# Full screen



## Johndoemanny34362 (Oct 23, 2005)

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?


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## symphonix (Oct 23, 2005)

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.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 23, 2005)

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.


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## Lt Major Burns (Oct 23, 2005)

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.


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## ChickenHead (Nov 9, 2005)

"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?


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## nixgeek (Nov 10, 2005)

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.


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## Johndoemanny34362 (Nov 11, 2005)

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.


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## jbarley (Nov 11, 2005)

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


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## nixgeek (Nov 11, 2005)

SuperTyphoon said:
			
		

> Those are some lame excuses for not having full screen.
> 
> 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.



Lame to you, but for others it's quite the opposite.  They would probably consider it lame to always have the application take up the screen if there were no necessary reason for it to do so.

As for the fullscreen, it's not Apple's fault, but the fault of the developer if they don't implement it.  Again, the usefulness of this depends on the application.  If it's an app that doesn't benefit from this, especially if it's a graphics manipulation program where you might find yourself dragging and dropping the pieces you've created from one app to another, why bother implementing it.  Fine, they can give you the choice, but it seems futile even for the developer to include something that might not see much use since it's probably going to impede the users productivity.

The solution for _minimizing_ that you have given isn't a good one.  That's only useful if you want to copy something to the desktop.  What about from one app to another?  The Windows way is to drag the component to the taskbar button of the application you want to place that compoment in and hover over it for a few seconds without letting go.  Then after a few seconds the destination app window comes up and you can place it in.  This takes a total of 10 seconds at most.  Not quite "on-the-fly" as the drag-and-drop in the Mac.  Also, if you were to even copy the file to the desktop if the app is fullscreen, you would have to somehow do that while dragging the component or file, which is impossible since you have to minimize the app first.  But if you minimize it first, then you can't  drag the file.  Catch 22?  OK, you can use keyboard shortcuts, but then that can become cumbersome as well.



> 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.



You are assuming that all users prefer the fullscreen view.  Not so.  And I've seen it for myself when users become confused since ALL of the Explorer windows and application windows in Windows have menus!



> 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.



OK, show me how you are going to do your fast drag and drop from said webpage if you've minimized the window.  I'd love to see that in person.   You would either have to right-click or use a key command to copy the file and then paste it to the desktop.  This is not *on the fly!*  It's much faster and more intuitive to just _drag_ and drop the file to the desktop.  In real life, you don't copy something and then paste it somewhere else to move it.  You manually pick it up and move it over to a clean space.  That's one of the things that makes the Mac OS experience comfortable...it mimics actual human actions moreso than Windows does.

And sure, some sites do adjust to your window settings, even if it's much larger than normal.  However, it's not fun reading a line containing 2 feet of text (if your resolution is that high to show it that way in fullscreen).  It actually becomes difficult to read an article quickly and easily because you have to span so much space to read it.  And no, not all websites readjust accordingly either.  Some of them use graphics and having it fullscreen can cause a background graphic to loop, which is not what the web designer intended to happen at all.  I see it all the time when browsing the web in Camino with some sites.



> 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.



How interesing since Microsoft has taken a lot of its ideas from the Macintosh OS. ::ha::

Anyways, consider that the Mac OS has always had accessibility features for the hearing and vision impaired and it's been doing this for years, even before Windows had any of it.  I have a teacher at the school that I work at that is legally blind.  She tells me that even increasing the text size in Windows doesn't help, as increasing the font size on the Explorer widgets makes using Windows difficult (thanks to its waste of space with extra menus and subwindows that include buttons within a window).  The best that I could do for her was to bring the Magnifier whenever she logged in, and even that was crappy at best, only giving her half the screen magnified while the rest  was normal sized.

The Mac OS has had great zooming capabilities as well as other assistive technologies since the early days of OS 7 (probably even earlier but I am not sure on that one).  Mac OS X's Univeral Access is LIGHT YEARS ahead of what Windows offers, which makes it the best solution for users that require assistive technologies.



