Allow click and dragging a view to drag the window itself?

Question

I\'m using a textured window that has a tab bar along the top of it, just below the title bar.

I\'ve used -setContentBorderThickness:forEdge: on the window to make t

Answer 1

As of macOS 10.11, the simplest way to do this is to utilize the new -[NSWindow performWindowDragWithEvent:] method:

@interface MyView () {
    BOOL movingWindow;
}
@end

@implementation MyView

...

- (BOOL)mouseDownCanMoveWindow
{
    return NO;
}

- (void)mouseDown:(NSEvent *)event
{
    movingWindow = NO;

    CGPoint point = [self convertPoint:event.locationInWindow
                              fromView:nil];

    // The area in your view where you want the window to move:
    CGRect movableRect = CGRectMake(0, 0, 100, 100);

    if (self.window.movableByWindowBackground &&
        CGRectContainsPoint(movableRect, point)) {

        [self.window performWindowDragWithEvent:event];
        movingWindow = YES;
        return;
    }

    // Handle the -mouseDown: as usual
}

- (void)mouseDragged:(NSEvent *)event
{
    if (movingWindow) return;

    // Handle the -mouseDragged: as usual
}

@end

Here, -performWindowDragWithEvent: will handle the correct behavior of not overlapping the menu bar, and will also snap to edges on macOS 10.12 and later. Be sure to include a BOOL movingWindow instance variable with your view's private interface so you can avoid -mouseDragged: events once you determined you don't want to process them.

Here, we are also checking that -[NSWindow movableByWindowBackground] is set to YES so that this view can be used in non-movable-by-window-background windows, but that is optional.