Hookshot

Hookshot

Cursor movement window snapping on macOS

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⦿ Snap windows by pressing a modifier key and moving your cursor ⦿ Snap windows with keyboard shortcuts or by dragging windows to the edge of the screen ⦿ Move & resize windows by holding a modifier key and moving your cursor ⦿ Snap windows not in focus
Hookshot gallery image
Hookshot gallery image
Hookshot gallery image
Launch tags:
Mac•Productivity•Developer Tools
Launch Team

What do you think? …

Ryan Hanson
Maker
Yet another window management app for macOS! A short history on this one: I rewrote an old macOS window management favorite, Spectacle, in Swift so that I could bake window management into one of my apps, called Multitouch. I launched the rewrite of Spectacle as a separate free open source app called Rectangle. After the launch, I had an idea to use cursor gestures to control the windows, and Hookshot was born! I liked this even better than using Multitouch gestures to control windows, so I decided to polish it up and release it for others to use. It contains all of the features of Rectangle, and is just a really lightweight, quick way to get windows where I want them. I hope you enjoy it, too! Use the coupon code producthunt to get 50% off for a limited time.
Adam Dexter
@xryan really like the concept but trying to use it feels clunky and unresponsive. I can only get the action to trigger about 20% of the time- I use a track ball, dont see why that would make a difference, but jfyi. I wish there a way to configure the timing or sensitivity. Also wish diagonal and other moves like a double back* and release were options to allow for more macros with a single modifier key. *like i could imagine a double back "flick" hold modifier key, move left a little then quickly reverse and move right as you release mod key- this would double the amount of actions you could program per direction.
Ryan Hanson
Maker
@adamdexter Thanks for taking the time to write feedback, I really appreciate it. Not sure if you saw my suggestion in a previous comment for if you're having issues executing the gestures - hopefully that would help. I don't have a trackball to test with, so that could be part of the issue. I did try out the double back options, but I just didn't like them enough to want to use them. Diagonal moves are the most common request, and the reason that they are not in there is because it is extremely easy to move the cursor diagonally without thinking when you want to just move in a cardinal direction quickly. With that said, I'm currently working on an update that I think will make using Hookshot a lot better.
Ryan Hanson
Maker
@adamdexter If you get a chance, try out v1.5 (https://hookshot.app/downloads/H...). The new "Reticle" feature in that release gives some visual feedback to cursor movement and handles diagonal movement. Let me know if you try it out and have any feedback!
Sunny
Maybe Penc app is more intuitive and it's FREE.
Ryan Roberts
@sunnyheart Never heard of Penc, and what's not intuitive about this Hookshot app?
Ryan Hanson
Maker
@sunnyheart If Penc does it for you, that's awesome. Hookshot is built on Rectangle, so you also get keyboard shortcuts and dragging the window to screen edges for moving/resizing. Penc is also built for trackpad usage, while Hookshot's cursor movement can be used with any mouse or trackpad. Hookshot is also built a little more with speed in mind.
Zachary Yocum
This reminds me a lot of the abandonware Zooom/2. The killer feature of Zooom/2 that Hookshot lacks is the "magnetic" edge detection where if you use the pointer to resize/move windows, the edges of all windows will be displayed and if you move the edge of a window within ~10 pixels of the edge of another or the edge of the display, it will snap the edges together in a satisfying way. This lets you pseudo-tile your windows, but with the flexibility of pointer-based control, rather than being locked to a small number of specific ratios of the screen. Here’s a video demo of Zooom/2’s features:
. If Hookshot added the "magnetic" edge snapping, that would be awesome!
Ryan Hanson
Maker
@philofrog Excellent idea, thanks for letting me know. I have a backlog task for making it so moving windows will behave like macOS, where they kind of snap to the screen edge and other windows. I'll add this idea to the backlog as well.
Zachary Yocum
@xryan glad to see someone is still working on improving macOS window-management beyond strict keyboard-centric, tiling management! (I also edited my previous comment to link the video I forgot before.)
Ryan Hanson
Maker
@philofrog thanks for sharing the video. Honestly, I was reluctant to publicly release Hookshot since there's just too many window managers already out there for macOS. I just ended up liking and using my prototype so much that I felt like I needed to share it.
Maxim K.
@philofrog Upvote for mentioning Zooom/2 as I'm still using it on my machines running Mojave. Although abandoned, it still works quite well. What makes Zooom/2 special and irreplacable for me, in addition to snapping to display edges is the Auto Raise + Only allow when modifier is held. This allows you to flip through open windows and bring them to the front very easely. In conjunction with the Move and Resize on held modifiers this gives you ninja speeds in managing windows.