Stay in control of your windows with BetterSnapTool
If there's one thing a little odd about OS X for new users, it is the behaviour of program windows.
Although the traffic light buttons of OS X seem similar to the Close, Minimise and Maximise icons found in every generation of Microsoft's Windows, they aren't. Those buttons in MS Windows are pretty intuitive: they maximise if maximise is hit, or minimise to the taskbar if the 'underscore' style button is hit.
One of the first things you notice when you first use a Mac is how 'maximise' seems to be broken. You can't easily maximise a window to fill the screen around the Dock of OS X. Instead all that hitting the Green + button will do is expand the size of the window to use the screen space that the window thinks it should use. Want more? Then drag it bigger yourself. If you've done that then re-hitting + will return the window back to it's default.
Obviously the benefit to this is not wasting screen 'real estate'. That's it though. Frustrating and it shows that OS X is poor at giving you control over your windows or would like to tile them.
If you've ever used Windows 7 you'll of been impressed with one of its simply yet often overlooked new features: Snap
Snap makes it easy to size windows by dragging them to sides or corners. Want to have Chrome on half your screen then Word on the other? Easy, just 'snap' each app to each side of your desktop and they neatly sit there.
In fact one feature I really miss from Windows 7 is being able to 'Dual Screen' two app's by tiling them vertically easily. So can I do that within OS X? Not without another app.
Luckily an iOS developing friend pointed me at BetterSnapTool on the Mac App Store.
BetterSnapTool does the same. Written by Andreas Hegenberg, it brings 'Snap' functionality to OS X. Install it easily from the App Store for £1.19 and then open it. It pops up a box to help you switch on the Accessibility API in System Preferences (fear not, this is easy to do and enables BetterSnapTool to do it's thing). Once running it displays an icon in the System bar and opens its settings page. Lots of tweaking can be done.
It's beautifully simple to use. Just like Snap on Windows 7, you drag your window to the side of the Desktop you wan't it to use (either Left or Right) or if you drag it straight up it will fully maximise it. When dragging a lovely transparent animation of the space it will take up is shown to you to confirm how it will look.
So with just 2 swipes I'd easily and neatly tiled Word and Chrome, just as I wanted:
No longer have that rare feeling of envy towards Windows 7 users
This is one of those apps that takes no more than a minute for you to realise how great a purchase it was.
It's available in the Mac App Store for £1.19
