Full screen

SuperTyphoon · #1 October 23rd, 2005, 01:42 PM

Since i don't know a lot about macs, i came here to ask this question.
How do you get a window, such as IE or Itunes, to go full screen? Pressing the green button doesn't do much and you can't resize it manually. This is especially annoying on widescreen LCD macs because the window's "full screen" only fits a small portion of the screen. Is there anyway to make it full screen like in Windows?

symphonix · #2 October 23rd, 2005, 01:47 PM

Ahh, this is the first thing Windows switchers notice that is VERY different on a Mac - we tend not to "maximise" our windows. You can drag a window to the full size of the screen, but more often than not you simply won't bother. Its rarely helpful to have a window at full screen anyway. I know your mind is screaming "No!" at this, but try it for a couple of days and you'll see for yourself. Just drag a window to the size you want it to be, and leave it at that.

ElDiabloConCaca · #3 October 23rd, 2005, 03:02 PM

What symphonix said, I completely agree with. If a web page only uses 60% of the width of your screen, what's the use in having the window at 100% -- covering important desktop icons, other windows, etc.

Windows uses an "application-centric" approach to windowing, while Mac OS X uses a "document-centric" approach to windowing -- where no one window should monopolize the entire screen.

One thing you can try is to hold down the option button and click the green maximize window button -- for most applications, this will size the window to exactly fit the content it's displaying, so for a web page that was wide and tall, Safari would take up 100% vertical size, and exactly match the horizontal size to the content of the page.

Lt Major Burns · #4 October 23rd, 2005, 03:07 PM

it's true. it's one of things between a windows switch.

i put it down to the way the system handles multiple programs.

in windows, you would have a button on the taskbar for, say, photoshop. when selected, all you can see is photoshop. very singular-tasking.

in mac, photoshop only takes up the amount of space it needs to, there are no hints that it is the only thing running. lots of things are, becuase you can pretty much have everything running without any bother.

ChickenHead · #5 November 9th, 2005, 11:25 PM

"Its rarely helpful to have a window at full screen anyway."
"what's the use in having the window at 100%"
"no one window should monopolize the entire screen"
"640K of memory should be enough for anybody"

Wow. It's like arriving on another planet or in the double-speak world of 1984. I can see how these might be true for you, but they are certainly false for me. I would never say "you always want to maximize every window" or "how can you be productive with all those little windows everywhere".

I just got my Mac Mini and spent hours trying to figure out how to maximize a window. I kept saying to myself am I stupid? Why is this so hard. What the heck does this green button do, it doesn't seem to do the same thing every time. It sometimes makes the window bigger, but often not big enough to see everything in it.

I have an old Mac Duo, which I haven't started in years, and I seem to remember clicking the title bar to maximize the window or was that a hack/extension/plugin?

nixgeek · #6 November 10th, 2005, 08:08 AM

There was an option (if the application supported it) where you could hold down Option and then click on the maximize button and it would take up the size of the screen. I haven't seen this work in a while in OS X, especially now with Tiger.

The issue is this: Windows and most Linux/UNIX desktop environments include the menu in the application window, as opposed to having a universal menubar at the top of your screen. Because of this, it is possible to have EVERY application window, even the file manager windows, to go full screen on maximize. This is because the desktop environment is pushing the menus over every window and allows you to have exclusive use of only that application when you maximize.

On the Mac, because of the universal menubar you really don't have to take over the entire screen since you'll always have access to the menu at the top of the screen, unlike the other desktop environments that have them per window which can get confusing for some users.

Another reason for not going fullscreen is because it makes it easier to drag and drop components from one application into another. I just tried doing this with Windows and it doesn't do it for every application. On the Mac, this is possible. So having an application at fullscreen would impair the use of actually dragging and dropping whatever component (be it text, a graphic, etc.) to another application. Sure, you could use Command-Tab (the Mac equivalent of Alt-Tab), but it takes away from the visual aspect of the drag and drop between applications.

Just to give you an example: I use Camino on my Mac. Camino will maximize full screen. However, it makes it a pain to copy files like graphics or whatever to the desktop on the fly (I would have to right click and tell it to save, which is not as fast). Plus, with my 17" widescreen, it makes it a pain to look at web pages. Firefox does a better job by maximizing to almost fullscreen so that I can still drag and drop to the desktop on the fly and it doesn't make web pages seem to look oddly wide. Safari does an even better job by actually maximizing to the size of the page, which is what the web developers are hoping that you see when you browse their site, not a wide distortion of it or a centered section with huge blank areas at each side.