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



I'm glad that we can agree on this.


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## ChickenHead (Nov 16, 2005)

Thanks for the option-click hint.  That has been working a little better for some things.

It does seem that a majority of the applications will spring back to the size that you have set them to when the green button is clicked again, which is helpful.

Long term Mac users always bring up the drag and drop thing, they just don't grok that it is not typical way that Windows users work.  We will copy/paste with keyboard over drag and drop most of the time, even between applications.  We will also right mouse click to send/save things to places.  Maybe this is due to the type of tasks we typically use the machines for.  The bell curve of Mac users may be skewed to visual and creative tasks where drag & drop is more common.  But when Windows users migrate to the Mac they may simply want to carry on performing the mundane tasks that they were using Windows for 

As a returning user to the Mac, I find myself having to mouse too much, as I am not yet familiar with the keyboard shortcuts.  The other thing I haven't figured out is how use the keyboard to access the menu, so that I can see the shortcuts (like pressing the ALT key on Windows, so you can see the shortcuts before you learn them).  I find that using the mouse causes me RSI, so as soon as I can get my hands off it the better.  I read that I am supposed to use CTRL-F2, but I first have to turn it on and that I may be able to remap it to something else?


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## Lt Major Burns (Nov 16, 2005)

SuperTyphoon said:
			
		

> Reading full screen is easier because there is nothing to distract you and less eye movement on the screen.



wrong.  it is well documented that reading in smaller columns is easier, not the opposite.  reading over a long line makes the eye confused when moving to the next line, the eyeballs have to move a lot more to get from the left.......................................to....the...........................................right.
which is why newspapers, starting with the broadsheets, always print in narrow columns, novels are the small format they are in and blogs are made to be narrow columns.  any typographer will tell you this.

I too used to wonder why there was no full screen.  it's just the mac way of doing it, and now i've grown to like it.  i find it irritating and obnoxious of a program to try and take up all my window space.  desktop real estate is a valuable thing  these days.   my safari window never goes to the edges because, for one, i have adium set up so i can always see all my contacts on the right, as you can see here.  the fact that the desktop is always visible, and that 'drag and drop from the net' mentality is something i really miss on a pc.  it really is a major factor in the macs simple ability to drag files all the way around the computer without letting go of them.  that is something i like doing, and i miss it on pcs.

at the end of the day though, we chose macs here because the inherent way it looks and functions appeals to us in our different walks of life, it suits us.  as a designer, i am constantly using expose to review changes, to move images across from program to program, really utilising the fact that nothing goes full screen unless i need it too.

each to their own.  and choice is not always a benefit.  the latest BMW's, with the risible iDrive apparently offer to let you let the headlights stay on for short time after you leave the car.  but it isn't on or off.  it isn't even long/medium/short.  it's anything.  you can have them on for 43 seconds or even 44.  and it's a pain. choice is the reason why iDrive fails.  too much.  too many menus, too many options to choose from, it's daunting.  i used to love winamp for its amazing abiltiy to let you do ANYTHING with it.  but as soon as itunes came out for windows i never looked back.  it was the simpler, quicker way to do everything.  i do not miss winamp.

linux is full of choice.  linux will you do anything, if you want to.  but it fails because nothing is simple.  macs are perhaps too simple, but it removes thoughts from my brain to lets others thrive.  ideas. i am creative and the mac lets me do that.


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## texanpenguin (Nov 16, 2005)

ChickenHead said:
			
		

> Long term Mac users always bring up the drag and drop thing, they just don't grok that it is not typical way that Windows users work.



This is the exact point brought up earlier. You really should work to get used to doing it that way, you'll quickly find that it's amazingly useful once you've become used to it.



There are other things in place to make Windows switchers feel more comfortable. First, turn on Full Keyboard Access in System Preferences, which will allow you to control the whole interface with the keyboard similar to the way you would in Windows. Somewhere on the internet, there's an AppleScript you can install which, when you select it, resizes the current image to full-screen (though I strongly suggest you give the Mac way of doing things a go). There's a guide in the OS X help about Windows > Mac transitions, including keyboard shortcuts and the locations of equivalent applications.


