IrradiatedSoftware
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"Cinch" your desktop windows into place
Cinch is a new Mac utility from Irradiated Software. It helps keep your desktop windows organized by snapping them into predefined sizes and locations when you hold them near an edge of your screen. While its toolset is limited in comparison to its big sister, the keyboard-based SizeUp (which we covered a while back), Cinch is designed as a quick-and-easy window organization tool for users who prefer to stick with their mouse for such things. When you run Cinch, it shows up in your menubar. When you drag any window to a top, left or right edge of the screen, it "snaps" (or cinches) to take up the full width or height of the screen: top half stretched horizontally if dragged to the top, and a vertical half for left or right. It's handy, and it's easy to get so used to it that you forget it isn't built into the operating system. Cinch works with multi-monitor setups, and there's no configuration necessary. Just run it and start dragging windows where you need them. Cinch is available for download as a free trial, and a license can be had for $7US.
Corral your desktop windows with SizeUp
I want to make a quick mention regarding one of the most useful utilities I've found in recent days: SizeUp. It allows you to resize and reposition windows using keyboard shortcuts. It's no secret that I like my screen real estate, and making the most of it is a big deal to me. You can sit and resize windows all day, but I'd rather hit a couple of keys and have everything in place. SizeUp offers half-screen (vertical or horizontal) and quarter-screen sizing (easily positionable in any corner), as well as a true Windows-style maximize function. You can also set a custom size for the "Center Window" option, which resizes the window to the specified dimensions and positions it in the center of its current screen. Not the screen you want? The last set of shortcuts lets you jump the window between existing monitors in your setup. The hotkeys are configurable, but the defaults (surprisingly) didn't conflict with any of my extensive collection of shortcut combinations. SizeUp is shareware, but you can pay what you think it's worth (Fair licensing). A suggested price of $9.99US doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me. If it's useful to you, but not that useful, a minimum donation of $2.99US is requested. The maximize function alone is worth that. Developers Irradiated Software also offer a "lite" version called TwoUp which can do the split screen trick on its own, free. Grab a fully-functioning demo of SizeUp at the Irradiated Software website.