I can understand how on your Mac mini you want to do the full maximization, especially since you might be running at something like 1024x768. However, as you get higher in resolutions, you'll note that fully maximized windows tend to be a pain to read, let alone look at. For this reason Apple has decided to only allow maximizations to optimal sizes for what you are doing, as opposed to the entire screen. However, I am a proponent of choice, so I'm hoping to see the Option-Maximize selection make a return to the Mac OS.

SuperTyphoon · #7 November 11th, 2005, 06:41 PM

Those are some lame excuses for not having full screen.

"Another reason for not going fullscreen is because it makes it easier to drag and drop components from one application into another. I just tried doing this with Windows and it doesn't do it for every application. On the Mac, this is possible. So having an application at fullscreen would impair the use of actually dragging and dropping whatever component (be it text, a graphic, etc.) to another application. Sure, you could use Command-Tab (the Mac equivalent of Alt-Tab), but it takes away from the visual aspect of the drag and drop between applications."

First of all, if you wanted to drag and drop files easily in Windows, you just shrink the windows to fit your needs. How much of your time on the computer is dragging files into another window unless you deal with tons of photos? What if you want to view a bunch of photos in one window, but you had to take the time to make it fit the most screen, and then it doesn't even take up the whole screen? The big button (as opposed to the small and hard to click on mac buttons) in the top lets you do ALL of that with a single click.
When you are on the internet or using large software, full screen is very neccessary. Mac software doesn't do that, and i feel that i can't use all of my screen real estate wisely. After all, why would they keep making bigger monitors? It's because people (unlike you) like full screen.

"On the Mac, because of the universal menubar you really don't have to take over the entire screen since you'll always have access to the menu at the top of the screen, unlike the other desktop environments that have them per window which can get confusing for some users."

BS. Just because you don't need full screen doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to have it at all. Believe it or not, there are many tiems where full screen is preferable to a small window. Um, that is what the taskbar is for in Windows!! Mac doesn't have a taskbar, and you always need to click the program (if you clicked on the desktop or another app) to get to the file menu. In windows, you just click the taskbar icon no matter what program you are using.

"Just to give you an example: I use Camino on my Mac. Camino will maximize full screen. However, it makes it a pain to copy files like graphics or whatever to the desktop on the fly (I would have to right click and tell it to save, which is not as fast). Plus, with my 17" widescreen, it makes it a pain to look at web pages. Firefox does a better job by maximizing to almost fullscreen so that I can still drag and drop to the desktop on the fly and it doesn't make web pages seem to look oddly wide. Safari does an even better job by actually maximizing to the size of the page, which is what the web developers are hoping that you see when you browse their site, not a wide distortion of it or a centered section with huge blank areas at each side."

In windows, if you need to drag files to another place, you simply shrink the window, do your fast dragging and dropping, and the maximize and enjoy the web. I hope you do not surf the net just to drag files onto the desktop...
It's not that full screen is always useful, but not being able to have it for most apps is a pain in the ass. So far GarageBand holds the record for the largest maximization with the green arrow (for me).
Web designers do not think that at all. Most web sites on the internet are configured to go as large as your desktop resolution. Forums don't but having the whole window on the screen is just easier. With full screen, the least you can see is the maximum mac gives you default. You can see more sometimes with buttos on the page that extend it's noundaries. When you are not in a full screen internet window, and you go to a larger web page that takes up more room than the current window, you must click the green plus every time. With windows, you just click the button and it goes as big as your monitor allows. IE sucks with that, Safari is okay, but Firefox owns.

"However, as you get higher in resolutions, you'll note that fully maximized windows tend to be a pain to read, let alone look at. For this reason Apple has decided to only allow maximizations to optimal sizes for what you are doing, as opposed to the entire screen."

For people with bad eyes, Windows allows you to make text and icons bigger but keep the same resolution. Reading full screen is easier because there is nothing to distract you and less eye movement on the screen. On mac's decision, another one of it's stupid ideas makes computing less flexible than it shold be.

"However, I am a proponent of choice, so I'm hoping to see the Option-Maximize selection make a return to the Mac OS."

After all of this i'm glad you are hoping too. Choice is really what future software and OS's should be based on.

jbarley · #8 November 11th, 2005, 07:01 PM

SuperTyphoon...
You started this thread by saying you didn't know much about Macs, so maybe you missed this.
Most all mac programs-windows can be sized full screen simply by grabbing the lower right corner of the window and dragging it to whatever size you want, including full screen.
If the dock gets in your way, set it to auto-hide.
JB