I’ve found that clicking on the green ‘+’ button in the upper left hand corner of a window does not appear to have the same effect as on a PC. On the PC, doing so causes that window to go to full screen. On the Mac, it appears to only increase the window to the biggest size it needs to be, but does not go ‘full screen’ . Is there an easy way of quickly maximizing a window to use the whole page ? Its like reading a magazine article by opening it 1/4 open ? Or just pealed a corner at a time of a newspaper article instead of opening the whole page? . I cant have full focus on a particular thing i am doing ( like coding , surfing , text editing ) without having the window full sized. May be it is because i just came from windows world but Generally people need focus to what they are doing but in Mac how this can be achieved without having the active window full size.
Apple’s philosophy is that a maximized environment is inherently inefficent since it makes dragging content from one window to another cumbersome . Many types of documents are vertically oriented (like a printed page), yet monitors are wider than they are tall. So, for instance, it doesn’t make sense for a word processing document to fill the width of the screen.
The zoom button toggles its window between 2 states, the standard state and the user state. The standard state is determined by the application developer. Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines provide this sensible direction to programmers for deciding the standard state of a window:
“Don’t assume that the standard state should be as large as possible; some monitors are much larger than the useful size for a window.”
Individual users determine the user state of their window by manually resizing it; the zoom button will then toggle between these two states.
Microsoft’s philosophy is that windows can be one of two sizes - a standard size (which can be resized), or maximized (filling the entire screen). If a user doesn’t like working with the standard size, the obvious solution is to make the window fill the entire screen so that you can see more content on the screen at once. Thus, all XP windows have a maximize button that toggles between these two states.
XP regards the last state that the window was in before it was closed as the preferred state. When you reopen a window, it will open back up to the state in which you left it. Maximized windows cannot be moved or resized. When you maximize a window, its maximize button turns into a “restore” button to return the window to its previous state.
Maximized windows have two main advantages:
- You cannot click outside of the maximized window, such as on the desktop or a background window (which makes it impossible for it to lose focus by an accidental click)
- Screen clutter is reduced because other open windows will be covered up by the maximized window
A detailed comparison of this is here .
For example here is a scenario which i particularly find most irritating . For a Finder window with lots of folders open when clicked on the green zoom button doesn’t increase the windows to the width i like . In that case i have to maximize the window from right bottom corner. After doing this also when i click green zoom button the window again goes back to the previous window size. To have this modified window size i have to arrange icons ( right click > arrange icons ) to fit the window size, then only the window size remains the same after i click the green zoom button . Though i did this on a specific finder window it doesn’t work universally for all the finder windows. The Finder ( Explorer equivalent in windows ) will retain the size for that particular finder state only. So after doing all this of window resize and arrange icons if i go to another Folder the previous size i had applied doesn’t apply to the folder i just opened. This behavior of Mac Finder really annoys me.
You may read this about how many people dont like such behavior of window zoom in Mac .
There is an App which does the full screen job easier in Mac called MegaZoomer . For Megazoomer to work you will be needing SIMBL . SIMBL (Smart InputManager Bundle Loader) - pronounced like “symbol” or “cymbal” allows you to build hacks for Cocoa applications and apply the code selectively based on an application’s unique identifier. But sadly , megazoomer doesn’t work in Carbon applications (e.g., Finder, iTunes, Photoshop) .It Only works for Cocoa apps.
Below is the video of Mac Finder Zoom.
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Using
I dislike this behavior also, especially when running my web browser.
Using
True Wendy. But i have found that using MegaZoomer you can actually browse full window ( works for Safari , not for Firefox and Opera though ) . you may also give it a try
Using
Unlike Wendy, I prefer Mac OS X way of dealing with individual window sizes to every other way (Windows, KDE, Gnome…).
Since I easily find myself having 20 to 30 windows open, I sometimes lose my focus — simply because I know I have a lot of other apps around (and therefore a lot of “idle” tasks, too)…
Oh, by the way: In Windows you “maximize” your windows, letting them fill up all of your screen. The green button (or the one with a plus sign) in Mac OS X, however, does not maximize anything. When you push it, you “zoom” — the window grows so it will exactly fit its content.
Mac OS X way of optimizing the size of a window after its content simply makes more sense to me:
1. If a web site is 900 pixels wide and, say, 600 pixels tall — why blowing the size of that window up, simply because you _can_? Why would you want to waste precious screen estate on a (to the bigger extent) blank window?
2. In Mac OS X, when a window is smaller than its content (e.g., so a vertical or horizontal scroll bar appears) — push the zoom button, and you will see all the content within a perfectly sized window.
And most importantly: When your windows are exactly as big as they need to be, you are able to have a lot of them open at once, and see all your information at once. No need to minimize windows, or alt+tab to see that other window. Drag and drop things between windows and applications… When active windows are in full screen, drag and drop will never work as good as in Mac OS X.
Lastly, if you sometimes feel like working in full screen in Mac OS X, here’s a tips:
Hide the Dock (⌘ + ⌥ + D). Now, resize your window so it takes up all your screen. Well… it might do the job for you
If you write a lot and are a low-tech fan: WriteRoom will serve you fine.
