Many Tricks
Moom 3.2.9 has been released, and it includes one major change (in addition to some other minor changes) from the prior release: A new full-screen grid option is the default for grid-based resizing; hexagons are still in place, but they’re the non-default choice.
Moom now uses the entire display as the grid. You can still specify your grid dimensions, but you’ll be selecting regions of the entire display, instead of on a slanted hexagonal window. One advantage of this approach—besides not dealing with hexagons—is that you can drag a grid on any connected display, not just the display where the window currently resides.
App Store users should see the update in the App Store very soon now, and direct users can update via the in-app updater, or by downloading a new copy from our site.
I love the new full-screen grid. Moom was one of my favorite apps and I was in despair when the change to the hexagons appeared. Now Moom is usable again. Thank you!
The new full-screen grid is great. I’ll assume you made sure there’s no patent on it ;)
They probably didn’t. The issue with patents is that if you *do* get sued, you’re better off not knowing anything about the patent(s) you infringed. For example, you can only be held liable for indirect patent infringement if you had at least some knowledge of said patent.
This means that, for a software developer, the best course of action is to not read any patents, and to avoid all knowledge of which patents might exist.
Yes, the patent system is really broken.
The bug with Preview and large PDF files was causing me to tear my hair out since I was editing quite a few large PDF files recently. I would love to know how Moom, of all things, could cause this?
And thanks for fixing it. You probably saved me from reinstalling my laptop from scratch.
Peter and I discussed this at length once he found the fix—which is actually a workaround, not a bug fix. It’s a workaround because it’s not that Moom was directly causing this—I would assume any app that used the Accessibility API to monitor window activity would have caused the same problem unless they too specifically code around it.
What’s happening is that with certain large PDFs, and probably only at certain scaled views, Preview lays out the entire document’s content (not just the visible piece, but the entire thing) whenever Preview is asked which element the mouse pointer is currently hovering over. Take that fact, a 300MB PDF, and Moom’s need to know exactly when the cursor is over the green button, and you have a recipe for the incredible slowdown you were seeing.
Peter modified Moom so that when Preview is frontmost, Moom uses a different method to figure out where the mouse cursor is.
-rob.
The hexagon grid looks much better. Not sure I’m seeing the reason behind the full screen grid though. It would probably be just as quick (quicker?) to reposition and resize the window with the mouse.
Dragging a full window around is less precise, because it moves pixel by pixel. If you want a window to fall exactly within a certain area of the screen, defining a grid and then using a drag method that automatically jumps to those grid locations is much simpler—otherwise you wind up fiddling at a pixel level to get it just where you want it.
-rob.
how do you change the grid back to the old way? I do not see that setting anyplace….
Moom’s prefs > Mouse > Zoom Button Controls > Enable [full screen • hexagon] grid with [a] x [b] cells
regards;
-rob.
Thank you for the update. I’m still not the biggest hex grid fan, but I do use the drag resizing quite a bit. I’m wondering if you’d consider a LTR (Left to Right) dragging stragegy option. Right now, Moom feels like the angle is wrong for “righties”.
Example of the flipped Hex Grid
https://imgur.com/a/1RDvs
If I poke around the code enough will I find a hidden preference that changes the grid back into an actual rectangle grid? This patent is utterly BS…
Email me the answer ;)
No need to email, as the answer is no: We did not leave any method in place to generate the rectangular grid. (If we had, and someone found it, and then this being the internet, that someone posted it for all to use…in theory, we could then be liable for intentional patent infringement, and that is not a good thing.)
-rob.
Then how about outing the company that is preventing you from using the grid, so that those of us finding this a real pain know who not buy software from in the future.
As far as I know, the company doesn’t make any software; they hold the patent, and that’s all. We don’t want to identify them because nothing good (for Moom) would come from our users commenting on or contacting the patent holder.
-rob.
In other words, a patent troll.
Well be sure to thank them for breaking a very good app and giving nothing by in return.
Thank you for the great apps!
Is it possible in any of your tools to assign a shortcut to the app which is full screen mode? i can easily switch between desktops with shortcuts like Cmd + 1, Cmd +2, etc.
But it’s very different with apps in fullscreen mode.
Thank you
I’m not sure I understand the question … but generally, doing anything with full-screen windows is difficult, as Apple doesn’t provide many tools for us to use.
-rob.