How does having a window maximised on a 2048 ‘pixel-wide’ screen make it grotesquely oversized? What if my mobile phone screen is 2048 ‘pixel-wide’ and is 3 inches wide? Would I resize it and use 2 or more windows at once? I highly doubt it. What about a simple 15 monitor? I don’t particularly care about the resolution, but I do care about the size of the elements on screen, since I’m not a fan of using a microscope to click radio buttons.
Can you point out a mobile phone screen with a 2048 pixel wide resolution? The largest one that comes to mind is the iphone at 480x320 @ 163 pixels per inch, or 480 pixels wide and 3.5 inches diagonally. A phone with a 3 inch wide, 2048 pixel wide screen would a) be somewhat oversized and b) would have 683 pixels per inch(which is outrageous for current technology) In the case of the 15 monitor, the standard resolution is 1024x768, nowhere near 2048 pixels wide.
I say this only to point out that for screens with a reasonable number of pixels per inch, Giving sizes in terms of pixels is not only right, but it makes sence.
I think window maximization is more similar to font rendering choices than you may initially think. The Font Rendering choice between Mac and Windows, as stated, was preferring the original font design versus hardware capabilities.
Maximization follows the same trend of preferring the content designers’s copy-setting on the Mac and fully utilising screen real estate in Windows.
Considering how much is involved in the true art of copy-setting I can appreciate that there are times and places to respect the author’s hard work. However, I still like to override that occasionally to make something more usuable for myself.
Running a 1920x1200 screen, I use maximised windows for a few apps. IDEs for example - Eclipse in particular, which does a fairly complex layout in a single window, and there’s no way I’d ever want that less than full-screen. Other apps generally just run at whatever size is appropriate for the data - browsers, for example, are usually at roughly 1280x, but if the content requires it, I might maximise the window.
"Can you name one application with a multiple window interface that’s even popular?"
Delphi has been by default for most of it’s existence… arguably not the most popular IDE, but most supporters are fanatical about it. And yes, to the other poster way up there; it’s what I’m used to - so shoot me.
I would reckon it also depends on how many monitors you use. Currently I’ve gone back to using two, and I tend to use two open applications on one (outlook “maxed” and Firefox in a window sized to show outlook folders only). As to the poster making fascinating comments about paper on their desk… news flash! your desk is waaaaay bigger than your monitor, and I daresay you can read off paper easier than your monitor.
I love the timing - I actually just heard a question yesterday from a longtime PC user who was dupe^H^H^H^Hconvinced to buy a Macbook, and was complaining about this very limitation.
The typical response? “It’s actually much better this way.” Or “you just have to get used to it.” Or “that’s what Expose is for”. Well, she’s been using it for months and apparently still hasn’t gotten used to it. Amazing.
See, on Windows, poor UI design is the fault of the designer. On a Mac, poor UI design is the user’s fault. Don’t ask why, if you have to ask it just means you’re stupid or you’ve been using that awful awful Windows for far too long.
And drag-and-drop is truly, hopelessly broken. Forget about the impossible task of managing the Z-order - every time a user does this, he has to think about what it’s actually going to do. What does it mean to drag from Winamp into Word? Did you want to copy the file name? Full path? Track title? Something else from the ID3? ASCII or Base64 version of the actual data?
Drag/drop works OK in trivial cases, like the hackneyed Ajax demo of dragging an item into a shopping cart. But in these trivial cases, there’s usually a much better and simpler way.