Indeed the current implementation is severely lacking. It's jarring when you plug a MacBook to a TV, pop in a DVD video, which starts the official DVD Player, and put it in full screen. Possible scenarios include:
- you are in mirror mode: this means the TV and the internal display will be at their common denominator, suboptimal in both resolution and aspect ratio.
- you are not in mirror mode: the primary display is irrevocably the built-in one. DVD Player goes fullscreen on that 13", while you can enjoy 42" of glorious Lion linen. Of course you don't want to close the screen, unless you have both fed the laptop with AC and have an external peripheral at hand to control Apple Remote, an external keyboard or a Magic Trackpad, which is a ludicrous situation.
The current solution is of course to use VLC, which goes around Lion's fullscreen API.
Yet I see a solution ahead.
In Lion an app "going fullscreen" really means "the app gets its own space" (I thus prefer the term "fullspace" instead). What's more, since Spaces have been introduced, a multihead setup lies in a single, giant Space all across. It follows that since the two screens are one unique Space, an app going fullspace will (under the current implementation) take over the two screens.
That's the problem, and so there's the solution: in a dual-head setup, the two screens should be two independent spaces, not one across.
This solves a good deal of issues:
- fullspace immediately occupies only one screen, with the other ones available to desktops or other fullspace apps
- windows can be moved from one monitor to an other monitor from Mission Control. This is not possible currently: you have to exit Mission Control and drag the window to the other screen.
- windows can be moved from one monitor to another space on another monitor from Mission Control. This is not possible currently: you have to exit MC, drag the window as the previous case, enter MC again and drag the window to the other space.
- and why not, Spaces could be rearranged not only inside each monitor, but across monitors. Take Desktop2 on Screen1, drag it on Screen2 after Desktop3, take fullspaced QuickTime on Screen3, put in on Screen1. There are problems to be solved, like when resolutions differ, but that's really not the end of the world.
MC literally begs for those four features.
I don't know if Apple thought of it yet (probably) and if they want to go that way (who knows, really). For all I know it would mean a heavy deal of refactoring of the current Spaces implementation (e.g see how currently Desktop1 is never reorderable, how fishy...).