Comments

1. Marc Abramowitz » Any way to make OS X notice a change in screen size?
   January 27th, 2007 | 12:16 pm

   [...] It occurs to me that perhaps I should create a Mac OS X annoyances page. The first two items would be this issue and the fact that you can only resize windows from the bottom right corner (which sometimes ends up off-screen). [...]

2. tim
   January 28th, 2007 | 12:28 am

   This is definitely my #1 OSX pain point. It happens to me with Quicksilver all the time when switching from my desktop monitor to my laptop screen.

   I just found this tip:

   I don’t know how well it works, but it would make my day if it did.

3. Hendrik
   February 22nd, 2007 | 12:36 pm

   I run into this problem all the time as well. Really annoying.
   Hopefully window management will improve with Leopard.
   I’d love to hear about a freeware fix for this. The Applescript tip works, but I’d like something more automatic.

4. Hendrik
   February 22nd, 2007 | 1:22 pm

   Ha. I surfed the web some more and came up with a solution.
   And I thought I’d share it here. You still have to select the offending window, for example using Expose and then hit a keyboard shortcut.

   Create this Applescript in Script Editor and save it under ~/Library/Scripts/

   tell application "System Events"
       set FrontApplication to (get name of every process whose frontmost is true) as string
       tell process FrontApplication
           set position of window 1 to {0, 22}
           --window 1 is always the frontmost window.
       end tell
   end tell
   

   Then set up a Quicksilver keyboard trigger for the script and you are set.

5. Marc
   April 16th, 2007 | 6:39 pm

   Hi Hendrik,

   Thanks for posting your script! For some reason, as written (and with the quotes and dashes fixed :-)), it didn’t work on my system, so I had to tweak it a bit so that it didn’t think the script itself was the frontmost application:

   tell application "System Events"
       tell (a reference to (first process whose frontmost is true))
           set visible to false
       end tell
   end tell
   
   tell application "System Events"
       set FrontApplication to ¬
           (get name of first process whose frontmost is true) as string
       --display dialog "FrontApplication = " & FrontApplication
       try
           tell process FrontApplication
               set position of window 1 to {0, 22}
               --window 1 is always the frontmost window.
           end tell
       on error
           display dialog "Exception - FrontApplication = " & FrontApplication
       end try
   end tell
   

6. Marc Abramowitz » AppleScript to get control over off-screen windows
   April 16th, 2007 | 7:27 pm

   [...] I mentioned before, one of my Mac OS X annoyances is the fact that sometimes I manage to get application windows off [...]

7. Richard Wagner
   April 29th, 2007 | 11:30 pm

   A similar problem that’s frustrated me has to do with a finder window which contains rows of icons which exceed the size of the window. I would like to be able to drag the bottom row of icons down to make room for new rows of icons directly above the bottom row. I used to be able to solve in previous OS X versions (I believe Jaguar). I could shrink the window, use the scrollbar to scroll to the bottom row, then expand the window to create space at the bottom and move the icons. In Panther and Tiger, this feature was taken away. Now if I expand the window, the rows of icons move with the window and leave no space at the bottom. Is there a something I’m missing or a solution available (assuming you understand my explanation). Thanx, RW

8. emma
   May 3rd, 2007 | 8:22 am

   Hi,
   I just wanted to add on to this, as I had terrible difficulty, and couldn’t get either script to work (being rather a novice), and I’m ashamed to admit - neither could I work out how to add the keyboard shortcuts, even using quicksilver (great little app, by the way).

   What I did want to add though, was that my problem was with Parallels desktop. I’ve just found out that the XP window inside the Mac OS, doesn’t have a re-sizing handle, and that you have to set two different display resolutions - one for the XP window inside the Mac OS, and one for full screen XP (which also sometimes alter of their own accord.)

   Hope this helps someone.

   (Also, shift + Ctrl with click is right click under Parallels - something else I just found out!)

   Emma

9. Saurabh Samdani
   May 7th, 2007 | 5:13 pm

   I want to create a quiksilver trigger to change the size of the first window to either the left half or the right half.
   Please tell me if one can do it.
   I tried this, but it didn’t do anything.

   set YSize to 1050
   set XSize to 1680
   tell application “System Events”
   set FrontApplication to (get name of every process whose frontmost is true) as string
   tell process FrontApplication
   set y1 to 22
   set x1 to XSize/2
   set x2 to XSize
   set y2 to YSize
   set bounds of window 1 to {x1, y1, x2, y2}
   end tell
   end tell

10. Tim
    May 8th, 2007 | 2:29 pm

    I just stumbled across this blog after having the same problem with a Finder window that exceeded the bottom of my display. I found that for me changing the dock position in System Preferences resized the offending window. I moved the dock back and everything is back to normal.

