've discovered after playing with this for a few minutes: It works for the corners too - option+drag the corner of a window, and the whole thing resizes symmetrically. Hold shift and it preserves the aspect ratio of the window Double click + holding option on an edge will expand both edges to full screen size You can hold and release option / shift while d…

Wait... you can actually maximise without going full screen? I thought Apple would never back down on that - I use a third-party app to do this usually. If there's a similar thing to let me make a window full height and half width, and to center a window, I can get rid of that app altogether...

You can also double click the title bar, or option-click the green full screen button to maximize to the current window.

Re: Moving a macOS window by clicking anywhere on it

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the repo it says this: "This project is not being actively maintained... Spectacle users have recommended Rectangle as an open source alternative." This is actually how I found Rectangle. :P

Ah, didn't realize that. I've been using Spectacle a lot longer than the 3 years since they added that. I guess I'll be sad if it ever stops working or I'll switch to Rectangle.

On first run or when restoring default settings, Rectangle offers two defaults: Spectacle or Rectangle.

Re: Moving a macOS window by clicking anywhere on it

#117
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many bugs in the OS and I just work around them. Two recent ones I can think of: Issue 1 is: Shift+click selection doesn't work in Finder's Icon view. To reproduce: In finder select the "icons" view. Click on the first item, Hold shift, and while holding shit then click on the tenth item. Expected behavior is to select Items 1-10 including ten. Workaround: Switch to list view. Issue 2: Lock screen keyboa…

The first one is not a bug, it's designed like that. Icons in icon view can be positioned arbitrarily and have no order. You can't easily extend the selection with shift clicking because in that view, it's not obvious what that gesture is supposed to be extending beyond the thing being clicked on. It's worked like that since MacOS Classic.

Sure one can find all sort of arguments why this is, but it still violates the principle of least surprise. I don't think anyone would go and say, "oh this is an icon view without clear order, so I should not be able to select a group of icons".

Re: Moving a macOS window by clicking anywhere on it

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you need any proof of this, just click the little green dot in the upper left of an open window… It goes full-screen - isn't that an expected outcome?

Personally, I would find it far, far more useful if it maximised the window rather than full-screening it. At the very least, having it configurable would be nice.

Holding the option key allows exactly that. Menu item is called 'Zoom' for some reason.

Re: Moving a macOS window by clicking anywhere on it

#120

I use the kinda hidden three finger dragging gesture that you can activate like this: 1. Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Accessibility. 2. Select Pointer Control in the sidebar. (In earlier versions of macOS, select Mouse & Trackpad.) 3. Click the Trackpad Options button. 4. Select ”Enable dragging,” then choose ”three finger drag” from the menu. 5. Click OK.

FYI, that apple logo character isn't a 'real' emoji — it doesn't display on non-Apple devices.
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