how to make the full screen default?

i don't think it's possible. you're used to a feature called "fullscreen" on a pc, but on macs, i think there is only an 'optimize' button which makes the window big enough for the webpage.

The green 'maximise' button is to enlarge the current window to fit the content, rather than to go full screen. It makes sense but is one of those things that takes a while getting used to when switching from Windows. You can, of course, resize the window by dragging the bottom right corner.

There are third party plugins available, like Saft, which allow 'proper' full screen browsing in Safari. A few other web browsers, namely Firefox, has full screen browsing as an option (under the 'view' menu.

yuy said:

oh, my god, so there is no way to set full screen default. awful.

But really, the 12inch display is small, when optimize ,say, the pdf documents, the pdf page becomes even smaller.

So are there any short cut for full screen?

Thanks anyway

Click to expand...

When viewing pdf's in Preview, you can zoom in and out as much as you want or even go to a full screen slideshow! I'm confused, what else do you want?

yuy said:

well, yes, I can zoom in and out to fit in the who screen, but the problem is that every time I have to do so, isn't boring and frustrating?

Click to expand...

i think the issue at hand here is that you bought a laptop with a small screen,and now you aren't happy with it.

the Zoom feature works great and i'm GLAD there isn't a "maximize" (or full screen as you call it) feature. i'm much more productive when i have more than one app visible.

if you aren't happy with the screen size, you should've went with a 15" instead of the 12". I've had no problems with my 15" and love it, it's not THAT big or heavy either. 5.7 lbs is a cakewalk compared to my old dell that weighed in at like almost 10lbs.

consider returning it, or selling it and getting a machien with a bigger display. or you could always just wait it out and learn to use OS X the way it was supposed to be used. it takes a bit of getting used to but it's not that bad.

yuy said:

well, yes, I can zoom in and out to fit in the who screen, but the problem is that every time I have to do so, isn't boring and frustrating?

Click to expand...

I'm still slightly confused to as what the issue is.

When you open up a PDF you want it to cover up the whole screen? When you maximise on a Mac it does a similar thing, except discards all the superfluous white space on the sides. So if it's too small, zoom in (command-+) till the text is a comfortable size and then maximise. You can also use the 'zoom to fit' function.

yuy, I've got a 12" PowerBook too, and reacted exactly the same way you did when I first got mine.

You'll get used to it. After a while, you'll start to wonder why Windows seems to insist on filling the screen with one application

RupertJ said:

(...)

You'll get used to it. After a while, you'll start to wonder why Windows seems to insist on filling the screen with one application

Click to expand...

I was going to post the exact same answer


-------
[Edit:]

RupertJ said:

(...)you'll start to wonder why Windows seems to insist on filling the screen with one application

Click to expand...

Because it can't multi-task?

yuy said:

yeah, I'd rather get myself acustomed to it rather than buying a 15inch one. I love this mac. haha

Click to expand...

Book mark this thread. Come back in 2 months. Have a good laugh.

yuy said:

yeah, I'd rather get myself acustomed to it rather than buying a 15inch one. I love this mac. haha

Click to expand...

Even with my 17" I still maximize by hand and take out the white border of the newspaper that I read everyday.

It's just the "get use to" kind of thing.

DXoverDY said:

i think the issue at hand here is that you bought a laptop with a small screen,and now you aren't happy with it.

the Zoom feature works great and i'm GLAD there isn't a "maximize" (or full screen as you call it) feature. i'm much more productive when i have more than one app visible.

if you aren't happy with the screen size, you should've went with a 15" instead of the 12". I've had no problems with my 15" and love it, it's not THAT big or heavy either. 5.7 lbs is a cakewalk compared to my old dell that weighed in at like almost 10lbs.

consider returning it, or selling it and getting a machien with a bigger display. or you could always just wait it out and learn to use OS X the way it was supposed to be used. it takes a bit of getting used to but it's not that bad.

Click to expand...

That was a tad harsh wasn't it? I use a 12" iBook and a 17" iMac and I like to have some apps full screen on both regardless of screen real estate. Particularly if i'm using Safari - It's nice not to be distracted by other apps sometimes.

Actually reading through your post again it wasn't really that harsh was it. I'm having a bad day, ignore me.

MacRy said:

Particularly if i'm using Safari - It's nice not to be distracted by other apps sometimes.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but I like having 5-6 browser windows open (even if I use tabs) and jumping from window from window is easier if your don't "maximise".

And I can also easily jump to Mail.

whocares said:

Yeah, but I like having 5-6 browser windows open (even if I use tabs) and jumping from window from window is easier if your don't "maximise".

And I can also easily jump to Mail.

Click to expand...

We obviously work very differently. I like to have just the one browser window open....perhaps i'm just easily distracted/confused


Each to their own I guess.

MacRy said:

That was a tad harsh wasn't it? I use a 12" iBook and a 17" iMac and I like to have some apps full screen on both regardless of screen real estate. Particularly if i'm using Safari - It's nice not to be distracted by other apps sometimes.

Actually reading through your post again it wasn't really that harsh was it. I'm having a bad day, ignore me.

Click to expand...

Everyone has different needs. I just gave my point of view, it certainly wasn't intended to be harsh. I do see it as a tad bit blunt but that's about it. I've just really gotten used to how OS X feels, it bugged me in the beginning as well. I've not used a 12" machine though, so I guess my advice is the kind of advice that isn't from first hand experience, so take it with a grain of salt.

