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Canubis

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 22, 2008
439
556
Vienna, Austria
The space where a window is draggable (=basically empty space in menubar) seems to have shrunken for years now. I like how window title bars and menubars have been merged over the years to make better use of the vertical screen estate. But tbh I feel this makes it challenging at times to find a spot where a window can still be dragged around on the screen.

I feel it would be so much more efficient & convenient being able to drag a window with a gesture – e.g. 3 fingers on the trackpad, while the pointer is placed ANYWHERE above a window. (Right now there is a setting in System Preferences > Accessibility > Pointer Controls for 3 finger drag, but it only works when the pointer is placed over an area where the window can be dragged = menubar)

Do I miss any hidden options or possibly a third-party tool to enable such 3 finger drag from basically anywhere over a window? – I feel this would be such an efficiency upgrade for something I probably do hundreds of times a day.
 

chabig

macrumors G4
Sep 6, 2002
11,432
9,291
I don't believe there is such a utility. If the pointer is in the content area of the window, then any gesture should manipulate that content.
 
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Canubis

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 22, 2008
439
556
Vienna, Austria
Interesting thought @chabig – however to me it seems like a very good and natural progression. Already today, the mouse pointer is only controlled with 1 finger on a trackpad.
2 finger gestures no longer directly interact with the pointer or content directly, but scroll the window or a particular section of the window.
4 finger gestures (no matter where on screen) move between Spaces or re-organize windows (Exposé/Mission Control)

So in that logic a 3 finger gesture could easily just drag a window in my opinion (actually I think in some touch devices application this is exactly what 3-finger gestures do.)
 

Canubis

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 22, 2008
439
556
Vienna, Austria
Alright, sometimes Google is my friend… ;)

While I didn't find a way to drag windows with a 3-finger gesture (yet), it seems possible to activate a hidden feature to drag a window from anywhere (not just the menubar) while holding COMMAND + CONTROL. This is a real gamechanger! 🤯

Apparantly it can be enabled through this Terminal command:
defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture -bool true

Source: https://apple.stackexchange.com/que...dow-without-using-the-title-bar/261791#261791
 
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bogdanw

macrumors 603
Mar 10, 2009
6,099
3,011
Penc https://github.com/dgurkaynak/Penc
“Usage
Double press and hold Command Key (⌘) to activate Penc
Drag with two fingers to move the window”
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