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Why don't apple give a full screen option
- Thread starter thecritix
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so it's obvious that they considered it and decided against it. That should be enough for all the windows switchers who are begging for it. They're not going to get it!
Ugh, stop saying everyone who wants a maximize or full screen feature is a windows switcher!!! It's absolutely and completely false!!!
I never said that. I said it should be enough for windows switchers. People who used Mac OS when it did have maximize have a better stance as they can see it as a feature that was removed and never implemented in OS X.
so are they, like, super delegates or something? what if I used to own an Apple IIC?
exactly they are the head officials of the people who want a feature that won't be implemented anytime soon.
they are the head officials of the people who want a feature that won't be implemented anytime soon.
ok then what about ppl that have never used a computer before and go get a mac, where do they they stand??
im a new mac user and i think the green button, infact the green and red button are not uniform to their behavior,
red button, some apps it closes the app, others it just hides it,
green button, some apps make the window bigger, some smaller??? (itunes) some make a full size window.
It would be good if you knew how they were going to behave without the trial and error approach.
Reading this thread, i believe Steve Jobs must have a very clean backside, there are so many people licking it!
im a new mac user and i think the green button, infact the green and red button are not uniform to their behavior,
red button, some apps it closes the app, others it just hides it,
green button, some apps make the window bigger, some smaller??? (itunes) some make a full size window.
It would be good if you knew how they were going to behave without the trial and error approach.
Reading this thread, i believe Steve Jobs must have a very clean backside, there are so many people licking it!
As a longtime user of Windows XP before buying a Mac (note that I say "buying" instead of "switching" because something about the concept of a "switcher" bothers me, although I would say I am very much partial to the Mac experience now), I have only on rarest occasions used the maximize button in XP. The only time I usually use a type of full screen mode is by using alt+enter to full screen a video in WMP.
As someone else noted though, I do find using the maximize button in Windows useful when typing papers in word processor to minimize distractions. Under Leopard, I find using spaces and putting the word processor in a different space to provide an equivalent solution. Would a maximize button be nice? Adding it as an OS feature would definitely not hurt, but whether or not it is necessary is debatable.
In my opinion, a possible solution would be to first completely remove the green button, as it is completely unpredictable in nature (not good). Instead leave control of windowing features to the application to implement (with command key shortcuts for the different windowing modes). Each application can then see what windowing modes would be useful for its users and choose to implement them if necessary. The option of a "full screen" mode, "maximized by width" mode, "maximized by height" mode, "floating palette" mode, "floating palettes in a windowed space" mode, and whatever other mode should be application-centric, due to wide variation in how we interact with different applications.
As someone else noted though, I do find using the maximize button in Windows useful when typing papers in word processor to minimize distractions. Under Leopard, I find using spaces and putting the word processor in a different space to provide an equivalent solution. Would a maximize button be nice? Adding it as an OS feature would definitely not hurt, but whether or not it is necessary is debatable.
In my opinion, a possible solution would be to first completely remove the green button, as it is completely unpredictable in nature (not good). Instead leave control of windowing features to the application to implement (with command key shortcuts for the different windowing modes). Each application can then see what windowing modes would be useful for its users and choose to implement them if necessary. The option of a "full screen" mode, "maximized by width" mode, "maximized by height" mode, "floating palette" mode, "floating palettes in a windowed space" mode, and whatever other mode should be application-centric, due to wide variation in how we interact with different applications.
I don't think that'd be very wise. For one, not everyone likes to fiddle with shortcuts every time you want to resize your window. The thing is that it already is up to the application how to implement this and that is the green button(which, of course, could use some clarification or adjustment according to some).
I know this has been beaten to death more than a few times, but I think the key to using the green button is a pretty simple one. If you know your applications, which shouldn't be that big a requirement since you actually use them, the green button is fully functional. In Safari, you either get a box with a suitable width for the page you're looking at currently, and if you click it again, you get the same width, but more height to save you from scrolling more than necessary.
My point is that the green button, in my opinion, isn't quite as unpredictable as you (and others) claim. I for one know my applications and find the green button to be very handy most of the time.
