Snap To It

Windows doesn't seem to have (at least not anymore) the native ability to allow windows to snap to the edges of the screen, or to snap-align windows to the edges of other windows.  I like having this feature; I'm a bit of a neatnik when it comes to window edges.  Windows used to have a function that enabled a snapping grid on the desktop, but it no longer does anything.  (It's possible to align desktop icons to that grid, but not window edges.)

Now, the solution: allSnap.  When run, it does exactly what I want: it snaps windows to the edges of other windows, to a predefined grid, and to the edges of the screen.  I love being able to grab a window and stick it somewhere off in a corner and not worry about accidentally having it hang partway out of sight.

The bad news is that allSnap doesn't seem to know how to hook into all applications.  For instance, if I move a Word 2007 window by grabbing and dragging it by the top edge, allSnap doesn't kick in -- in fact, when I use allSnap's handy debug window, it doesn't even have any messages in there, so I can only assume Word's hooking into a different window-management function call than the one allSnap is assaying.  But if I grab Word's window edges and drag them around to resize, it works fine.  Ditto for resizing a Firefox window instance from the grab bar at its bottom right corner, but if I just resize from the window edges it works correctly.

I'm currently running the most recent beta of allSnap, and barring this feature it works wonderfully.  I've also looked at a couple of other programs that do roughly the same thing and will talk about them separately, but this is one of the best simply because it does the one thing I've needed the most, does it unobtrusively, and doesn't cost a dime.