If you’re still fiddling with title bars and thin window edges to move and resize windows, Moom and Zooom can make window management easier and more convenient. In this week’s video, I show you how each of these utilities can improve your windowing workflows.
Transcript
OS X has changed dramatically over the years, but working with windows in OS X hasn’t. You still move windows around by their title bar, and you resize windows by dragging a tiny area along the edge.
If these actions still feel like a hassle to you, you’ll want to check out a couple fantastic utilities, Moom and Zooom/2, that make working with windows easier and more convenient.
Zooom aims to make moving and resizing windows easier and more ergonomic. With Zooom installed, instead of having to move the pointer to a slim border area of a window, you put the cursor anywhere over the window, hold down a modifier-key combination, and then move the mouse. I personally use Control+Option for moving windows, and Control+Option+Command for resizing. You can even perform these actions on background windows. Use Zooom for a few days, and you’ll be hooked. (For the record, I’m showing Finder windows here, but both Moom and Zooom work with any app’s windows.)
Moom is more useful when you have a specific window size or position in mind. Move the pointer over any window’s green “zoom” button, and you see a popover offering a number of preset window sizes and positions, outlined on a mini representation of your Mac’s screen. For example, there are options to resize the window to fill the entire screen, or just the right or left half. Click an option, and the window immediately moves and resizes to match. You can even add custom layouts to this popover, which are accessible via the custom menu.
You’re not limited to these layouts. You can also use the popover to “draw” the desired size and position for your window. Moom shows you a live shadow preview on your actual screen representing the resulting action; release the pointer button to perform that action.
If you prefer to use the keyboard, Moom has you covered there, too. Press a keyboard shortcut, and you see Moom’s keyboard-control bezel, which contains both common layouts and any custom layouts you configure, each with a keyboard shortcut for quickly choosing it. Press the desired key, and Moom applies the corresponding layout to the frontmost window.
You can also use the keyboard to move and resize windows in small increments, which is great if you want to quickly tweak a window without taking your fingers off the keyboard. And you can create an ad hoc layout by drawing with the arrow keys instead of the pointer.
I use Moom and Zooom dozens of times each day—whenever I need to move or resize windows. Both also do much more than I’ve shown here. They’ve become must-have add-ons for me, and they may win you over, too.