How do you "hold" a window without the mouse?

[Silly John Fatty]

I'm wondering because I'm looking for an easy way to move windows of apps between desktops, without using the mouse.

To go from a desktop to another, I usually use CTRL + the arrow keys. I could hold the top bar of an app and then press those keys, and it would then move the window of the app to the corresponding desktop. But try to do that, and you'll know why this is not the best solution.

Another option is enabling/setting the keyboard shortcuts in System Preferences. The pre-set keys are CTRL + [number of desktop]. But here I'd also have to use the mouse by "holding" the window in order to move it from a desktop to another.

So … here's my actual question. Is there a way to "hold" a window with a keyboard shortcut? So that I would have to press something like this: Key + CTRL + arrows


Thanks!

 

[xspicer89x]

I'm wondering because I'm looking for an easy way to move windows of apps between desktops, without using the mouse.

To go from a desktop to another, I usually use CTRL + the arrow keys. I could hold the top bar of an app and then press those keys, and it would then move the window of the app to the corresponding desktop. But try to do that, and you'll know why this is not the best solution.

Another option is enabling/setting the keyboard shortcuts in System Preferences. The pre-set keys are CTRL + [number of desktop]. But here I'd also have to use the mouse by "holding" the window in order to move it from a desktop to another.

So … here's my actual question. Is there a way to "hold" a window with a keyboard shortcut? So that I would have to press something like this: Key + CTRL + arrows


Thanks!

I been looking around for a way to do this for a while now, and the short answer from what ive found is no there are no keyboard short cuts to "hold" a window (as is necessary for a drag resizing or to move the window between desktops/spaces), though there are shortcuts to select focus the title bar and shortcuts for double click so in theory you could prolly fix something up using bettertouchtool and a combo keyboard shortcut (ex focus titlebar + doubleclick to drag + ctrl arrows).

However, there are other easier solutions.

1) http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/ its a little pricey but has the window management that many other apps fail at (ex move window to next/previous space). So easy keyboard shortcuts here to move windows between spaces without using a mouse, just like u wanted, but at a price (try out the free trial first to see if its what youre looking for).

2) I know you're trying to stay away from the mouse and keep your hands on the keyboard, but try using the trackpad (or a magicmouse) and performing a 2-finger swipe on the titlebar of a window... it moves the window to the next/previous space (which i find much move convenient when compared to holding the titlebar and trying to reach for ctrl+arrows).

hope this helps. sry if it doesnt lol

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Yeah I don't really want to buy any apps or plugins, but the 2-finger swipe on the toolbar sounds interesting to me. I tried it but it doesn't work, do I have to set something first perhaps? That would be THE solution to be honest Definitely easier than holding + arrows.

And yes of course it did help!

 

[xspicer89x]

Yeah I don't really want to buy any apps or plugins, but the 2-finger swipe on the toolbar sounds interesting to me. I tried it but it doesn't work, do I have to set something first perhaps? That would be THE solution to be honest Definitely easier than holding + arrows.

And yes of course it did help!

Hmmm weird it should work, I dont recall having to set anything up. You do have more than one desktop/space set up right? If youre on desktop 1, performing a two-finger swipe to the left will not do anything, but performing a twofingerswipe to the right should move it to desktop 2 (and from there you can go left or right)

 

[Silly John Fatty]

In the mouse preferences (in system preferences) there's some settings for that kind of stuff, that's why I was wondering. 2-finger swipe for me is going from one desktop/space to another, I use this all the time and it's turned on in the settings. If I do it over the top bar of a window, it just normally swipes without taking the window to the other space. Are you using a trackpad or a magic mouse? That might be the reason, because I'm using a magic mouse.

 

[chabig]

To go from a desktop to another, I usually use CTRL + the arrow keys. I could hold the top bar of an app and then press those keys, and it would then move the window of the app to the corresponding desktop. But try to do that, and you'll know why this is not the best solution.

I don't have any problem doing this. It works just fine, except that it's hard to reach control-arrow.

Have you tried to learn to use Mission Control?

 

[tkermit]

Hmmm weird it should work, I dont recall having to set anything up.

