KDE Mover-Sizer
Move and resize Windows windows just like Linux Windows!
An essential add-on for XP, 2K, 2003, Windows Server and Windows 7. Yeah, okay, and Vista!
Here is a page about my KDE Mover-Sizer. Okay, it's not entirely mine, not even mostly, but I've added enough code to call it mine, and it's too damn essential to not have a page of its own somewhere, so here it is..What does it do?
KDE Mover-Sizer is a background application that emulates the behaviour of KDE, which is a rather good Linux desktop environment. Actually, Gnome and other Linux window managers also do it these days, but that wouldn't make for such a funky name. Essentially, you hold down the Alt key, and Left-click to move a window, Right-click to resize it; and from anywhere inside the window. That's it. And once you use it for a few minutes, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.The utility itself is coded with AutoHotKey, originally a fork of AutoIt, and highly useful in its own right. The original script (which I snaffled from the AutoHotKey forum, the best of many similar scripts) did all the above, but was missing something essential, that is; window snapping. So I added that, and gave them it back.
The window snapping is important for at least two reasons; 1) it enables you to place a window, as if by magic, exactly at the edge of your desktop. If, like me, you like to keep your main document windows in the centre of your screen, and leave lots of folder windows open up and down the sides of your desktop (I have a widescreen monitor now, which makes this even more effective) then you will find it invaluable. And 2) it enables you to resize the window from the edge of your screen. This is easier to do than to explain, though I'm going to attempt that anyway, with a couple of how-to style tips..
Cool Tricks..
I've gotten into a couple of habits thanks to the KDE Mover-Sizer. The first is a quick one-two action where I first Alt-Left-click a window and throw it roughly into place (off the edge of the screen), and then do a single Alt-Right-click to snap it back into perfect view. I've already had a week-off with all the time this good habit has saved me.The new version can also snap directly to the edge during regular Alt-Left-Click moving - so long as you are within the snap distance, it will lock against the edge of your desktop.
The second habit of one of resizing windows from the edge. First, I get them there, as in tip 1, then I grab a corner (anywhere in the quadrant is fine) with an Alt-Right-click, and drag-resize them while the two opposite edges (one of which is bang up against the edge of the desktop) stay put. This isn't so much a time saver, as a sanity saver. I'm very particular about the amount of white space that shows in folder windows, and it they don't look right, I couldn't leave them open. Leaving them open is what saves time.
Another thing I've started doing, is sliding windows up and down the edge of my desktop by Alt-Left-click+drag (at the very edge of the desktop). The snap keeps them from moving left and right - it's like they are on rails! Very handy. And remember, it works on windows behind windows, too, and without bringing them to the front.
Try it!
You need to play with it to fully appreciate the beauty of KDE Mover-Sizer. Fortunately, I have a precompiled Windows executable which you can simply download and run. There's no installer, and it doesn't use the registry. The only settings are in a regular plain text ini file, which lives right next to KDE Mover-Sizer.exe, so it's completely portable. When running, a cute tray icon enables you to exit, if required (unlikely!), as well as a few other options. Drop a shortcut into your startup folder, and then you're cooking with KDE!Then forget about it..
KDE Mover-Sizer uses very little resources to work its magic, and works on all desktop windows, even windows that aren't at the front, even those daft fullscreen installer windows. It will even sneak inside a Sandboxie and work there. It also enables you to resize windows that don't normally allow resizing, which can be a real bonus with certain dumb dialogs (cough *FirefoxSearchPlugin* cough). In no time, it feels perfectly natural, and you're throwing windows around with a whole new level of precision and abandon!Like I say, I "couldn't live without it", and I'm fairly certain that if you use it for a wee while, you will feel the same way. At any rate, it's free; so why not try it and see..
KDE Mover-Sizer Download
Feel free to download and use KDE Mover-Sizer (source included), for FREE..
LIVE MD5+SHA1 Multi-Hashes..