Using
@ celebritarian . I agree to some of your points about how Mac OSX behaves with window sizes. Its more of the personal preferences but i dont feel like i can focus on a particular window when there are 5-6 windows open in your screen particularly when you have big resolution monitor . say for example , there are 6 safari windows open with different website , the drag and drop theory wont very much work in this case and you cant surf 6 websites at once..
In case of Finder , having many windows may have advantages . In windows even in Full screen drag and drop is easy . Drag the item bring that to task bar to the window you want to drag that item to , the window will automatically maximize then you can drop the item in that windows . Easy it is .
Using
[...] already is a problem with Mac with the window size . It seems that mac basically doesn’t let application go Full Screen ( hiding all menu [...]
Using
Amazing site.
Thanks, admin.
Using
Cool blog.
Thanks, webmaster.
Using
The point is you should be able to do this simple thing without a plug-in or hack. It’s OK if Apple want to push the zoom feature, it’s a useful thing, but give me a shortcut so I can maximise if I want to. It’s my computer.
A perfect example of when I want to maximise rather than zoom is when I am using iTunes extensively. I just want it to fill my screen; I want to enter ‘music world’ and just immerse myself in it. Also, I want as many of the album thumbnails on my screen as I can get. This is a glaring example of operating system pigheadedness. We love OSX but I’m sorry, this is a feature gap (albeit a rare and small one).
Incidentally, iCal maximises à la Windows. Why? Because it’s an example of an application where that which constitutes the ‘optimum’ window size is arbitrary and OSX recognises this fact. If it can recognise that fact here, it can recognise it in principal and give us our maximise choice for all applications.
Using
Totally agree with you Zephyryx . Yes we can maximise some of the apps in Mac but there never has been something like “View full screen “;-) . Full screen meaning dont show me anything but just the app ( like you see movies and powerpoint presentation .. )
Using
[...] now and then i need to resize windows in Mac because of the simple reason that windows in Mac dont fit to fill the entire screen also they dont have maximize button which acts in a similar way to the maximize button in Windows [...]
Using
NO!…We will not let you have one click access to full screen for any window!!
NO!…We will not let you have one click access to full screen for any window!!
NO!…We will not let you have one click access to full screen for any window!!
NO!…We will not let you have one click access to full screen for any window!!
NO!…We will not let you have one click access to full screen for any window!!
Using
This is so true. As a matter of fact, I’m viewing this blog in Firefox full screen, with Pidgin, OpenOffice 3, Thunderbird, Windows Explorer, and Windows Media Player oepn underneath it. That is impossible to do quickly on a Mac.
Using
btw, I am not using windows NT…I’m most definitely using Windows 7….wouldn’t get caught dead with NT!
Using
Yes Weily .. I dont know why but the plugin i use to detect OS seems to identify Windows 7 as Windows NT.
Using
if you went to the movies, how would you feel if the movie theater screen had all kinds of icons and other things hanging out on either side, peeking at you, interfering with your ability to concentrate solely on the film?
Mac users defend this ridiculous inability to maximize to full screen as “contrary to Mac philosophy!” LOL! Say WHAT? Sounds like a cult group defending it’s beloved guru no matter what she does.
I’ll betcha anything that if a future Mac OS does let you go to full screen at will, for anything, a whole lotta mac users will then all of a sudden love it, be thankful for it, and start defending the new freedom of choice. After all, sometimes it is inefficient to “multitask” and sometimes it is. At least with windows you get to chose.
Consider this: A 13″ screen is not a 13″ screen, if you are only using 12″ of it. Don’t tell my itunes is “most efficient” at its ridiculously small size - I’m not that dumb.
Thumbs down to Mac, thumbs up to windows, for this one glaring and obvious great advantage.
Using
Apple should just add a full screen button which zooms and tidies up the files in which ever order you have selected from the tool bar. I use an Apple script to do this as it is sometimes nicer to have full screen when browsing files etc.
Come on Apple it wouldn’t be hard to do now would it.
Using
No option but to maximize first, and then get hold of the tiny window expander on the bottom right.
Using
Seems like I remember that old Macs let you hold the option key while you hit the zoom button and it went full screen. That would solve the problem for both philosophical camps.
Using
It´s nowhere to find a shortcut for green button.
Instead of clicking, I´d like to have keyboard do the action, whithout worriyng about where´s the mouse.
Is there a shortcut? Script bellow would fail.
tell application “System Events”
if UI elements enabled then
set FrontApplication to (get name of every process whose frontmost is true) as string
tell process FrontApplication
click button 2 of window 1
–button 2 is the green “zoom” button for all applications
–window 1 is always the frontmost window.
end tell
else
tell application “System Preferences”
activate
set current pane to pane “com.apple.preference.universalaccess”
display dialog “UI element scripting is not enabled. Check ‘Enable access for assistive devices’”
end tell
end if
end tell
Using
Even Snow Leopard has this “philosophy” during dual display era. (LOL)
Using
Very interesting post thanks for writing it I have added your blog to my favorites and will check back
By the way this is a little off topic but I really like your blogs layout.
Using
Why not have the Green expand button adjust the screen size while holding it down(Hold the Right click on the button)(Expand hold it, click again it contracts)??? Seems like a Easy enough proposition. That way the screen is not only expandable to the maximum but any variation within MInimum and maximum. A improvement like this would set the mac world Afire with happiness. Get on it boys customer have lots of good ideas.