Comment by ivanjermakov
5 days ago
Since the first taste of Linux WMs, I believe the best and only good way of handling window move and resize is super+lmb/rmb respectively. No more pixel-perfect header/corner sniping!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/qv0vmz/missing_supe...
On Linux if you learn shortcuts for close/minimise/maximise as well, you can even remove window borders and title bars entirely. It's free screen real estate.
The gnome window title bars are obnoxiously thick and useless by default tho. I've found that Unity or even just Windows like styling in Gnome is a lot more respectful to your screen real estate.
I like the Gnome 2 title bars (Mate). Gnome wasn't always that bad.
Yes, Gnome looks very odd because of that.
That is a tradeoff that makes it nice when you have a convertible laptop.
I wish it was simply configurable from the settings dialogs.
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It definitely needs improvement but for touchscreens it is good.
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It's my preference too. What do you use?
I used to use "GTK Title Bar" gnome extension which was abandoned a few versions ago so had to write my own and it's X11 specific. The one drawback is that when windows are reopened, they are offset by the title bar height i.e. it messes up whatever is tracking the size/offset/location.
Anyone have other ways to do this in gnome and do they work on wayland too?
I'm on Fedora KDE so won't be much help to you, but there is a "Windows Rules" section in the system settings where I've added a rule that applies to all windows with the property "No titlebar and frame". Actually I'd quite like frame just with no titlebar, but that's not an option.
The AltDrag tool on Windows includes Super+double click to maximize/restore. I find it surprising that this does not come by default on KDE.
"AltSnap" is a continuation of AltDrag that's better on Windows 11. It is instrumental in making me loathe Windows 11 _ever so slightly_ less.
https://github.com/RamonUnch/AltSnap
I drag the window to the top for this. On KDE there's also a (configurable) keyboard shortcut (Meta + prev page, TIL, might start doing this now).
> It's free screen real estate.
jim, does it get any better than this?
Depends on the window manager.
On macOS, you can enable window dragging by holding down the Control+Command keys with this command:
I use this with "three finger drag", and resizing at the window border hasn't been much of an issue for me.
MacOS is the "it just works" operating system. As such, I think the moment that you need to declare custom workarounds like this, it kind of loses its legitimacy, and you should already be in Linux land.
I abhor the current state of macOS and Tim Cook’s leadership, but your take is nonsensical.
For one, “it just works” hasn’t been used in over a decade, same as Google’s “don’t be evil”, which does tell you something about their current philosophies.
But more importantly, “it just works” was obviously never about it “it reads your mind and does every software feature however you personally like”, it was about the integration of hardware and software and not having to fiddle with drivers and settings to get hardware basics working.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/7hd450/it_just_works/
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Compared to my old NixOS with tiling window manager, I’d say MacOS panes just doesn’t work. I have Rectangle, but it’s no comparison to the full tiling experience. I switched for Apple Silicon nothing more
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Even if this was a "custom workaround" this argument would be extreme "all or nothing" binary thinking.
An OS can "just work" for of the stuff a user does, and just need some tweaking here or there. Doesn't mean if the "just works" stuff is not 100% you're just as good going to Linux.
Anyway, this is not some "custom workaround", it's a regular Apple-provided macOS toggle. It's just not exposed in the UI, because for most users, the regular way "just works". I know all kinds of "defaults" toggles, and barely use 1/100 of them, because the actual defaults are fine.
But, believe it or not, is very customizable (and previously very scriptable). I have Shift+Command+M (maximize) bound to resize to fit the content (different from full screen in macOS). Anything that’s in a menu can be bound to a keyboard shortcut without any additional utilities.
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I found myself closing Linux windows sometimes only with alt+F4; sometimes only with ctrl+Q; sometimes with both; sometimes with none
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I kind of agree with you, but on macOS I still don’t have to ever think about drivers. The hardware just works. Linux isn’t quite there yet. My work XPS laptop running Ubuntu is close, but not quite the same.
Yes, the mac user faces incredible disillusion when he discovers that "just works" was just another marketing gimmick (to the likes of it doesn't get viruses!)
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This used to be option exposed in settings.
apt-get install logicalleap
Sudo apt-get install logicalleapd
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Windows is also the "it just works" operating system, and it has hundreds of useful things you can only do through registry hacks.
It's not a very useful test.
I look at the good things about macOS over desktop linux like how cmd-c/v works across all apps, and it would be amazing if it were just a cli command to bridge the gap.
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Wish it worked on all windows. For some reason Settings is exempt from this, for example.
The macOS Settings app is broken in all kinds of ways, as far as UI/UX goes. It's been this way since they redesigned it a few years back. Not that it was great before, but the redesign just made it worse.
It (partially) works, but only if the cursor is NOT hovering over the right portion of the window. So only 30% works.
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I think it was a mistake for Apple to put some of the best QOL, not just accessibility, enhancements behind the Accessibility section of the Settings, rather than on the Trackpad settings. Three finger drag is a game changer, and a lot of my colleagues had no idea it existed.
The weird thing is that setting used to be in the trackpad settings! I have no idea why they moved it. It's one of the first things I enable on every device I use.
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I tried this on most recent MacOS 26 - it does not work here. Might it be because I have Rectangle installed?
Works great for me. I enabled that functionality alongside resizing on RMB by using "Easy Move+Resize" from GH. I also use Raycast to bind most window management stuff, it's instant unlike the built-in alternatives on Tahoe.
Same, tried with and without Rectangle running and haven't seen it work yet. Must be missing something obvious.
edit: I ended up trying Easy Move+Resize which is mentioned in a sibling comment, can recommend, works as advertised.