RupertJ said:

After a while, you'll start to wonder why Windows seems to insist on filling the screen with one application

Click to expand...

To which the real answer is: Because the menu bar is attached to the window, so fullscreening windows puts it in a consistent location from window to window so you don't have to hunt for it. Same basic reason that Word on windows runs documents as windows within a workspace window. The Mac does this by default, since the menu bar is always at the top (I believe the ability to do this is one of the few things Apple legally prvented MS from copying back in the 80s), so there's no direct need.

As for the original question, the green button is intended to "optimize" as opposed to just maximize, which though very useful in a lot of cases (when there's not that much content in the window and you want it "just right") but does take some adjusting to and doesn't always do quite what you want with browsing on a very small screen. You might try Acrobat, which I think opens maximized by default (unlike Preview), and as mentioned Firefox can also do fullscreen browsing.

Personally, since I use monitors large enough that I actually DON'T want to maximize my browser window (lines of text would be so long that I couldn't easily read them), I much prefer it this way.

Makosuke said:

....

As for the original question, the green button is intended to "optimize" as opposed to just maximize, which though very useful in a lot of cases (when there's not that much content in the window and you want it "just right") but does take some adjusting to and doesn't always do quite what you want with browsing on a very small screen. You might try Acrobat, which I think opens maximized by default (unlike Preview), and as mentioned Firefox can also do fullscreen browsing.

....

Click to expand...

Actually, Acrobat defaults to a scaled full page of content on screen. It does not open fullscreen. Neither does Firefox default to fullscreen, though there are certain webpages that try to maximize themselves.

Back to the question at hand: I interpret your explanation about the differences between Windows and the Mac vis-a-vis full screen display as agreeing with my own theory of the differences. My theory is that Windows at its heart wants to be a single-user, single-tasking OS. OTOH, the Mac going back to System 7 or even System 6 embraced multitasking. With MacOS X, the Mac also embraces its multi-user capability. The focus of each OS is reflected in its usage patterns. You read posts above from Windows users who say they are distracted by having multiple applications on screen. On average, Mac users are proficient with approximately twice as many applications as Windows users.

MisterMe said:

Actually, Acrobat defaults to a scaled full page of content on screen. It does not open fullscreen.

Click to expand...

Huh... maybe my definition is different from yours, but whenever I drop a PDF onto Adobe Reader it opens a window that fills all available screen space save the Dock and its own toolbar at the top, and the PDF is zoomed to fill the window horizontally. That is about as close to "fullscreen" as a properly-behaved Mac app can be, and sounds a lot like what the original poster is looking for (as opposed to Preview, which scales to show one full page).

Is there a preference somewhere that sets this, or perhaps the behavior is changed in Reader 7?

MisterMe said:

Back to the question at hand ... My theory is that Windows at its heart wants to be a single-user, single-tasking OS.

Click to expand...

There is at least potential for discussion on this, but I'm not sure I really agree with you, and I definitely don't agree that single or multi has much to do with the fullscreen issue--if it did, I don't think that the taskbar would get used as much as it does. I think it has far more to do with Fitts law (easier to hit the edges of the screen than a target in the middle) making people want to have their menus near the edge where it's efficient, and that's exactly what maximizing does.

DXoverDY said:

Everyone has different needs. I just gave my point of view, it certainly wasn't intended to be harsh. I do see it as a tad bit blunt but that's about it. I've just really gotten used to how OS X feels, it bugged me in the beginning as well. I've not used a 12" machine though, so I guess my advice is the kind of advice that isn't from first hand experience, so take it with a grain of salt.

Click to expand...

Blunt! That was a better description actually.

It's just my opinion but I feel that it can get a little cramped sometimes on a 12" screen and it's nice to just let one app have the whole screen. Then again...grain of salt for me too chap

Makosuke said:

Huh... maybe my definition is different from yours, but whenever I drop a PDF onto Adobe Reader it opens a window that fills all available screen space save the Dock and its own toolbar at the top, and the PDF is zoomed to fill the window horizontally. That is about as close to "fullscreen" as a properly-behaved Mac app can be, and sounds a lot like what the original poster is looking for (as opposed to Preview, which scales to show one full page).

Is there a preference somewhere that sets this, or perhaps the behavior is changed in Reader 7?

Click to expand...

Well, I have Acrobat 7 and Adobe Reader 7 both installed. The default behavior is to scale so that one page of content is displayed at a time. Acrobat also displays toolbars and whatnot. All tolled it occupies about 50% of my available screen real estate. I have a 23" Cinema Display. As for Preview, it wants to display the same content at actual size, whatever that may be.

Makosuke said:

There is at least potential for discussion on this, but I'm not sure I really agree with you, and I definitely don't agree that single or multi has much to do with the fullscreen issue--if it did, I don't think that the taskbar would get used as much as it does. I think it has far more to do with Fitts law (easier to hit the edges of the screen than a target in the middle) making people want to have their menus near the edge where it's efficient, and that's exactly what maximizing does.

Click to expand...

You make some interesting points. Indeed, our seemingly different perspectives on this issue would make for an interesting discussion. I am sure that you would come around to see it my way