MoveIt

MoveIt is a macOS Window Mover/Resizer (some would say Manager) built on top of Hammerspoon (github). This operates similarly to Spectical or Rectangle.

This program is a modification of ShiftIt with functionality customized according to my preferences. With Hammerspoon doing all of the hard work, you may want to customize MoveIt or ShiftIt to meet your needs rather than use either of these tools as is. The code is just one init.lua file, and it's not that many lines of code.

Hammerspoon Background

Hammerspoon is a program that allows developers to interact with macOS via lua. Hammerspoon is a program that runs in the background with an icon in the menu bar. Out of the box, it does nothing, but users can add and configure spoons that enable various functionality. This project offers one such spoon.

Hammerspoon's configuration exists in ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua. If you install spoons, they will be installed in ~/.hammerspoon/Spoons/. A spoon is essentially a folder with an init.lua file in it. Hammerspoon configures finder to see folders with a suffix of .spoon as a package and sets Hammerspoon as the associated program to load this package. If you double click on a spoon, it will move that folder into ~/.hammerspoon/Spoons/. This is one way to install a Spoon. Another is to simply create the folders you need and copy the init.lua file inside. A third way is to use SpoonInstall which reminds me of a vim plugin manager.

Installing MoveIt

Step 1: Install HammerSpoon. Get a zip file from https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/releases/, unzip it and move the Hammerspoon.app into /Applications.

Step 2: Enable the application to run. Hammerspoon.app is not signed so it will not run without explicitly allowing it to run. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491 The easiest way is to

1. Try and run the program, let it fail
2. Open up System Settings
3. Click on Privacy & Security,
4. Scroll down to the bottom and find the Open Anyway button.

Step 3: Run Hammerspoon.

Step 4: Enable Notifications. Notifications are not enabled by default, a spoon may want to communicate with you via notifications. To enable notifications:

1. Open up System Settings
2. Click on Notifications
3. Click on Hammerspoon
4. Enable Allow notifications

Step 5: Install MoveIt.

1. Open Terminal or your favorite terminal application.
2. Run the following commands

cd ~/.hammerspoon
mkdir -p Spoons
cd Spoons

3. Run

git clone git@github.com:cskeeters/MoveIt.git MoveIt.spoon

or

mkdir MoveIt.spoon
cd MoveIt.spoon
curl http://github.com/cskeeters/MoveIt/init.lua --output init.lua

4. Configure Hammerspoon to run the spoon. Edit ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua and insert the following.

local moveIt = hs.loadSpoon("MoveIt")
-- If you want to change the keybindings, you can as follows
-- moveIt.mash = { 'ctrl', 'cmd' }
-- moveIt.centerKey = 'c'
-- ...
moveIt:init()

Usage

The defining feature of MoveIt is that each action has multiple states. Press the keybinding repeatedly to cycle through the states. This limits the amount of keys to remember for a bit greater functionality. The default keybindings are made so that your hands don't move from the home row much.

By default all keybindings require two modifiers: ^+⌥. With these modifiers pressed, the following keys will take the listed actions.

NOTE: This table is a bit weird but helps see the relative location of the keys.

key/action	key/action	key/action
u/upLeft	i/up	o/upRight
j/left	k/center	l/right
m/downLeft	k/down	l/downRight

key	action
return	fullscreen
n	nextScreen
p	prevScreen

Action	State 0	State 1
up	Move/Resize the window to the upper half of the screen	Move/Resize the window to the upper 2/3rds of the screen
down	Move/Resize the window to the lower half of the screen	Move/Resize the window to the lower 2/3rds of the screen
left	Move/Resize the window to the left half of the screen	Move/Resize the window to the left 2/3rds of the screen
right	Move/Resize the window to the right half of the screen	Move/Resize the window to the right 2/3rds of the screen
upLeft	Move/Resize the window to the upper-left of the screen	N/A (Only one state)
upRight	Move/Resize the window to the upper-right of the screen	N/A (Only one state)
downLeft	Move/Resize the window to the lower-left of the screen	N/A (Only one state)
downRight	Move/Resize the window to the lower-right of the screen	N/A (Only one state)
fullscreen	Move/Resize the window to the middle 2/3rds of the screen	Move/Resize the window to the entire screen
nextscreen	Move the window to the next screen	N/A (Only one state)
prevscreen	Move the window to the previous screen	N/A (Only one state)