You probably have some kind of third-party window management app installed. The functionality is relatively easy to recreate with the help of something like MouseTools though.

there are shortcuts to select focus the title bar and shortcuts for double click so in theory you could prolly fix something up using bettertouchtool and a combo keyboard shortcut

The following works quite well for me if you call it as a Terminal command from BetterTouchTool using osascript and either 123 or 124 as a parameter. The cursor should be positioned over the titlebar for this particular script to work:

property mouseToolExecutable : "/usr/local/bin/MouseTools"

on run argv
	do shell script mouseToolExecutable & space & "-leftClickNoRelease"
	tell application "System Events" to key code (first item of argv) using control down
end run

Note that you still have to manually release the lock on the mouse button afterwards...

 

[xspicer89x]

In the mouse preferences (in system preferences) there's some settings for that kind of stuff, that's why I was wondering. 2-finger swipe for me is going from one desktop/space to another, I use this all the time and it's turned on in the settings. If I do it over the top bar of a window, it just normally swipes without taking the window to the other space. Are you using a trackpad or a magic mouse? That might be the reason, because I'm using a magic mouse.

so turns out that it was from a 3rd party application (i sifted through all the settings of all the 3rd party apps on my comp to check it out lol). The application in question is called HyperDock, and the setting that I happened to be using was "scroll a window's titlebar to snap and change spaces". Sorry for this inconvenience, lol totally forgot about this.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Haha, no problem. Hmm I'm not a big fan of anything 3rd party, but I might look into it.

 

[xspicer89x]

Haha, no problem. Hmm I'm not a big fan of anything 3rd party, but I might look into it.

Whoops just realized that hyperdock is in the appstore now lol. But ya i highly recommend checking out 3rdparty apps, there are a lot of good third party apps nowadays and generally they have good developers that keep the software updated.

couple examples include:

Bartender: Bartender lets you organize your menu bar apps, by hiding them, rearranging them, or moving them to Bartender's Bar. You can display the full menu bar, set options to have menu bar items show in the menu bar when they have updated, or have them always visible in Bartender's Bar. it's a little expensive but worth it if you have a lot in your menu bar.
http://www.macbartender.com

BetterTouchTool: BetterTouchTool is a great, feature packed free app that allows you to configure many gestures for your Magic Mouse, Macbook Trackpad and Magic Trackpad. It also allows you to configure actions for keyboard shortcuts, normal mice and the Apple Remote. In addition to this it has an iOS companion App (BTT Remote) which can also be configured to control your Mac the way you want. Highly recommend it (reminds me of the "Activator" app in the cydia store for jailbroken ios). This is honestly the first app in install on every new mac product i get. Its a must have, honestly gives you absolute full control over your trackpad/keybaord/remote in a way never thought possible (ex: controlling system controlls like brightness and sound through gestures instead of keyboard, controlling window management everything except send to next desktop space , controlling apps through gesture control by having better touch tool command another app through shortcut assignments, there are so many possibilities lol).
http://www.boastr.net

CupCloud:Cupcloud is a free cloud application that allows you to save, open, and share multiple documents and web pages with one simple click. The software is designed to help you continue your workflow, stay organized, and collaborate with others easily to improve productivity. Cup to save all of your opened files, folders, and web pages with one click. Uncup to open back the same state of your workflow. So if you got like 30 safari tabs open doin research and working with a bunch of iwork apps and finder tabs open, you can save everything just how it is (i.e make a new "cup"), and be able to close out of everything and come back to it at a later point in time (it's kind of like resuming your current session when you shut down your mac, except you can save a bunch of sessions and resume them at any time, from anywhere since its saved in the cloud--grandted as long as that computer has those programs ). Currently supports Web browsers (Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari), Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Apple iWork, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Explorer, Mac Finder.
http://cupcloud.com/service

Fluid: Fluid lets you create a Real Mac App (or "Fluid App") out of any website or web application, effectively turning your favorite web sites or web apps into OS X desktop apps. For example I made an app for facebook, one for youtube, and one for my university's site. The free version is pretty much all you need, however you can upgrade to the paid version for 5$ for a couple extra features. http://fluidapp.com

Flux: also free, it makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day. Very efficient if you hate staring at the blinding blueness of your screen late at night or early in the morning, or your computer screen gives you headaches or messes with your sleep.
http://justgetflux.com

Handbrake: HandBrake is a tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs. It works amazing on mavericks for me (on mountain lion it used to eat up a bunch of cpu but not much on mavericks) and its free.
http://handbrake.fr

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Thanks I'll look into all of that, you may convince me