Animated Window Manager

Manage your windows with macOS-like animations

Matheus Chein

New

Install Extension

Overview

Animated Window Manager for Raycast 🪟✨

Smooth, animated window snapping on macOS using Raycast + Hammerspoon.

Bring macOS-native-feeling window movements to your desktop with clean animations for:

⬅️ Left Half
➡️ Right Half
🔳 Maximize
💬 Reasonable Size (~30% centered)

No jarring jumps. Just smooth, polished transitions.

🛠️ Requirements

This extension uses Hammerspoon to apply window animations.

✅ One-liner setup (Hammerspoon + animation config)

For bash and zsh:

brew install --cask hammerspoon && mkdir -p ~/.hammerspoon && curl -o ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua https://raw.githubusercontent.com/raycast/extensions/refs/heads/main/extensions/animated-window-manager/hammerspoon/init.lua && (if [[ $(uname -m) == 'arm64' ]]; then sudo ln -s ~/.hammerspoon/hs /opt/homebrew/bin/hs; else sudo ln -s ~/.hammerspoon/hs /usr/local/bin/hs; fi) && open -a Hammerspoon

For Fish shell:

bash -c 'brew install --cask hammerspoon && mkdir -p ~/.hammerspoon && curl -o ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua https://raw.githubusercontent.com/raycast/extensions/refs/heads/main/extensions/animated-window-manager/hammerspoon/init.lua && if [[ $(uname -m) == "arm64" ]]; then sudo ln -sf ~/.hammerspoon/hs /opt/homebrew/bin/hs; else sudo ln -sf ~/.hammerspoon/hs /usr/local/bin/hs; fi && open -a Hammerspoon'

☝️ This installs Hammerspoon, applies the animated layout config, symlinks hs CLI to the correct location based on architecture (Apple or Intel chip) and opens Hammerspoon.

✨ Features

Command	Description
Move Window Left (Animated)	Slides focused window to the left half
Move Window Right (Animated)	Slides focused window to the right half
Maximize Window (Animated)	Smoothly fills the whole screen
Reasonable Size (Animated)	Centers window with ~60% width & 70% height

All animations use native-feeling macOS transitions.

💾 Manual Setup (if preferred)

Install Hammerspoon
```
brew install --cask hammerspoon
```
Enable CLI access
Create a symlink to expose the Hammerspoon CLI (hs) to your system.

For Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3 Macs):
```
sudo ln -s ~/.hammerspoon/hs /opt/homebrew/bin/hs
```
For Intel Macs:
```
sudo ln -s ~/.hammerspoon/hs /usr/local/bin/hs
```

Add the layout functions
Paste this into ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua:

require("hs.ipc")

function moveWindowLeftAnimated()
  local win = hs.window.focusedWindow()
  if not win then return end

  local screen = win:screen()
  local frame = screen:frame()

  local targetFrame = {
    x = frame.x,
    y = frame.y,
    w = frame.w / 2,
    h = frame.h
  }

  win:move(targetFrame, nil, true, 0.3)
end

function moveWindowRightAnimated()
  local win = hs.window.focusedWindow()
  if not win then return end

  local screen = win:screen()
  local frame = screen:frame()

  local targetFrame = {
    x = frame.x + (frame.w / 2),
    y = frame.y,
    w = frame.w / 2,
    h = frame.h
  }

  win:move(targetFrame, nil, true, 0.3)
end

function maximizeWindowAnimated()
  local win = hs.window.focusedWindow()
  if not win then return end

  local screen = win:screen()
  local frame = screen:frame()

  win:move(frame, nil, true, 0.3)
end

function moveWindowReasonableSize()
  local win = hs.window.focusedWindow()
  if not win then return end

  local screen = win:screen()
  local frame = screen:frame()

  local targetWidth = frame.w * 0.6
  local targetHeight = frame.h * 0.7
  local targetFrame = {
    x = frame.x + ((frame.w - targetWidth) / 2),
    y = frame.y + ((frame.h - targetHeight) / 2),
    w = targetWidth,
    h = targetHeight
  }

  win:move(targetFrame, nil, true, 0.3)
end

Open Hammerspoon and load the config
```
open -a Hammerspoon
```

🚀 How It Works

This extension calls your custom Hammerspoon functions like:

hs -c "moveWindowLeftAnimated()"

Hammerspoon then smoothly animates your window into place using native macOS window APIs.

🧪 Troubleshooting

🔸 Hammerspoon error: `can't access message port`

You forgot to enable IPC. Add this to the top of your init.lua:

require("hs.ipc")

🔸 Raycast moves itself instead of another window?

Raycast was focused. We fixed that by automatically closing Raycast before calling hs using closeMainWindow().

🧠 Inspiration

This project was built to make macOS window management feel less robotic and more native. Animations make a big difference — and Raycast + Hammerspoon is the perfect lightweight combo.

📬 Suggestions?

Open an issue or submit a pull request on GitHub. Happy snapping! ⚡️