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- tvashtar, on 10/12/2007, -14/+57@BadassCheese
"OS X is a pain in the ass if you have a window hidden behind another window."
Activate Exposé while dragging, let's you easily pick your destination window. - babakshirazi, on 10/12/2007, -28/+64
You should be able to maximize a window on a Mac the same as a PC. It's REAL pain in the ass to position the window in the upper left hand corner, then drag the bottom right corner so you can maximize the damn window.
The button should maximize the window, period. If you don't want to maximize it, then don't click the button.
This is a major pain in the ass on a Mac and is my only big gripe. - nathos, on 10/12/2007, -6/+29"The current maximize button on a Mac is totally and completely useless."
That's because it's not a maximize button.
To quote the Apple Human Interface Guidelines: "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" - BluParadox, on 10/12/2007, -6/+27This is something I've noticed for a while. OSX is fundementaly not built for being able to switch between maximized applications the same way windows is. This was a very negative thing with my mac experiences in the past, since I've always liked to run things maximized...
and then I got a flat panel monitor and switched from 1024x768 to 1280x1024. The problem was not really so much that I wanted to run things maximized, but that in order for them not to be maximized you need more screen real estate. This helps to explain how someone could use a 30in cinema display. Now when in windows I only run a few things maximized (photoshop is an example - I usually run that maximized with all the toolbars hidden). - drfloyd5, on 10/12/2007, -18/+35@babakshirazi - It's not a maximize button. It's a Optimal Size Button. It irks the hell out of me that the Optimal Size Button doesn't work in windows.
- Nahor, on 10/12/2007, -19/+34windows seems to be designed for "one thing at a time" with nothing else in your view. Mac is more of a "using more than one app at a time" kind of thing. It's a bit hard to explain, but windows' maximize button is like getting slammed in a cave, where as Mac's is just showing as much information as needed.
The Mac way is far better on huge monitors - say 23" wide screen. For example, try maximizing a center aligned blog on windows and you'll see more background then page.
(I understand, change is scary) - afex, on 10/12/2007, -6/+19your comment, probably.
- bbatsell, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16@dbug:
OS X absolutely supports click-through; click-through is specified on a per-program basis by the developer of the software in question. It is inconsistently implemented, however, and that bothers me too. - drlha, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17Its "completely useless" if that's the functionality you're used to (i.e. you're a windows user) as someone who used a Mac for 3+ years, I find programs that maximise to the screen rather than doing the "intelligent" maximsing to be incredibly annoying (I'm looking at you Camino).
- drlha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Wow - you almost made a reasonable comment there, but slipped up at the end. Oops!
- drfloyd5, on 10/12/2007, -7/+17@babakshirazi - It's still not a maximize button. It never will be. No matter how many times you reveal your ignorance by calling it "the maximize button".
- eplawless, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11I use most programs full screen, whether it be coding or designing or video editing or surfing the web. This is quite literally the ONLY thing keeping me from the Mac. It's clear that about 50% of people would like to be able to maximize windows, so why don't they add the option? If you don't want to maximize, then don't. It isn't rocket science.
- grahamcase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Depending what you're doing, and the size of your monitor, they both have their advantages. I am a mac user, and I usually have my windows at maximum (as in, full screen). this is mostly because I'm on a 12" powerbook, so real estate is limited. In this case, I find the maximize button to be a bit frustrating sometimes. If I'm in safari, I had to (when I first got my mac) manually adjust the size of the browser. Of course, osx remembers the size and placement of my window, so I don't have to worry about it anymore. Of course, if I had a bigger screen (like when I use my external monitor along with my powerbook), Mac's maximize kicks some serious ass.
The thing that bugs me about osx is the minimize button! it works great if you're minimmizing, but then I HAVE to go to the dock to bring it back! that's just annoying. There should be a keyboard shortcut to get that window back. Maybe I'm missing something *shrugs*. - prockcore, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I don't use the maximize buttons on either Windows, OSX or Linux.
- iAlan, on 10/12/2007, -15/+23As a new Mac user I like that OSX only sizes windows to the size needed. On a large monitor, maximized windows take up too much unnecessary room. I was always dragging to size my windows in WinXP...I don't need to on a Mac.
- folletto, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I might add to the article that even if I feelt "weird" when I switched to OSX for the maximize button, it's something I adapted to in a few days.
Also, having windows overlap isn't just a matter of multitasking. You could have two windows opens, side by side, just because you're working on both, switching from one to another, just to accomplish a single task (for example: web development -> change css, refresh, change css, refresh).
