Move window by dragging background (movableByWindowBackground)

Question

I have a window that I want users to be able to move by dragging anywhere in the window content (not just the titlebar). I know that this can be done via the NSWindow movableByWindowBackground method, however this doesn't appear to work by itself.

I gather that overriding NSView mouseDownCanMoveWindow may be necessary. But I can't easily do that for all parent views (split views, etc). Making it a textured window didn't help. Unsurprisingly, subclassing NSWindow to override isMovableByWindowBackground didn't help either.

Is it really necessary to subclass all parent views in the window to make this work?

Try this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4563893/allow-click-and-dragging-a-view-to-drag-the-window-itself — Jason Harrison, Mar 23 '15 at 00:52

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 14 '15 at 18:01

6

On OS X 10.11, setting the NSWindow's property movableByWindowBackground to YES works.

There is no longer any need to subclass for this behaviour.

answered Oct 14 '15 at 18:01

Graham Miln

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In my experience, that's not the case. I have an NSSplitView that covers a window and I've set that property. The window is not draggable from background areas. I'm building against 10.11 and my deployment target is 10.11+ – Bryan Mar 25 '16 at 07:20
@Bryan consider logging a bug with Apple against `NSSplitView`; it sounds like unhandled mouse events are not being passed up through the `NSResponder` chain as expected. – Graham Miln Mar 25 '16 at 09:16
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I would say that's correct. I overrode -mouseDownCanMoveWindow in the splitView, returned YES, and that solved the problem. – Bryan Mar 26 '16 at 18:03

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 24 '20 at 15:47

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In NSSplitView you add:

override var mouseDownCanMoveWindow: Bool {
    return true
}

answered Aug 24 '20 at 15:47

BackSpace

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Move window by dragging background (movableByWindowBackground)

2 Answers2