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Comment by JoshTriplett | Hacker News Reader

That concept seems ingrained in OSX application window management as well. For instance, OSX's equivalent of "maximize" works more like "size window to content", and as a result I see many people on OS X with an active window they're paying attention to that takes up only half the width of the screen, with other windows or the desktop showing through on the sides.

I can't function that way. I'm currently typing this on a 2560x1440 monitor, in a maximized Firefox window. Occasionally I put two windows half-maximized side by side, but only if I'm actively looking at both simultaneously (for instance, presentation slides and notes I'm taking, or a document in LaTeX and the rendered PDF). Otherwise, I maximize everything, even if it "wastes" space or makes the window wider than the "natural" size of the content, just to avoid distractions

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God you must have so much blinding white space. And so many websites that give you long lines of text stretching all the way across to lose your place in the middle of.

(OSX, 1920x1200 monitor, Safari taking up the full screen height but only about half the width. Just my desktop beneath though it's not uncommon for me to have a couple other finder or IM windows sticking around.)

I mean whatever works for you but I'd go crazy doing that, just as you'd hate trying to use things the way I do. People are different.

I don't actually mind long lines of text, but also, I can always make text bigger if a site has overlong lines.

I hope your wallpaper is pitch black and non-distracting. Because that's what you are going to see all day if you can't maximize windows.

It is not. It's various images I like looking at.

Sort of like hanging a few pictures up on your office walls so there's something pretty in there.

And I can maximize windows, but I almost never do it unless I'm working on a really big piece in Illustrator and need every square inch I can get.

For instance, OSX's equivalent of "maximize" works more like "size window to content"

It used to. Now it makes the window fullscreen and it infuriates me.

You may hold down `option` while clicking the green button to get the previous behavior.

I know, but it's a poor, poor substitute.

https://xkcd.com/1172/

Some of us like fullscreen windows...

That thing should be the desktop background of every DE developer the world over.

I just wish they provided an option - it's not like the previous setup was broken.

To be honest, the most annoying thing isn't that it goes fullscreen, it's the mind-bendingly slow animation that accompanies it. Just make the damn thing fullscreen instantly so that I can reverse it instantly, rather than waiting on a cutesy shrinking animation too.

You can double click in a window's title bar to get (what I think is) the same behavior as in pre-Yosemite versions of OS X.

And the old behaviour infuriated me. There's no winning here.

I can't function that way. I'm currently typing this on a 2560x1440 monitor, in a maximized Firefox window. Occasionally I put two windows half-maximized side by side

Sounds like you'd get a lot of benefit out of a tiling window manager. I've been a full-time Xmonad user for 4 years now and I don't know how I'd ever go back to arbitrary-sized, overlapping window managers such as OS X's.

> Sounds like you'd get a lot of benefit out of a tiling window manager. I've been a full-time Xmonad user for 4 years now and I don't know how I'd ever go back to arbitrary-sized, overlapping window managers such as OS X's.

For my two use cases (maximized or left/right half-maximized), GNOME 3 works perfectly for me. I've tried tiling window managers, but I don't necessarily want something that minimal.

This goes back to MacOS 1.0. Its is about spacial navigation.

Each folder would be given its own window, and it would recall its location on screen for future uses.

Thus you could build up a special memory of what is where.

It works for shallow storage structures like what the early Mac had, but these days it gets swamped.

FWIW, I think it's a lot easier to work in non-maximized windows on OS X than Windows just because of the navigation. Windows are somewhat thrown around, but it feels very comfortable to bounce through them with cmd-tab and cmd-`. It feels much more natural than full-screen applications. But whenever I'm on Windows, everything's full-screened or, at the least, snapped. The only maximized window on my machine right now (2x27" 2560x1440 plus the rMBP panel) is Parallels, with a maximized Visual Studio inside of it.

You can't alt+tab and alt+shift+tab in Windows?

I can, but it doesn't feel as natural to use smaller windows there. For a very long time, OS X had no real concept of "fullscreen", and I think the predominant culture around application design still sticks by that. I've never willingly used a full-screen app on OS X for anything other than video or Parallels Desktop.

GNOME 3 has the same application-switching/window-switching distinction, which I immediately disabled in favor of alt-tab doing window-switching. I rarely have more than one window open per application; the only common exception is Pidgin and its chat window, and I'd prefer if those two windows were docked together.

Been pondering how Pidgin would be to use if it had a IRC like interface. Your contacts down one side, and tabs for each conversation.

I started using Moom for this reason (there may be other similar utilities). It's still crazy to me that such simple window management is not present in the OS by default.

I can't do it either, the visual cacophony is too much. I just install better touch tool and bind some keys to properly maximize an app and barely mess with the broken window controls in OS X.

However, I like multiple monitors, and I think the reason is that monitors are large enough that the one I'm not looking at sits far enough out on my peripheral that I simply don't pay much attention to it.

I, too, prefer operating everything full-screen. The only time I'll run a window non-maximized is if I'm quickly throwing some accessory open that I'll use for less than a minute before I close it.

(edit: IM clients, too. Forgot about those. But, still, everything other than IM clients and quick accessories, I run full-screen.)

Yep. Notepads and calculators are what i most often run as floating windows. Mostly because i am referencing some other window for whatever i am working on.

You might like this tiny tool I use http://willmore.eu/software/isolator/

> I'm currently typing this on a 2560x1440 monitor, in a maximized Firefox window.

Does that not make some websites more or less unreadable?

Not with better touch tool or El Capitan!

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