In fact, I used maximised windows in Windows rarely. Only few, rare full-desktop tasks required me to switch full screen. For example, doing 2D or 3D graphic design.
I don't see, however, any real downside here on OSX vs Windows (in both directions). - cmiller1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10OS X makes GREAT use of click-through; go into Safari right now and make two windows, make one active but keep the other one visible, click on a link in the inactive window and... TA DA! A new tab with that link is made in the CURRENTLY ACTIVE window.
- kufflink, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I use both systems: Windows at work and Mac at home. I find there are things about the Windows interface that I like. Full screen is one of them. I'm on a multi-monitor set up and I have a 4th button that gives me fullscreen across both monitors, provided by Appian. That's nice. I also like that I can grab the window anywhere and resize it. Lastly, and unrelated, I like that I can tab between choices in pop-up windows.
On the Mac side, I really like that some of the iLife products allow for fullscreen editing (iPhoto, for example). It's way better than the full screen in Windows. Otherwise, I wish the Green Plus would be tunable to my preferences because I would like to make fullscreen instead of just right sizing my choice. Expose is better than having to go to the tool bar by clicking the menu key and then clicking on the buried application I want in Windows. I use the Mighty mouse side buttons for expose and it's a real time saver. BTW, some applications, like Adobe Acrobat cause problems in fullscreen mode (Windows 2000.) - alej744, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I'm an OSX Fanboy but I'm not gunna lie, I like the windows Maximize button much more than Mac's sucky one that is almost unpredictable.
- kontact, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6the only window i ever maximize on my windows machine is when viewing a photo in windows photo viewer. That's assuming full screen video/games don't apply here..
- snowwrestler, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9@babakshirazi
Conversely it's a pain when I'm running Photoshop on a windows machine and I'm making a pixel-level adjustment to a small image. I increase the zoom and then I have to manually drag to enlarge the window (I can't maximise because then the image sits behind the palettes, obscuring what I need to work on). When I'm done I decrease the zoom, then I have to manually resize the window small. If I want it to be just the same size as the graphic (I often do), I have to be very precise or I get a grey border or scroll bars.
Give me a break. On the Mac I change zoom and then click the green button. It makes the window as big as it can get without going behind the palettes. When I'm done I decrease zoom and click the green button again. Bam, the window is exactly the right size for the graphic.
Sounds like a minor difference but over the years it adds up a lot of frustration. - eplawless, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Given that people on both sides of this argument are being dugg equally, one can assume that about half of the people here support having a maximize button.
Also, 50% of mac users is approximately 2.5% of computer users. - MikeCerm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9A much more significant problem, one that everyone can agree on, is OSX requiring you to resize windows only from the lower-right corner. There's no good reason for this, is there?
Something a bit more debatable is the validity of OSX having only one Menu bar, especially in the modern world of multitasking. I do understand the "Fitt's", argument, but there are several benefits of the Windows method as well. - thewebguy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9one think i used to hate about macs was the lack of a TRUE maximize button. after a while on my mac i'm not missing it at all.
- monkeyrun, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11"I've reached the point where I no longer get confused when I switch across the Mac and Windows interfaces."
good .. god .... what an accomplishment ...
Oh, btw, this article is stupid.
Good job generalizing the whole UI to one maximize Burton - cronot, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9@nathos:
"That's because it's not a maximize button."
Disclaimer: I'm a windows user, tough I have used Macs for a while.
So, what a button with a "plus" sign is supposed to mean? To me, and to any "new-to-computers" user, it would seem that this would enlarge the window as much as possible. But that's not what it does.
Don't get me wrong; I agree with Apple's human interface guideline for having a window size be optimal, and not maximized. I usually don't use maximized windows on MS-Windows myself, I guess I work the "Apple" way. But the way they implemented that interface is just wrong and confusing to untrained users. I think that's what most people here are saying. - LaughingMan11, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7The apps that have the black arrow are running. The ones with no arrows are not launched, and are launch on click. It's not that hard.
- MikeCerm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I do prefer to keep it hidden, the way Office '07, WMP11, and IE7 are doing it, but I do prefer to have it attached to the Window. If I'm working in a Window on the lower right corner of my second monitor, I'd find it annoying to have to shift focus to the upper left of my left monitor (quite a distance if you're using a large monitor, or multiple) to access the menus.