# made with checksum.. point-and-click hashing for windows. # from corz.org.. http://corz.org/windows/software/checksum/ # e8e5b590981616363995287a0c01ddd9 *KDE Mover-Sizer for Windows.zip 2a7085e886ff36effb3307e63301dc33c6e48440 *KDE Mover-Sizer for Windows.zip
LIVE MD5+SHA1 Multi-Hashes..
# made with checksum.. point-and-click hashing for windows. # from corz.org.. http://corz.org/windows/software/checksum/ # #md5#KDE Mover-Sizer for Windows for Lefties.zip#2012.05.31@12.56:20 77bd5e9f29589d4601d4088acb0e8765 *KDE Mover-Sizer for Windows for Lefties.zip #sha1#KDE Mover-Sizer for Windows for Lefties.zip#2012.05.31@12.56:20 375aaa2344d0d868ae37d572dfcc010322d5b40b *KDE Mover-Sizer for Windows for Lefties.zip
While I'm about it, the next time KDE Mover-Sizer saves you time and sanity navigatin' your mouse to a 1 pixel wide border or incy title bar or corner handle, feel free to whisper "Thanks Bud!" under your breath to the following good people who all had their grubby mits on KDE Mover-Sizer at some point..
- aurelian (original code snippets)
- Chris (original code snippets)
- ck (original code snippets)
- Cor (window snapping, some other stuff)
- Jonny (first to pull the snippets together into a workable solution)
- jordoex (well, someone had to care about Vista!)
- Matthias Ihmig (multi-monitor support, config file and more)
- thinkstorm (original code snippets)
If you want to check out the source (with fuller credits), perhaps customize it to your own requirements, even add some new feature and your name to the above list, or whatever, the code is freely available, here..
Have fun!
;o) Cor
p.s. KDE Mover-Sizer works inside a Sandboxie sand box, without having to load a separate instance. KDE Mover-Sizer also works inside CoLinux, e.g. Portable Ubuntu. In fact, it would be quicker to list the places it doesn't work, if I knew of any.
Thanks for holding the fort, Matthias! I forget about this page sometimes, though I do still use KDE-Mover-Sizer thousands of times every day.
;o) Cor
very very nice, just any options to hide the tray icon ?, many thanks for this really useful util
How about add original autohotkey 'reload ini' for tray icon since we may load some other scripts and sometimes need to edit it.
Great tool if only it would work with PuTTY :(
Really great tool (for me an essential tool which is usually one of the first to install on a fresh windows installation
Please note: this tool only works on windows running in the same user context as itself. If you e.g. start putty with administrative rights (for what reason ever...) it cannot not be "catched" by the KDE Mover Sizer (when started without administrative privileges).
The KDE Mover Sizer works fine with putty for me
> The KDE Mover Sizer works fine with putty for me
Moving does work, but resizing doesn't work for me as well.
I guess it's because Putty uses a special routine to always fit a multiple of whole characters.
What version of Putty are you using? And does resizing also work for you?
For all those lefties who use their left hand for mousing, it would be nice to be able to switch to a hot key on the right side of the keyboard, preferably AltGr.
In case that sounds like too much of a challenge, or simply too much bother, I went ahead and made one myself, it took under a minute, including upload! You can get it here. I note they seem happy enough to run at the same time.
Have fun!
;o) Cor
This makes Windows so much better! Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work on Windows 8. I might try to fix that myself, but it'll be some time into the future. If anyone else would like to hit that, I would be happy as a pie.
@Salazar:
I've noticed the same thing on my new Win7 machine at work, did you ever find a fix? If not, this is just a "me too" and I'll try some things next time I get admin on my box. My Win7 at home doesn't have the same behavior, FWIW.
For all PuTTY users:
The new PuTTY version (0.62) can now be resized by KDE Mover-Sizer.
