Macworld Forums

Anndra,

So you think they should implement a non-consistent method contrary to the HIG because you personally think that that's the most obvious way? If they did that for everything they'd have ditched the container model in favour of a windowed model and we'd have a maximise button that maximises to screen rather than content.

JP.

Apple Certified System Administrator

J.P.,

>If they did that for everything they'd have ditched the container model in favour of a windowed model and we'd have a maximise button that maximises to screen rather than content.

Exactly like they used to think was the best way from System 7 to OS 9 to my knowledge.

J.P.,

"So you think they should implement a non-consistent method contrary to the HIG because you personally think that that's the most obvious way?"

No, they should change the HIG to the most obvious way, because it IS the most obvious!

If Apple valued consistency over ease of use all the time, we'd still be typing in commands. Mind you, if we do switch to Intel, maybe that's next?

"...we'd have a maximise button that maximises to screen rather than content"

Actually, it maximises to slightly less than the content half the time. And that's only in the Finder, in iTunes, it works completely differently, and in Preview it seems to swap between three states. In my copy of iPhoto at the moment, it doesn't do anything! In Mail it goes to full screen and then last size... What was it you were saying about consistency?

andybarton,

I wish I knew where you got your limited edition AndyB versions of Mac software from That button has always been called the zoom button since it was introduced in 1986 as part of System 3 (I've checked up on this, can you tell ). It's always been fit-to-content/swap states rather than maximise as well.

There was actually a modifier key to make it maximise under OS9, you pressed Alt when clicking on the zoom widget (this has a different effect under X).

JP.

Apple Certified System Administrator

J.P.,

I thought that the toggle went DOWN to encompass the contents of the window, not UP. You used to be able to click the double-box on the top right hand corner and the window would shrink DOWN to exactly enclose the icons contained. Exactly unlike Windows, which shows no logic at all.

I don't know what swap states are, so cannot comment.

I will not argue with you about it.

Anndra,

"No, they should change the HIG to the most obvious way, because it IS the most obvious!"

How is it the most obvious? The only item in the system that is like Dashboard is Exposé and it follows the same behaviour. There's nothing else for it to follow. If you did it the way Andy suggested it wouldn't even be internally consistent, you could drag stuff that way going into Dashboard, but how would you drag stuff out?

"If Apple valued consistency over ease of use all the time, we'd still be typing in commands. Mind you, if we do switch to Intel, maybe that's next?"

Why? There's nothing less consistent about dragging a file to a folder rather than typing in cp ~/Desktop/test.png Backup. Both are as consistent as each other.

The zoom button swaps between user states, the default for an unchanged window being content based so new windows will behave like that, but if you change the size of the window that will become the new user state and the other option will be content based. That's why Mail goes full screen, because the separate panes don't have a limited size. iTunes has had plenty of complaints because of it's behaviour but just because that behaves differently doesn't mean you should throw consistency out of the window, especially when you're talking about internal consistency. At least in iTunes you know what clicking on the green button will do. What you're suggesting would be equivalent to clicking on the green button to get the smaller window, but then you'd have to go to a menu to get back to your full browser.

JP.

Apple Certified System Administrator

andybarton,

Depends if the contents are larger than the window or smaller. That's the behaviour on all 3 of the machines I've got here. If the content is larger then it gets bigger to fit, if it's smaller it gets smaller. Works in the Finder, Safari, Mail, Quicktime (where it goes to as big/small as the aspect ratio allows). If you have a folder with 3 icons then pressing the zoom button will shrink down.

The states works by having a default state set by the app. So for example TextEdit has a default window size. You might not like that and may make it smaller, pressing the green button will then take it to (for example) A4 size if you've got "wrap to page" turned on. Then pressing green again will take it back to the user state that you set, or to the default size if you haven't changed it.

JP.

Apple Certified System Administrator

J.P.,

I no longer understand any of your arguments, and I don't think you understand mine either. Let's leave it there.