The Mac method results ultimately in more mouse-moving, and more head-swivelling than should be necessary. I shoudn't have to look away from the window I'm working it. - urbanight23, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I like to work with all of my programs maximized, it helps to have a bigger view of what your working on. If I need to switch between applications, I just switch the desktop im viewing....gotta love linux.
- somnus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Dear lord, you actually LIKE the taskbar? Ever had more than 10 "windows" open? At work, I can't use Firefox so I have to use IE. On my Mac, I have usually 3 or 4 background apps running for home use and 6-8 including work programs. Add a browser into that with, say, 5 pages open and, if I were on Windows, the task bar would literally be unreadable and therefore completely ***** useless. ESPECIALLY useless when I have to hover over the damn thing to drag images, etc around. On a Mac, expose eliminates this. There is no cluttered task bar, just the dock. Yes, the dock will usually have 4 times the items in it that the task bar does, but they are always there and always in the same place. In my opinion, this combined with expose is, without question, in a whole other league compared to the Windows workflow.
- barthrh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7The "maximize button" -- actually the zoom button -- becomes far more relevant with large displays. Do you really want to maximize on a 20 inch or more display? What the button does size-wise is actually in the hands of the developer. For example, in iTunes it toggles between the mini-player and the full window.
The concept of "hiding" apps is not relevant in OSX. In Win, you do that because everything is MDI, which is an increasingly bad idea now that multiple displays are common. If you want to focus on an app, there are menu items and shortcut keys to hide all apps but the current, show all apps but current, and other combos. - Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10What I hate about the "Green plus button" in OS X, is the fact that I like using fullscreen, and exposé with "active screen corners".
For any Windows users who wont have a notion what I'm on about:
Exposé is a function built into Mac OS X, whereby you can see all of the current open windows at the same time (like flip3d in Vista, but much more user-friendly and efficient) by pressing keys.
F11 = All open windows move out of the way to reveal your desktop.
F10 = All open windows spread out to reveal themselves. Like if say you have a deck of cards on a table, and you spread them out you can see the top of them all, but way cooler and way faster.
F9 = All the windows open in the currently selected application spead out to reveal themselves.
As a user this is an unbelievable time saver. E.g. If I have an email half done, and I want to add a pic. that's on the desktop. I can press F11, grab the pic. press F11 again, and pop in the pic. This takes just a second, and that's just one example.
With "actice screen corners" you can set corners of the screen to do what the F buttons do, and this is even quicker, and easier.
Now about that Green button. As I use expose and full screen it's useless to me, and would much prefer the Windows maximize button. At least an option in System Preferences to switch between Zoom and Maximize? - ylikone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I spend a lot of time on command lines and switching terminals. I like my GUI interfaces to be full screen. I'm a Linux user of 6 years, computer users of over 20. I know how to multitask. Your statement about being a newb if you run fullscreen is *****.
- BillyEveryteen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It all depends on screen resolution.
If you're on some gigantic monitor with some gigantic resolution then sure, maximizing doesn't make much sense, because with web browsing there's bound to be a bunch of white space. However, if you're like me and many others (most others perhaps) where you're stuck on 1024 x 768 or something similar, maximizing in effect sizes the windows perfectly. - LaughingMan11, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5This post is a good observation about the differences between Mac and Windows in terms of workflow...
The one-window-at-a-time approach of Windows contrasts deeply with multi-window approach of the Mac... it's interesting to think of this because both models have been around with both platforms from the very beginning of both of their histories!
Also relevant and related to the zoom-button discussion is SDI versus MDI... That is, single document interface versus multi-document interface. On the Mac, it is a SDI all the way... If you launch an application like Photoshop, a single document occupies a single window. If you open a second document, it appears in a second window, completely independent of the first.
On Windows, more than a few apps are MDI, the prevalent examples being Photoshop and Excel (excel is actually a bit of a hybrid)... This is characterized by windows-within-windows approach, where the big enclosing window represents the running application, a grey area inside the window represents the workspace, and windows in that grey area represent documents of that app...
The MDI approach is clearly tailored for the Windows approach where the frontmost app is always maximized to the full size of the screen, and smaller windows float around inside of it to represent docs.
MDI has some advantages, but in recent years, the advent of multi-monitor setups have shows some clear disadvantages to MDI and maximizing windows... For example, the code editor i use on Windows is CodeWright. It is an MDI application... I recently got a second monitor on my dev system, and unfortunately you cannot keep an app maximized across two monitors, so it is hard to work with two documents side by side on two different monitors...
Maximizing a window is limited to only ONE desktop, only ONE monitor, without some hacks....
