Does anyone ever use the green/+ button in every OS X windows?

[stainlessliquid]

The green button does more harm than good, its useless. About 70% of the time that I ever press the damn thing it just totally screws up the window, it doesnt make it taller or wider like its supposed to, it shoots it down to the corner and resizes the whole window to be smaller, then pressing it again doesnt return it back to normal. Its supposed to fit to the content inside the Window, but that only works on defined static content, any type of dynamic content and it gets confused and screws things up.

Its terrible.

 

[PurrBall]

It's too unpredictable for me to use.

 

[Jason Lee]

Guess I'm the only one who uses it regularly. Strange, but whenever I use the button, it resizes the window perfectly.

 

[MartiNZ]

As with many of you, I use it all the time in iTunes but avoid it in most other applications. With most of them I have window sizes and positions specifically set to my liking and the green button would just mess things up.

In Finder it is also annoying and it's hard enough getting a window size set as default in Finder without chancing messing it up with green.

In TextEdit it does not work properly when an RTF document is viewed at >100% - it won't expand to the appropriate width, much like the problems it used to have in Finder before Panther.

In open/save dialogs I would never ever want the pane maximised and yet that's what green does. Similarly in Software Update, where it seems weird to even have green enabled.

In Microsoft Office apps it gets even more confusing. In Excel, zooming expands the window out underneath where the formatting palette usually hangs out, which is not exactly desirable. In Word it zooms to a width for 100% view - I've just realised - interestingly similar to TextEdit, and moves the window right into the top-left corner which the Office apps normally seem to avoid for some weird reason.

In Calculator it serves more of a purpose similar to in iTunes, actually changing between view modes - by that rule it would actually make more sense for green to switch to spatial no sidebar view in Finder than for the pill to do it.

In summary, I don't think I would miss it.

 

[GoKyu]

I almost never use any of the buttons anyway - since switching to Mac, I've started using the keyboard shortcut to make sure I close an app (command-Q).

I understand what the green button is *supposed* to do, but it's too flaky for me to bother with.

 

[MartiNZ]

I almost never use any of the buttons anyway - since switching to Mac, I've started using the keyboard shortcut to make sure I close an app (command-Q).

I understand what the green button is *supposed* to do, but it's too flaky for me to bother with.

Good point, although one of the good things is there is no need to quit apps generally. But as far as keyboard shortcuts go, yes indeed, for the widgets, cmd-w and cmd-m are often easier than reaching with the mouse, and cmd-ctrl-z is good in iTunes - I think that one should be more universal even if it's unpredictable.

 

[Thomas Harte]

I don't use any of the streetlight buttons. I don't like the zoom function, because it is so inconsistent; I don't like the minimize button, because it's a chore to resume it unlike Windows; and I use command+W for the red button. If I had my way windows would only have the red button, even though that really isn't necessary.

The red button's brilliant — getting that little darkened centre when the document in that window hasn't been saved.

Beyond that, I rarely minimise and never zoom. As everyone has said, the button is just too unpredictable to be useful. I prefer the concept of windows having a natural size rather than just occupying the entire display (especially as I tend to work on things that are approximately page shaped), but the green button just seems to do whatever it feels like.

 

[duky]

but the green button just seems to do whatever it feels like.

My sentiments exactly! But I do use it (though I use Graphite look so don't have the red yellow green) when I transfer iTunes library over from iMac to laptop and can't reach the resize part of the screen in the bottom right--it comes quite in handy in those instances..

 

[DELLsFan]

Oh ... THAT button? Just about every time I've used it, the window did whatever it wanted. I guess I was always just ashamed to ask about it here for fear of being made the ass of the thread ... not realizing how to properly use it.

 

[mrchinchilla]

My sentiments exactly! But I do use it (though I use Graphite look so don't have the red yellow green) when I transfer iTunes library over from iMac to laptop and can't reach the resize part of the screen in the bottom right--it comes quite in handy in those instances..

This is off-topic, but while using Graphite, look at the maximize button when inactive, I think it might agitate you..

 

[martynmc7]

The green button is supposed to resize a window so horizontal scrolling is no longer needed, however, so many developers don't understand this that the green button's function becomes quite random across many apps.

In the case where an apps size is consistent with the size (e.g. Mail) the green button will make it fullscreen, otherwise it should just be as big as it needs to be...at least in theory...some one should tell Mozilla