I don't think I know how to confirm that command is correct, and I've been a Mac user for decades. If Apple's solution to problems is "trust the CLI command you found on a website" then I might need to sell some shares.
Is there a way to resize windows with this gesture as well?
if you search
NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture
you see how often this feature gets broken and type some other flag or install 3rd party app.
Yeah, it was one of those things I noticed when I first started using Linux and wondered why every other OS didn't just copy it.
Probably just simple resistance to use of modifier keys in non-technical users, at least on the Windows side. A lot of users never touch a modifier except for Ctrl for copy/paste and maybe Windows for start menu search.
On the Mac side where key combos and modifier use is more widespread among users, it’s probably because there’s no intuitive visual that can be associated with the interaction.
It's not like Apple would frown about the idea of an action having "no intuitive visual associated with it". On iOS, you can scroll to the top by pressing on the status bar as one example.
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Oh, I get having a visual way of doing it with just a mouse for sure. But for power users or even just-a-little-bit-of-knowledge users it's super quick and convenient. When I had to use Windows for work it drove me nuts that the option wasn't there (ended up finding AltDrag thankfully).
On Windows, I use AltDrag.
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windows does support [win] + [arrow key] though
Mac supports the win (Cmd) + arrow key thing too; figured I'd mention since the story is about macOS window management.
I used to use the Sawfish window manager ... before it fell out of maintenance, oh and before I switched to DEs with the window manager bolted on.
The thing I miss the most from Sawfish is that it let me resize any window. There are a lot of fixed-sized modal dialogs with scrollbars that wouldn't need them if they were taller, and there's a lot of room on my portrait monitor!
What a nice feature! Really puts the user in control. Is there any maintained WM allowing this? How are modals treated on tiling WMs?
Easy Move+Resize is great for this on macOS: https://github.com/dmarcotte/easy-move-resize
This is the way, game changer.
For window move I think it's a reaction to the popularization of putting UI in the window titlebar so there's nothing to grab onto. I don't mind it but I wish there was a dedicated "grab" button on the mouse because I find it clunky to have to use both hands to manage windows.
I can tell you the feature of Meta/Super¹+L/R click to move/resize windows has existed on Linux long before UI in the window titlebar became a thing.
¹ aka Windows key
I know it's been around for a while, but I don't recall people talking about it like it's a killer feature of Linux window management until after the "UI in the window titlebar" trend started.
I use i3-wm
I never resize a window with its border.
I never minimize a weindow.
I sometimes move a window to a different panel but it snaps to the width / height of the column.
Overlapping windows is perhaps the worst GUI paradigm - it's like the first thing someone thought of for 640 x 480 screens.
Let it go.
Tiling window managers used to be a thing in the old days, they predate the invention of overlapping windows, there is a reason it is only a minority that reaches out to them nowadays.
Tilings are no better or no worse than floating. There are many users who would benefit from them (people who typically keep all their windows maximized), but have had literally zero exposure two them due to MacOS and Windows.
Complaints about lack of window snapping in MacOS vs Windows, a loose copy of tiling, are consistent across the internet. If MacOS and Windows had native tiling support, you'd see a fight fiercer than tabs vs. spaces.
The reason floating windows are used is because "that's the way it is done." Windows 95 wowed the world and established the status quo.
Not to mention the direction that the likes of Paper and Niri are going, these are things that very few users get to experience and therefore couldn't possibly have an informed decision on what they prefer.
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That reason being that there is a minority of people who reach out to anything instead of just using what they're given. Compounded by baby duck syndrome, of course.
Not in a GUI though. Sun Windows was overlapping, GEM was overlapping and almost everything else since then.
I'm on a 5120x2160 monitor and tiling is super perfect.
Can't recommend it enough.
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Recently getting a new Mac for work, coming from Hyprland has been tough, but I feel like I’m getting there. Aerospace and Karabiner-Elements have gotten me most of the way there. Have had to write a few scripts to get the workspaces working the way I’m used to, but overall I got a significant part of my workflow to mirror my Linux setup, but would still love to get the super+right click to resize working somehow (there is a native way to move windows with ctrl+cmd+left click which was nice).
Same here. I use both!
> get the super+right click to resize working somehow (there is a native way to move windows with ctrl+cmd+left click which was nice).
I've tried this with Hamerspoon to no avail and ultimately gave up... if you find a workaround, I'm all ears!
I really miss AHK...
How are you liking Aerospace? I miss i3. I tried a few TWMs in Mac but they felt quite janky, but it's possible I just didn't give them time.
Not OP but it's the best auto tiling WM I've found for MacOS so far. Yabai requires SIP disabled for what I would consider core features which is a no go on a work laptop. Aerospace sides steps this and MacOS's horrible window management by just not using the built in spaces. I've only had to restart it a couple times over the last 4 months due to bugs.
I also use https://github.com/acsandmann/aerospace-swipe to add trackpad support.
see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46998527
i use this. it’s not maintained so you need to manually enable its access to assistive control in Settings but besides that still works great:
https://github.com/jmgao/metamove
it does exactly what you want coming from Fluxbox-style window managers
here’s how i configure it (it has a settings ui, this just automates setting it up) https://github.com/justjake/Dotfiles/blob/3d359f961b009478ef...
i didn’t notice the hideous corner grab areas for a few weeks after updating to 26 because i never tried to use the corner
Yeah I use a third-party add on for macOS that does something similar.
The only annoyance is situations where you are moving the mouse while also starting to press a ctrl+ or cmd+ key combination and unexpectedly move or resize the window in the process.