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Comment by Lewisham | Hacker News Reader

While I like the initiative, I'm a little worried that someone who says she's a UX designer wouldn't have considered that most Mac users do not run their browsers full-screen, so there's a horizontal scroll bar for anything less than a 1024 width (I think it's 1024). That's not a good UX!

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most Mac users do not run their browsers full-screen, so there's a horizontal scroll bar for anything less than a 1024 width

Sure most Mac users don't run full-screen but no Macs from the past few years have native displays limited to under 1024 pixels wide. Even without maximizing, most people (in my experience with running stats on this stuff) run at > 1024. Without pulling out my data, I found a browser width of around 1100-1150 pixels to make up the lion's share of my users.

Is the lack of a working maximize button good UX?

I don't see how the constraints of one system, whether they are right or wrong, really affects the ability of a UX designer to recognize and work within those constraints.

It doesn't mean she is not aware of the issue, she might have prioritized other things and make it "good enough" for other resolutions (even the ipad has a 1024px browser). Apple must know this issue and it's site also ads a scrollbar when the window is less than 1024px...

Although I highly agree with you on how Apple messed up by making "maximizing" such a pain, at the same time, I (not a Mac user, but had to use one for work for around 5 months) almost never have my browser maximized, even when on multiple screens. So it's still a valid point that Lewisham brought up.

This website gives the impression that she still needs some practice in her UX design skills.

I actually think Apple got the maximize button right (at least from the perspective of higher resolution displays).

The maximize button for browsers on Mac's maximizes the browser window to fit the content within the page. That is exactly how I want it to work when working with higher resolutions. Never do I want to maximize my browser to my 1920x1080 resolution.

I could see that while that solution is great for larger resolutions it may be non-optimal for smaller one's so maybe adding a system wide toggle switch would be ideal.

Get the app "Cinch" from the app store if you're on OSX, and especially if you're on a big monitor. It's frankly better than a maximize button, as it also lets you do side-by-side half screen windows.

(I am not associated with this app, just a happy customer.)

Personally I like SizeUp better. Keyboard controls for multiple positions and layout combos, moves windows across spaces and monitors too. It even has border control. One of the first, most useful apps I found when I made the switch to my imac.

Both can be gotten through Irradiated Software (http://irradiatedsoftware.com/). Free demo.

I'm just a happy customer too.

I personally use BetterTouchTool (http://www.boastr.de/). It has basically the same functionality as Cinch and then some (maximize, auto-resize to split views, move windows across spaces/monitors), but it's (a) free and (b) also lets you define custom touch gestures to activate them (and any other actions you want) with a MacBook trackpad / Magic Mouse / Magic Trackpad.

I'd say the maximize button is in itself a bad design idea. Hit the green button on the browser window and it will expand to the width (or height) whereby scroll bars are no longer necessary. This 'maximizes' your screen real estate, rather than blowing it all on one window/app like a Windows maximize button. Also, while it's not a bad idea to keep page widths in the 750-1050ish range, No True Mac User would object to using their UI controls to optimize their viewing. I mean that's why they're there.

Doesn't work so well with a tabbed browser, where each tab is going to have a different optimized 'maximize' size. It's decent for folder windows and etc. though.

Hmm, that's a good point I hadn't actually considered. BUT, I don't see it as a big problem because once you resize for the largest tab, it's not like the others become unusable, they just now have some redundant space. It helps that most sites conform to a standard range of widths.

Apple doesn't even have a maximize button. I believe you're referring to the green(+) button which is technically called the zoom button. I refer to it as the optimize button since it resizes the window based on the content and when appropriate, will maximize the window to fill the screen. There are a few instances where the button does something completely off the wall, like in iTunes where it shrinks it down to the mini-player. If Apple is guilty of anything, it's not having a consistent function for that button. It's a wildcard.

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