When you sit down to work in front of the Mac there is something that you do on a recurring basis over and over again, it’s about window management. Move and resize those of Safari, the text editor you need at that time, Twitter, etc. Therefore, knowing or optimizing your management is very useful and with these apps, everything improves.
Window management in macOS X Catalina
If you have been using macOS for some time, you will know how to maximize the options of windows, how they are grouped, etc., and also that it does not behave in the same way as in Windows. For starters, the maximize option is completely different.
If you click the green button, the window will fill the entire screen completely. With this, you gain focus because you focus only on what you want to do, but there begins a little “chaos” of use of different spaces, etc. If, on the other hand, you press and hold the ALT key and click on the same button, the behavior varies and the window adapts “intelligently” to the desktop to display the information it contains in the best way.
In summary, we must experiment and test to know how it behaves in each situation, what possibilities there are and how it is easier for us to work. So, I tell you how I do it and what are my basic applications to improve this management. And by the way, I talk about Front and Center, a new application that I just discovered and that recovers the behavior of the windows of an application in classic versions of macOS.
Before, this is the basics of how windows move, align and merge in macOS Catalina.
- To move a window, all you have to do is click and hold on the title bar, you can move the window across the desktop to the location you want.
- When it comes to alienating windows, all you have to do is get closer to each other and, without a very marked effect, you’ll notice that they line up easily without one stepping on the other. The system price realizes and prevents them from overlapping unless you force the movement in that direction further.
- If you have an application that supports the use of several tabs you can merge or combine windows in one. To do this go to the display options, there you can select Merge all windows. If you want to go one step further, you can create a custom shortcut for that action if you use it on a recurring basis.
Now I commented on maximizing and minimizing sales.
- If you click on the green button on the window (the classic traffic light) and hold down the Option (ALT) key, you will increase the window size intelligently to occupy the maximum space needed to view the content in the best way, without overfill the screen and see white areas without information. If you are one of those who like to do things with the mouse, you can double click on the window’s title bar and you will get the same effect.
- To minimize a window you give the yellow button or use the keyboard shortcut Command + M. In the preferences you could modify the previous action by double-clicking on the title bar so that instead of maximizing it minimizes the window.If for some reason you press the Option (ALT) key and click on the yellow button, you must know that what you will do is to mine all the windows of that application and not only the one that is active.
Finally, some additional details:
- The red button closes the window, and if you press Option (ALT) you close all windows of the active application.
- To switch between applications the classic combination of Command + Tab is used, but if you press and hold the Command key and then press on the Tab key you will see all the apps open. With the arrow keys, you can scroll left and right and choose the one you want. This can also be done by pressing more in Tab to go to the right and if you keep pressing Command + Shift, with each press of the Tab key you will move to the left.
- If you want to move between windows of the same active application at the touch of a keyboard, from the System Preferences> Keyboard> Quick functions> Keyboard you can modify the Center shortcut in the following advantage to use one that is more comfortable and easy to remember.
- If you press and hold the green traffic light button on each window you will see a floating menu that allows you to use the full-screen mode and the Split View mode to place two applications or windows of an application sharing screen.
Applications to improve the use and management of windows
After reviewing how window management works, it is time to see which third-party applications can be useful in order to improve productivity and interaction with the system.
The first is, for me, basic for many years. She is not the only one who does this, but I find it so comfortable and it gives me everything I need: Swiss Arrows. With a combination of keys, you can set the position of the window so that it occupies half of the screen left or right, up or down, a quarter of a screen, etc. It also supports the use of several monitors. Other similar options are Magnet (emulates the magnetic behavior of Windows 10) or Divvy.
And finally, Front and Center is an application developed by John Syracuse that emulates the behavior of Mac OS Classic windows. That is, right now if you click on the window of an active application only that window is shown in front of the rest. When you activate this app and choose the classic behavior, when you click on a window, all of that application comes to the front.
So, if when you click on a window you want everyone to appear in front of you to choose or find the one you are looking for, this simple application is for you. Anyway, I hope you found it interesting and for anything do not hesitate to comment.