Move Window

Move window is a script that I use to rearrange windows under Mac OS X without touching the mouse.

New windows open in Mac OS X wherever they want. Command line enthusiasts hate to grab the mouse and placing windows is a pain. move_window to the rescue: it lets you position your windows very quickly and cleanly via the commandline -- most useful in conjunction with Launchbar or Quicksilver.

Installation

The script requires Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) as it uses the JavaScript automation that was introduced in this version. Just drop the move_window script into a bin directory, for example /usr/local/bin.

Usage

The syntax is easy: move_window takes screen id, number of x partitions, a range, number of y partitions, a range. Examples::

move_window 0     # Move current window to first screen (0), fill entire screen
move_window 021   # fill right half of first screen (screen id 0, 2 X partitions, fill second)
move_window 02031 # first screen (0), left half (20), divide in 3 parts in y direction (3) and use middle (1)
move_window 031-231 # first screen (0), right two third (31-2), divide in 3 parts in y direction (3) and use middle (1)

See also my introductive blog post for more information and examples.

The contrib directory contains an AppleScript that I use for Launchbar Integration. Just drop into ~/Library/Application Support/LaunchBar/Actions, but make sure that move_window is in your path; otherwise edit the script.