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Comment by munger | Hacker News Reader

For the PC world, I'm happy with a 13" ultrabook running Windows 7 (Asus Zenbook UX31A).

At least I can get work done on it from the recliner and plug it in to an external 24" monitor and keyboard for more serious work.

In my opinion the greatest thing about Windows 7 (other than general stability and being less annoying than Vista) is its window key + arrow hot keys to move application windows around super fast on multi-monitor setups. (and to do exact right/left splits on single monitors)

There is nothing appealing to me about Windows RT/Surface or Windows 8 for laptop/desktop, they both look like they will just get in the way of creating or working on anything.

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>In my opinion the greatest thing about Windows 7 (other than general stability and being less annoying than Vista) is its window key + arrow hot keys to move application windows around super fast on multi-monitor setups. (and to do exact right/left splits on single monitors)

As an Xmonad user I am simultaneously aghast and amused.

Also, this is available on Mac OS X and I use a utility to make available the same behavior.

I was actually considering adding "sad but true" to the end of that line... because... it is.

Also what app do you have to use in Mac OS X for sane window management? One thing that bugged me about giving a 15" MBP a chance was how "maximizing" windows doesn't actually maximize them and that sort of thing. I guess I thought window management was supposed to be built into the OS out of the box.

moom [http://manytricks.com/moom/] or divvy [http://mizage.com/divvy/]

I second Moom and there is also Cinch (http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/cinch/) which I have used before. They do roughly the same thing, but I prefer Moom since it involves less hand movement, but it's a matter of preference.

Moom people also have Witch for window switching management on Mac. Personally it's not what i was looking for, but worth mentioning.

I use Better Touch Tool [1] which is mostly about expanding defaults for multitouch gestures. I haven't gotten around to using the Better Snap tool which focuses on window management yet.

[1] http://blog.boastr.net/

Apple UI paradigm is different to that of Windows. The windows of Windows are application based, while the windows of the Macintosh system are document based, hence the seeming "lack" a screen maximisation.

I don't get the "document based" label - in my opinion it's misnomer. It's anything BUT "document based" when you are working on a photoshop document and behind its window you see your finder, your desktop icons, your desktop background, your browser and so on. How is it that a "document based" UI philosophy?

There is no application window. Instead, each application shows one window for each document, plus tool palettes, etc in their own window. The application would take over the global menu bar when active.

This is in contrast to Windows 3, which had the "multiple document interface", in which each application had its own single window, with the application's main menu under the title bar, and containing a sub-window for each open document and tool palette.

There are pros and cons for each design. The Mac's document-based style is aimed at making it easier to work with several apps at once. This sort of drifted away with the modern one-window Apple apps. Now they even go fullscreen, which has been a decent way to use Microsoft MDI apps since the 16-bit days.

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