Positioning a window with AppleScript using dual monitors - macos

Question

I have two monitors set up and I am trying to position the window of an application in the second monitor but nothing I do seems to work. For example I am using my laptop and the terminal window is maximized on the screen. Then I plug in an external monitor. I then want to run the applescript and have the terminal maximize on the larger second monitor.
Here is what I have right now:
set monitorTwoPos to {1050, -600}
set monitorTwoSze to {1200, 1920}
tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
set position of window 1 to monitorTwoPos
set size of window 1 to monitorTwoSze
end tell
Here is the error I get:
/Users/vcutten/AppleScripts/SpacesWork.scpt:1291:1332: execution error:
Microsoft Outlook got an error: Can’t make position of window 1 into type specifier. (-1700)
I'm pretty sure I'm just using set position and set size completely wrong :( When I used bounds it kind of works...
Bonus Question:
How can I loop through the open windows and get their size? Thanks!

Answer 1

What have you tried?
I think to solve this you need to calculate the screen size and coordinates of the second monitor. For example, your main monitor starts at position {0,0}. So the starting position of the second monitor has to be something different and you need to find that. Luckily I have written a tool that will give you both the starting coordinates and screen size of your monitors. Once you have the size and position then it's simple. System events can set the size and position of a window so you could do something like this...
set monitorSize to {800, 600}
set monitorPosition to {-800, 0}
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Terminal"
set frontWindow to first window
set position of frontWindow to monitorPosition
set size of frontWindow to monitorSize
end tell
end tell
So from the above script you just need the size and position variables. You can get my tool here called hmscreens which will give you those. You may need to do some adjusting of the coordinates depending on if the screen is measured from the lower left corner or upper left, but that's just simple math.
I hope that helps...

Answer 2

Use bounds instead of position, it works. You can get bounds of the window like this:
tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
get bounds of first window
end tell
Answer to the bonus question:
tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
repeat with nextWindow in (get every window)
get bounds of nextWindow
end repeat
end tell
If you open Replies tab at bottom part of Applescript editor, you will see all get results.
Hope it helps.

Answer 3

Here is a script that handles saving and restoring size and postion for multiple display configurations. It may have some issues with fullscreen apps but it seems to work ok.
-- allSettings is a list of records containing {width:? height:? apps:{{name:? pos:? size:?},...}
-- for each display setup store the apps and their associated position and size
property allSettings : {}
-- create a variable for the current settings
set currentSettings to {}
display dialog "Restore or save window settings?" buttons {"Restore", "Save"} default button "Restore"
set dialogResult to result
tell application "Finder"
-- use the desktop bounds to determine display config
set desktopBounds to bounds of window of desktop
set desktopWidth to item 3 of desktopBounds
set desktopHeight to item 4 of desktopBounds
set desktopResolution to desktopWidth & "x" & desktopHeight
-- find the saved settings for the display config
repeat with i from 1 to (count of allSettings)
if (w of item i of allSettings is desktopWidth) and (h of item i of allSettings is desktopHeight) then
set currentSettings to item i of allSettings
end if
end repeat
if (count of currentSettings) is 0 then
-- add the current display settings to the stored settings
set currentSettings to {w:desktopWidth, h:desktopHeight, apps:{}}
set end of allSettings to currentSettings
--say "creating new config for " & desktopResolution
else
--say "found config for " & desktopResolution
end if
end tell
tell application "System Events"
if (button returned of dialogResult is "Save") then
say "saving"
repeat with p in every process
if background only of p is false then
tell application "System Events" to tell application process (name of p as string)
set appName to name of p
if (count of windows) > 0 then
set appSize to size of window 1
set appPosition to position of window 1
else
set appSize to 0
set appPosition to 0
end if
set appSettings to {}
repeat with i from 1 to (count of apps of currentSettings)
if name of item i of apps of currentSettings is name of p then
set appSettings to item i of apps of currentSettings
end if
end repeat
if (count of appSettings) is 0 then
set appSettings to {name:appName, position:appPosition, size:appSize}
set end of apps of currentSettings to appSettings
else
set position of appSettings to appPosition
set size of appSettings to appSize
end if
end tell
end if
end repeat
end if
if (button returned of dialogResult is "Restore") then
if (count of apps of currentSettings) is 0 then
say "no window settings were found"
else
say "restoring"
repeat with i from 1 to (count of apps of currentSettings)
set appSettings to item i of apps of currentSettings
set appName to (name of appSettings as string)
try
tell application "System Events" to tell application process appName
if (count of windows) > 0 then
set position of window 1 to position of appSettings
set size of window 1 to size of appSettings
end if
end tell
end try
end repeat
end if
end if
end tell
https://gist.github.com/cmackay/5863257