I'm on a PowerBook. Personally, I set Safari to be quite wide, but not nearly as big as the screen. Through normal use, the screen gets filled with windows.

Since Panther, this is an easy situation to use. Set Exposé All Windows to a lower hot corner. When you wish to switch Windows, instead of reaching for the "taskbar", whip your mouse into the corner, click the window you want to use.


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## Johndoemanny34362 (Nov 16, 2005)

Unfortunately i don't have Panther on the macs at my school. I will ask my supervisor to update and try to get them. Is Expose in the tiger or regular mac osx?


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## texanpenguin (Nov 16, 2005)

Yeah, Exposé is on Tiger too; press F9, F10 and F11 to use its features.


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## ChickenHead (Nov 16, 2005)

texanpenguin said:
			
		

> This is the exact point brought up earlier. You really should work to get used to doing it that way, you'll quickly find that it's amazingly useful once you've become used to it.



Yes, but drag & drop requires using a mouse, which I don't like to do much lately, due to my RSI.  In some cases, drag & drop might make more sense, like in iMovie where you drag your clips into the timeline, and in those situations I will use it.  But for text editing and data entry, forget it.

I think most Windows users do start out with the mouse idiom, and then, as they get more experienced, they begin to abandon it for the efficiency of the keyboard.

Thanks for the Full Keyboard Access tip though, sounds like a step in a more comfortable direction.


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## phinsman (Nov 17, 2005)

This is a great thread.

I sympathize with (was it Super Typhoon?) the mini mac user who was trying to maximize his window.  I, too, was wondering what the deal was with the green button.

After a few weeks with my iMac, I'm getting used to not having maximized windows.  I generally drag them out there fairly wide though.

My one question about it all is this -- what exactly is the function of the green button?  I can't figure out what it's supposed to be doing.  I've stopped using it.

One thing I miss from Linux is the multiple desktops...at work I keep 8 of them down there, and I know exactly where I keep everything, so I can use CTRL-ALT with the arrow keys to quickly get to the app/terminal I want.  I love the way Expose works though...what a nice feature.  I wish it would show minimized windows though...maybe I'm missing something there too.

Dale


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 17, 2005)

The green button is usually called the "maximize" button and does several different things depending on what state the window is in as well as if you use a modifier key with the click.

Usually, one click of the green button will size the window to exactly (or closely) fit the contents of the window.  If it doesn't do this, then the other alternate option is to size the window to the last-known window size set by the user, or some pre-defined size set by the programmer.

If you hold down the option key and click the green button, the window will usually size to a vertical size of 100% of the screen, and a horizontal size exactly (or closely) fitting the content of the window.

The behavior may vary depending on the layout of the window -- for example, in Safari, the content extends from the very left-hand edge of Safari's window to the right, so the horizontal sizing of the window seems to fit the content.  Mail.app, on the other hand, only uses a portion of the window for content, and the rest for a sidebar.  Obviously, the window cannot be sized horizontally to exactly fit only the content, so usually in this case, the window is sized to a pre-defined size, or the last size the user manually resized the window to.

Confusing, I know... it's one of the drawbacks of the UI of Mac OS X -- Apple leaves too much leeway for programmers concerning this button, and they do what they will with it instead of adhering to what the button is supposed to do.

I think we should call it the "resize" button instead of the "maximize" button -- seems more befitting.


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## texanpenguin (Nov 18, 2005)

See the Human Interface Guidelines for the actual function the Zoom button is supposed to perform (that's its actual name):

http://developer.apple.com/document..._4.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000961-TPXREF55


Personally, I find I don't use it much at all, since I deliberately set the user states for my window sizes to how large I like windows to be, and rarely have to adapt it. Since the user state is saved when the Application closes, I don't have to change things very much.


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