If more Windows applications were SDI, the handling across multiple monitors would be more efficient, without the useless "grey" areas in MDI windows...
Mac OS X, incidentally, is strictly SDI, like I said before... - zumpiez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4On the Zoom toolbar there's an option called "Resize Windows To Fit". It does exactly what you describe without having to click an extra button, even in Windows. Look into it.
- ylikone, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5As a person who spends all day (and night) on a computer, I prefer to have programs take up the entire screen. This is because I don't want things in my peripheral vision distracting me. That is tiring for the brain. If I had to look at a single window in a field of many windows, I wouldn't be able to sit at the computer for very long. But maybe that's just me.
- bbatsell, on 10/12/2007, -8/+12@hackwrench:
The "restore down" button simply returns you to the size the window was at before you restored — it does not change the size to optimally suit the contents of the window. - Hintzer22, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5can't tab through "pop up" windows in OS X? you can do this with command ` (the key to the left of the number 1) this lets you tab through windows in your current application application.
I'm not sure if your saying you wish you could do this in OS X but I just thought I'd let you know its possible if you thought it was lacking in OS X. - etandrib, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Perhaps you could use the "Hide" command instead of minimizing. It hides the application (including all of the application windows). Command + H is the key stroke. Then you can bring it back easily with Command + tab. All key strokes and no mouse interaction.
- nathos, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Try running a typical web browser or document maximized on a 24 or 30-inch monitor.
You'll quickly realize that maximized windows are no longer such a good thing.
Both approaches have their benefits, but I think maximized windows lose their appeal when you move beyond 1024x768 resolution. - hackwrench, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I don't run my windows maximized and I've never really had a problem.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Buy a laser mouse.
- pauldonnelly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's odd to me that the Macintosh Way is supposed to involve having a bunch of optimally sized windows on the screen but fails to use a point to focus model (yes, that wouldn't work with the irritating menu bar), meaning you can't just point at a background window when you want to send it some keyboard input or click on something. You've got to raise it instead. On my computer here I've got a bunch of little floating windows (a mixer for each nearby computer, a terminal for each, emacs, and a web browser at the moment), and they would be completely unmanagable if I couldn't use them without disrupting my work by changing the way they're stacked.
- zumpiez, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6If I've got a bunch of IM windows open, and they're hidden behind various things that I'm working in, I find that NOTHING is more cumbersome than using Expose to get to them. The taskbar's real advantage for me is that it remains easy to poke through a very large number of windows.
- babakshirazi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5
The current "maximize button" in OS X is useless. It doesn't really do anything usefull that I can tell.
If it's not a maximize button, then make it one, just like in Amiga OS, BeOS, Windows, Linux, Unix and every other OS on the planet.
Why Mac wants to insist that button is in anyway useful is beyond me. Not everyone has a big *****' monitor much less two of them.
If your on a 12" iBook, you need to maximize the *****' window to fill the whole screen.
If you want to keep that lame ass button that's fine with me, but put a true maximize button. Arrrggggh! - gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9There's this thing called alt-tab (or maybe command-tab to you as a Mac user). It's useful. You may want to give it a try. If I wanted a windows optimally sized, I would do it myself. Of course, on OS X you can only resize windows from the bottom-right. Another annoyance. Windows is great for multitasking and at the same time allowing you to focus on the work at hand when a window is maximized. I'll frequently be working on some project with IM and email open in the background. When I get an email, I get an audio and visual alert and I can very quickly press alt-tab to switch to it. When I get an IM, I also get an audio and visual alert (blinking on the taskbar) so I can quickly alt-tab to that window. Alt-tabbing is much faster than using your mouse to click on whatever window you want to make active and I find it defeats much of the purpose of not maximizing certain windows. I've found that on a multi-monitor setup Windows does an even better job. It would be ANNOYING to me to always be distracted by tons of window borders all over my two screens. I very rarely want to see more than three or four things on the screen at once, and I can do that very easily with Windows.
- drfloyd5, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7@babakshirazi - it's not a maximize button.
- kanefsky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Anyone who thinks it takes less effort to move the mouse to a menu bar at the top of the screen has never worked with a 30" monitor and the lousy Apple mouse acceleration curves. The single menu bar was designed to work with a 9" monitor and Apple is just too stubborn or too stuck with legacy code to reverse themselves.
- drlha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"How does "OSX" know the width of a webpage"
Simple, it sets the width of the browser to the point where a scroll bar is not necessary. -
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