Since the dawn of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) in computing, moving and resizing windows has been a common occurrence.
Within the last 10 years, window management tools, meant to improve efficiency (and thereby, productivity), have become increasingly commonplace. And while these tools are undoubtedly useful, I believe that there is still room for improvement in macOS.
Before we get into the specifics, a few terms are in order. A macOS window has two main components: a frame and a body. The frame of the window appears above the body area and typically contains a title bar, tool bar, and tabs.
Long-time Mac users have already developed muscle memory with the Mac windowing experience, and have adjusted themselves accordingly to work within its limitations. But one only needs to glance at a few Linux distros to see how much better macOS window movement / resizing could be.
So, what’s the problem, then?
In macOS, to move a window (Finder or otherwise), one must select the title bar of the window first to move it.
To resize a window, macOS requires that you select the sides or the corners of a window frame first to drag it as needed.
Now bear in mind: There’s nothing inherently wrong with both of these approaches, but if you’re coming over to the Mac from another platform (particularly Linux), you may get sufficiently irritated with the macOS “way” of windowing. Especially if the smaller touch targets are too difficult to select.
Swift Shift offers some new options to Mac window management that, in my opinion, improves the overall experience. With Swift Shift, you can freely move and resize your windows by dragging anywhere in the window. Like most niche macOS utilities, Swift Shift lives in your Mac menu bar.
In Swift Shift, Move and Resize are assigned separate modifier keys. You can customize them as needed. For example, you can assign the Control key as the modifier key: holding it down, you can move a window by dragging anywhere inside the window’s body.
A different modifier key is assigned for Resize. When it’s selected, Swift Shift will let you select any region within a window body to expand or contract its size.
Swift Shift also lets users assign left or right mouse buttons for moving /resizing windows as well. For my setup, I use Control-Left Mouse Button to move windows, and Shift-Control-Left Mouse Button for resizing windows.
Swift Shift isn’t for everybody, but if you are annoyed by the current window moving / resizing options that come “out of the box” from Cupertino, I recommend giving Swift Shift a try. It’s by no means essential, but I find Swift Shift to be very useful in my day-to-day computing. In my testing, Swift Shift worked with nearly all of the applications I use. It’s also tremendously useful as an accessibility tool, to aid users who may have difficulty in the precise motor skills involved in manipulating windows on their Mac.
Swift Shift is an open source Mac application and can be downloaded directly from the developer’s site; donations are encouraged if you find value with the application.
