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Show minimized windows in Mission Control

Starfox

Starfox

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 7, 2011
256
9
I'm used to minimizing windows into application icon (to keep dock icon positions consistent ;) and using expose to pull them back up, which is hunky dory on Snow Leopard, but I'm trying out Lion DP2 and this breaks completely - is there any way to get MC to treat minimized windows as if they exist? I know you can swipe four fingers down at the app's dock icon but that just reduces the target area into a small square as opposed to the entire screen, which really hurts usability.
 
I just hope they add a preference, or a plist key to enable mission control to show minimized..
 
Minimised windows is a huge issue. I can't understand why Apple just forgotten about them.

Snow Leopard dealt with them perfectly Mission Controll no love at all.
 
BlackMangoTree said:
Minimised windows is a huge issue. I can't understand why Apple just forgotten about them.

Snow Leopard dealt with them perfectly Mission Controll no love at all.
Click to expand...

I personally don't see it as a problem, all the windows in mission control are organized by app. But hey, that's just me.:D
 
Jagardn said:
I personally don't see it as a problem, all the windows in mission control are organized by app. But hey, that's just me.:D
Click to expand...

When you have minimised windows how do you deal with them ?

Thats a very cumbersome replacement. I have an application open with 2 windows one on each space then i require them on the same space, it's just slow, cumbersome and backwards compared to SL. Imgine when working with many windows 10 +. Not to mention having to create a space for every window. It's just not an alternative.

In SL you could activate show all windows and all windows would show even minimised making switching between windows and apps very simple and quick. All with the click of a mouse button.
 
Annoying as hell.

I ran a few apps through spotlight yesterday. They have no application windows. I'm still looking for them. Since they aren't on the dock I have to go into spotlight to run them again. :D

The Expose' part of Mission Control is fine if it showed minimized apps like SL does. "Spaces" still needs to be a separate app or at least the option to disable it.

Holy crap... I never saw so much effort put into fixing something that wasn't broken.
 
that touches on something I noticed: It'd be cool to be able to launch spotlight from Mission Control. As of now you launch MC, realize an app isn't open and have to close MC before you can cmd+space into spotlight. No biggie, just would be cool.
 
Don't think not being able to see minimized windows is a problem. In fact, if you have friends who have been using Macs for more than 5 years, you'll notice they don't usually minimize, but instead use Hide and Exposé.
 
Simplicated said:
Don't think not being able to see minimized windows is a problem. In fact, if you have friends who have been using Macs for more than 5 years, you'll notice they don't usually minimize, but instead use Hide and Exposé.
Click to expand...

It would seem a lot easier to simply minimize a stray safari window for use later rather than having to go through hide and seek.
 
in the early Lion DPs minimised windows were shown when you held down or scrolled over a Dock icon to show app window Expose. why did Apple remove this? grrrr :mad:

now you have to just use app windows Expose or right click a Dock icon and choose Show All Windows… albeit they did add previous items to an app's Dock menu (even when closed) which i love.
 
Last edited:
Simplicated said:
I leave them there and just use Exposé when I need them. Exposé helped eliminate the need of minimizing for me.
Click to expand...

Or at least minimised the need? Sorry :)....

This is some weird news, I didn't realise things were going this way. I thought in SL they actually promoted the idea of minimising with the nice clear display in Exposé, and with 'minimise to dock icon' I got quite used to doing it for some apps.

I used to be much more a hider, I guess I can go back. I did the defaults write command to dim dock icons of hidden apps, now that there aren't even dock lights by default I'm guessing that doesn't work either hmmm.
 
richard.mac said:
in the early Lion DPs minimised windows were shown when you held down or scrolled over a Dock icon to show app window Expose. why did Apple remove this? grrrr :mad:

now you have to just use app windows Expose or right click a Dock icon and choose Show All Windows… albeit they did add previous items to an app's Dock menu (even when closed) which i love.
Click to expand...

You can still see minimized windows in Lion. the gesture has just changed. On a Magic Mouse you tap twice with two fingers over the app icon on the dock and it shows all minimized windows for that app. With the Trackpad, just enable app expose in system prefs and swipe four fingers down over the app icon on the dock. Real easy. I kind of liked the scroll gesture better, but its still as easy.
 
no it's not.. all windows of an app is different that just all windows. I have to remember that I have a minimized window of an app and go check. It would be better if I could see all minimized windows.
 
This is getting patently ridiculous. "Minimized" Mission Control windows can be easily expanded through gestures, and each of them can be "maximized" pressing the space bar. If some people don't want to learn the relevant gestures and keystrokes, it's entirely their problem, not Lion's, and their whining is nonsensical, but amusing.
 
I like how there's just one button to active MC (as opposed to the +3 for Expose), but there are a few strange omissions such as not showing minimized windows as mentioned. Wouldn't be surprised if this isn't fixed with a service pack as it seems more like oversight than design.
 
PeterHolbrook said:
This is getting patently ridiculous. "Minimized" Mission Control windows can be easily expanded through gestures, and each of them can be "maximized" pressing the space bar. If some people don't want to learn the relevant gestures and keystrokes, it's entirely their problem, not Lion's, and their whining is nonsensical, but amusing.
Click to expand...

lol! do you think that by "minimized" we mean that they are just smaller?
 
Guys,
The fact that apple forgot to implement this is indeed a bit stupid. But i just realized that mission control does bring up the dock when it's activated. So just unticking the option to minimize windows to the application icon in Dock settings brings back the ability to switch to minimized windows using Mission Control.
Cheers!
 
PeterHolbrook said:
This is getting patently ridiculous. "Minimized" Mission Control windows can be easily expanded through gestures, and each of them can be "maximized" pressing the space bar. If some people don't want to learn the relevant gestures and keystrokes, it's entirely their problem, not Lion's, and their whining is nonsensical, but amusing.
Click to expand...

Funny. Maybe read the through the thread again and see what we are talking about.
 
BlackMangoTree said:
Funny. Maybe read the through the thread again and see what we are talking about.
Click to expand...

I have. I 've noticed some members are complaining about the fact windows that have been minimized don't appear in Mission Control. Other users, however, are talking about spaces, exposé, gestures, et cetera. So, there you go. It's SO CURIOUS you didn't read what I wrote in order to ascertain what I was talking about. Funny, as you say.
 
Yes, this is quite annoying, because I have gotten used to minimizing windows into the dock icon when Snow Leopard introduced this feature. Now, it's impossible to find which minimized windows I have without expose'ing every app in the dock.
 
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