So if you miss hotkey resizing, upgrade your PuTTY to the latest version.
replace the "!" by "XButton1 & " or "XButton2 & " to make it work with the mouse button 4 or 5 (no need to use your keyboard to move resize everything easily)
before :
; *********** MOVING WINDOW ***********
!LButton::
after :
; *********** MOVING WINDOW ***********
XButton2 & LButton::
Hey @eddie, you are right. Synergy (latest) seems to break KDE Mover Sizer when it is running (at least when it is running as a service). I tried going into Synergy options and found that by changing the mode to 'desktop' (legacy) and not 'service' seemed to resolve this. woot! right? after setting to legacy, exit all synergy progrmas, and restart the Synergy service in windows 8 and it -should- be all set.. I've got a bunch up and cant reboot at the momement to test if this is a solution.. you try, and let us all know , cheers.
Very useful.
Is there any possibility to resize a window without showing its content?
I mean in windows theres an option "show window content while dragging" and when disabled you only see a border if you resize a window and after you released it, the window content is drawn.
I need this because in Applications with massive UI or slow CPU (netbook) it can get really jerky because of permanent redrawn of UI and this simple method would solve it.
I added these lines because I wanted the scroll wheel to activate the window I am trying to scroll. (I check if the RButton is pressed because I use VistaSwitcher and it uses RButton and scroll wheel to alt+tab through tasks) You might want to include them in your release. Thanks for your time:
#WinActivateForce
...
; *********** Wheel activate ***********
~WheelDown::
GetKeyState, state, RButton ,P
if state = U
{
MouseGetPos,,,win ; Get the window below the mouse
WinActivate, ahk_id %win%
}
return
~WheelUp::
GetKeyState, state, RButton ,P
if state = U
{
MouseGetPos,,,win ; Get the window below the mouse
WinActivate, ahk_id %win%
}
return
; *********** MOVING WINDOW ***********
Is it possible to make the <Ctrl+Shift> the modifier key, or have the modifier key to be configurable? This program is great, but it's just that the <Alt> key "colides" with my KDE linux desktop that I am running in Windows...
Disregard my last post please, because I read some of the old comments and I decided to give it a shot and change the source file, and guess what: it worked! Your script is really great!
This is just awesome !! Forget about the downright corner of a window to resize it or move it.
Saves a lot of time. Can't work without it
Are you aware that KDE Mover-Sizer.exe gets reported as containing a trojan by several engines?
See
https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/b3d438b0c1d7fc263fd9c82f5441b6e567d4316117f38763f9c3480abe83084c/analysis/1366099253/
Or try submitting it yourself at www.virustotal.com
Cheers,
Bazza
;o) Cor
I really love this in combination with windowpad!
One thing I thought about is that when you move a window to the right half with windowpad and want it to increase in width with move-sizer you also accidentally change the height cause you can´t move a perfect horizontal line with a mouse.
The cool thing about this would be like in Photoshop. When you move something (click + move) and hold Shift, all diagonal movement is blocked. You only move it horizontal and vertical until you release shift. So you grab the left side of a window, hold shift and now you can only move horizontal.
In my all day experience the horizontal movement is the most important.
windowpad looks interesting. I've been using MacroExpress for years, for doing exactly this, and much more (and now in 7, I also use ShellFolderFix to compensate for Windows' dreadful forgetfulness). But MacroExpress is becoming less and less compatible with each version of windows, and the new pro version is a mess. It's often crossed my mind to write my own version with AutoIt/AHK. This may save me a bit of work!
By the way, the term is "constrain".
;o) Cor
@chromax:
No, unfortunately, there is no possibility (yet) to resize a window without showing its content.
KDE-Mover-Sizer uses WinMove, which updates the windows immediately.
You could move this WinMove out of the Update-Loop, which exits when you release the mouse button.
But then you would need to draw your own lines to see the current size&position of the window.
@Barry Man:
"Are you aware that KDE Mover-Sizer.exe gets reported as containing a trojan by several engines?"
Yes, this is a problem when using the Exe Zipper UPX on the compiled script.
As the zipped Exe has 220kB and the unzipped Exe (only) 450kB, I would also vote for not using UPX in the future.