11. ijeff
    May 12th, 2007 | 10:35 pm

    You can just option click the zoom button. This will expose the You can then resize the window.

12. Greg
    September 4th, 2007 | 9:45 pm

    Choose Zoom off the Window menu and the offending window (if it is frontmost) will get within the bounds of the screen.

    I had this problem in Excel all the time–some freak program code would make my sheets be all tucked way up under the menu bar and ungrabbable. Took me ages to realize that I could just Window>Zoom to tame them.

13. Greg
    September 4th, 2007 | 9:48 pm

    At the moment I have the reverse program. I am trying to get an Applescript to tuck a window part way up under the menu bar, but no matter how tucked up I set it for, it always only goes up until it hits the menu bar.

    So, frankly, I don’t know how some of these programs manage (even inadvertantly) to make their windows go up into the ungrabble zone.

14. Susan
    October 4th, 2007 | 9:34 am

    Window/Zoom works a treat, thanks Greg.

15. Rex
    December 4th, 2007 | 11:03 am

    Just ran into this with the VMware Fusion main “library” window being so far offscreen (to the right) that the zoom button itself was inaccessible.

    Since I was running in dual-monitor mode (the laptop screen on the right, main monitor on the left) I was able to regain control by temporarily turning on “mirroring” in the display preferences, then turning it off again.

16. Peter
    February 7th, 2008 | 8:31 pm

    I have this problem with Eclipse but it is as if Eclipse is stuck in full screen mode. It will not budge and there is no Window option to zoom or minimize/maximize. Rather frustrating. Is there any AppleScript parts that can be suggested?

17. Warren
    March 13th, 2008 | 6:49 am

    When I had this problem with Eclipse, I just resized my monitor resolution and OS.X collected all the windows to fit into the smaller resolution.

18. Michael
    March 17th, 2008 | 1:51 am

    I’m still having this problem with Eclipse. Neither resizing my monitor nor running either AppleScript worked, and there is no window menu to speak of. I don’t know who to be frustrated with more: the Eclipse developers, or Apple. This is such a ludicrously simple UI thing that I’m amazed this is such a problem.

19. Michael
    March 17th, 2008 | 1:55 am

    By the way, for those who are having this problem in Eclipse, the best solution I’ve found is to just “reset perspective” from the main Eclipse window (which, if you’re anything like me, is not the window you’re having problems with).

20. Fender
    March 27th, 2008 | 6:41 am

    Hated to be a noob and ask someone, but was reading through trying to figure out the problem,
    couldnt believe how easy a fix the zoom was…
    i’ve been living with a messed up window forever. lol.

21. Anonymous
    May 5th, 2008 | 9:03 am

    Uhh.. hit the + button in the upper left…

22. Resizing off screen windows in OS X (Leopard) « You can imagine where it goes from here…
    June 3rd, 2008 | 9:14 am

    [...] Here’s a whole bunch of tips. What usually does it for me is changing the doc position to the left (external monitor is on the right), zoom window and then resetting the doc back to the bottom. [...]

23. Cody Burleson
    August 11th, 2008 | 9:36 am

    Moving the dock temporarily worked for me too! Thanks!

24. Martin
    August 30th, 2008 | 5:49 am

    The zoom or the + button works great to re-size the window and get it back on the screen. Thanks for that.
    However, I there is a similar problem that it does not solve.

    I don’t know the official term for this UI element, but sometimes a windows will create a drop down panel or pane which descends from the top as an attached sheet or page. Got that? To see an example take a look at the apple mail (mail.app) program. Mail > Preferences > Rules. Select a rule > EDIT rule. The rule specifications are shown on drop down pane (or panel or sheet). This pane is not re-sized when the window is re-sized by the zoom or the (+) button.

    The rule pane is taller than my screen and I cannot reach the corner to re-size it. I also cannot get to the (Cancel) or (OK) buttons at the bottom of the screen to dismiss the panel. The rule “News From Apple” that is pre-configured has many conditions and is too long to close. This is on leopard on a MacBook. How could this slip by testing?

    Any ideas on how to re-size this pane.

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