The behavior of the "green" button in the window title bar on MacOS X is exactly the same as the behavior of the MacOS 9 "Zoom" button. The operating system asks the application what is the best size for a "zoomed" window, the application reports that size, and the OS changes the window size. No change at all.
If an application wants to change a window to maximum size when the user clicks the green button, all the developer has to do is check which monitor the window is on, call an OS function that determines which part of that monitor is usable for apps (this excludes menubar and dock for the main monitor), and report that area when it is asked for the best size for a "zoomed" window.
Nope, not quite. The OS X green button and the Classic Mac OS zoom button behave the same when clicked, however, in the Classic Mac OS when you OPTION clicked the zoom button it maximized the window. I used to use that feature all the time and it's been sorely missed ever since it got lost in the transition to OS X along with some other sorely missed features that never made it through the transition, though with each new revision of OS X they've added more and more of them back, so maybe one of these days an option click maximize will make it onto Apple's list of To Dos also.
I've already suggested an answer to this question -- that adding every feature anyone might possibly want leads to Microsoft-style bloat, and in good design, what is left out can be just as important as what is included. But I suppose since you regard this entire thread as "amazingly stupid," you probably didn't read it.
Basic window control is hardly feature bloat.
We're talking two simple functions, maximize and resize control points.
Maybe Xerox didn't have those abilities in their GUI when SJ and Co. copied them.
Basic window control is hardly feature bloat.
We're talking two simple functions, maximize and resize control points.
Maybe Xerox didn't have those abilities in their GUI when SJ and Co. copied them.
You might want to read his point again. "...adding every feature anyone might possibly want..." is what leads to bloat.
Like any designer, Apple must make choices between features and usefulness, and with any decision there's going to be at least one unhappy person. Maybe Apple made a bad decision here, but at least it's done in an attempt to design the software well.
As for the Xerox comment, it's been a decade or two, I think that little meme can die now.
I don't know what a meme is, but there is little denial that the Star GUI was the influence for Lisa and hence, Macintosh.
So meme this.
True, but Apple did not steal it, Xerox presented it to Steve Jobs and handed the idea over to him because Xerox decided not to do anything with the idea.
Thanks for understanding. We has a similar debate a few days ago about uninstaller applications. I had the same reaction to that idea. Trying to be everything to all people is the best way to be nothing to anyone.
Actually, no. First, nobody at Apple saw the Star, which came out a couple of years after Jobs and Co. visited Xerox PARC. What they did see was the Alto. The Alto OS wasn't very much like the Lisa or the Macintosh at all. In fact the Mac project was already under way when Jobs visited Xerox. The then head of the Mac project, Jef Raskin, wanted Steve to see the potential of a GUI so he'd get behind the Mac project. He was so turned on by what he saw at Xerox he fired Raskin and took it over himself.
No, I did read it. That's why I thought it was stupid. All this stupid fuss over a proposition of a button and a bit user flexibility.
Now I hate bloat and I hate Microsoft with a passion, but allowing users to resize a window from more than one corner (although I wouldn't advise allowing resizing from the top. Not even windows has that, I don't think) would be more practical, especially for someone who's left handed because it would be more natural for them to go to the left hand corner, like right handed people would go to the right hand side. And sometimes it's just plain useful.
It's just tiny things. It's not like saying "HEY APPLE LET PEOPLE PICK THE DOCK COLOR AND SHAPE AND EXACTLY WHERE TO HAVE IT BECAUSE I WOULD LIKE THE DOCK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCREEN, AS WELL AS GIVING US MULTIPLE THEMES FOR THE OPERATING SYSTEM BECAUSE I LIKE PINK AND GREY ISN'T AS NICE AS PINK." It's just tiny things that would make the OS a bit better for some people.
I guess its that time again - every 6 weeks a new thread is started with yet another Windows whiner, excuse me, switcher complaining about the lack of a Windows function "maximize" not being part of OSX. What a surprise.
And worse for a whole lot of others. This is the point I think you are not getting, and is perhaps why you believe this entire discussion is "stupid."