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Comment by kunwon1 | Hacker News Reader

Many websites will completely alter their UI based on resizing your window. Sometimes I want to set a browser to take up half of a monitor so that I can put something else next to it. This often fails on modern websites because the UI becomes unusable after the window is resized

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This is the "responsive" part of "responsive design". When done well, it's great, but you're right that many websites are way too aggressive about it, as if they only really tested two size classes.

I'm mostly appalled at how many desktop users just maximize everything.

I even had juniors maximizing terminals.

Why is this appalling?

I think it’s fine until someone sends me a screenshot of my website in fullscreen on a giant 4K monitor.

Because the point of huge monitors in the WIMP paradigm is to display multiple windows simultaneously.

^multitasking

"We suffered for years waiting to get true multitasking and this newb doesn't even use it!" ;-)

I assume you're not referring to Weakly Interacting Massive Particles as a theory of dark matter - what does WIMP mean here?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMP_(computing)

The design developed at Xerox Parc.

It makes every window interaction slower when I'm helping them and, I assume, when they're alone. I usually have two panes of code and one or terminals on the side so I don't spend time hunting for windows

I wrote my own window manager that's mostly centred around maximized windows and terminals (it's like a wiling WM but without the tiling, where most things are always maximized).

Guess I must be a junior then.

Stop judging other people's personal preferences. It's their computer and whatever works for them is a good solution.

I do maximize terminal when I have to do something more complex and I have multiple zellij (I used tmux before) panes opened.

For me it is much better than multiple terminal windows...

Some websites are better maximized too, like maps for example.

Tmux makes sense. These guys were just having one bash session with like 300 columns

would you rather them use half the screen for their terminal and the other half for subway surfers?

I have to maximize my terminal so I can slice it into a bunch of tmux and vim windows and make a pseudo-tiled window manager.

Bemoaning people maximizing terminals - what a weird hill to die on.

It depends on your screen size and workflow. I used to have three monitors and now find myself having one monitor, maximize the windows (except for the terminal so that the prompt isn't too far down there) and quickly switch between those windows with CMD + Tab so that I'm not distracted by the multitude of opened windows.

Unless you have a huuuuuge monitor, most things look good maximized.

I switched to a 52" TV ~2 years ago. It's the first time I found I didn't like maximized windows.

Personally, I find the way windows overlap distracting. It's labor to organize windows.

I've never used a window that wasn't maximized. I have focus issues. If there are two windows on the screen it becomes hard for me to concentrate. I have two monitors if I really need two windows (e.g. debugger on one screen). Otherwise it's maximized all day.

Would love to see an example of what you're saying. Do you mean when shrinking the the view the functionality and content aren't accessible anymore?

For some websites, once you reach a certain width in pixels, the designers assumed you are using a tablet or cellphone instead of a desktop, so they give you the pared down mobile website whether you want it or not.

E.g.:

https://www.nytimes.com/

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