Stop using the mouse and start using the keyboard for window sizing and positioning. There are many more useful ways to modify windows than just the old maximize and minimize. I currently use Skrommel’s WinWarden (on Windows XP). It divides the screen into 9 sectors (like a grid) and provides easy hotkeys for e.g. moving windows to a certain sector or sizing them to that sector. I have a widescreen display so I usually just send windows to either half of the screen (with a hotkey) and them simply alt-tab between them. Terminal windows and such I usually send to the corners. I don’t bother with manual resizing and placement and maximize and minimize are close to useless (use hotkeys and alt-tab instead). Alt-tabbing with TaskSwitchXP has basically rendered the taskbar useless as well. And Launchy deprecates the Start menu and the desktop. The basic XP GUI is very limited and counter-productive. Don’t restrict yourself to using it.
I am a software developer with many windows open (~10 now). I normally run all windows maximized and switch between them the normal way (taskbar or alt+tab).
Not sure what Fitts’ Law says (if anything) about menus being “near” the top. But, yes, it should be an advantage over a random location in the middle of the screen (as the bounded “flick” gesture gets you to the mouse being next to the menu).
I don’t have iMovie on this machine, but I agree about tooltips: they’re necessary, no matter how “obvious” the icon is. The apps I have open (Finder, Preview, Entourage, Safari, OmniGraffle, Word, DevonThink, ChronoSync, iChat) all show tooltips when I hover over them (although Entourage and Word’s tooltips border on inane, at least they give an English word to describe the button). I know in the programming tools, Tooltip is a requested attribute for every interface element; if Apple’s HIG once said that tooltips were unnecessary, the tools and apps seem to have come around to logic and common sense since.
I am not a fan of windowing at all. It feels like wasted realestate for controls which cater for non-core tasks (like tiling documents and comparing them or whatever ‘problem’ windowing is supposed to fix).
With dual monitor setups more prevalent I’d be interested on how much time people use apps in anything less than full screen.
Having the menu at the top of the screen is a great time saver…
…if the program whose menu you want already has focus. Otherwise, you have to switch to that program’s windows first, most likely by clicking it (it’s a safe assumption since you presumably have your hand on the mouse to use the menu).
That’s one of the few ignored advantages of Windows programs, as long as the menu bar is visible, you can interact with it.
Having said that, I tend to have everything full screen, using either the taskbar or alt-tab to switch between them.
“It is fundamentally and deeply flawed. Users don’t want to deal with the mental overhead of juggling multiple windows, and I can’t blame them: neither do I. Designers should be coming up with alternative user interfaces that minimize windowing, instead of forcing enforcing arbitrary window size limits on the user for their own good.”
This is really a case of personal preference – or whatever you think it is – masquerading as a design rule.
The only obvious thing I get from your post is that you’re not really used to the MacOS. “…Juggling multiple windows” is actually a sign of efficiency!
If I’m working on an image that’s 640x480 and I click the “zoom” icon, I don’t want the thing to spread out all over my screen. I want it to open up to 640x480.
This is really a beginner’s issue.
Leo - What about a website? A large spreadsheet? The playlist in a music player? There are lots of cases where there isn’t a definite size to resize to, which leads o the Zoom button being so inconsistent many stear clear of it.
As usual Windows does the more intuitive thing and Mac does the thing that “we as designers belive to be correct”.
Mac’s are not easy to use, nothing works as you intuitively feel it should work, instead you have to learn a single path to do most things according to what some desginer at apple thinks is the correct way.
It’s the Mac os UI that is fundametally flawed because they forget that people are not identical clones that all agree with how apple wants things to work.
Last time i sat at my wife’s mac i went crazy trying to figure out how to overlay two windws. To read from some instructions in one window, and enter config data in another. Not only is the Maximize on the Mac FisherPrice but it does not readily allow multi window viewing.
Vista’s windows+tab ftw.
"Mac’s are not easy to use, nothing works as you intuitively feel it should work, instead you have to learn a single path to do most things according to what some desginer at apple thinks is the correct way."
I couldn’t agree more.
I use both Mac and Windows, and all I can say is that the Windows method pisses me off to no end. In 99% of all cases I want the window to zoom to fit its content because I, you know, usually have more than one window open. It’s especially maddening in apps like Photoshop where I /never ever/ want the window to zoom to max.
In those rare cases that I want the window to zoom to max on my Mac, I can just hold down alt while zooming.
Brian, you do realize, of course, that Windows has at least as many “single path which designer deemed correct” ideas as Macs, do you? You’re just used to them and thus don’t notice them. This window argument is actually the best example. On the Mac, you can both zoom to max and zoom to fit depending on what you want. On Windows, you’re limited to the mostly useless zoom to max.
Oh, and Jeff: “Microsoft’s method of forcing users to deal with at most one window at a time by forcing maximization is not good user interface design.”
Not to mention that Apple doesn’t prevent maximizing of windows. It’s just not the default action, and it should not be. When was the last time you wanted to maximize a window in the Windows Explorer? In Photoshop? In your text editor? Even in my browser, I usually have several windows open side-by-side.
Can you name one application with a multiple window interface that’s even popular?
GIMP, DIA 
but it is very strange to use them as for me
I have a dual 24" setup, and I use multiple virtual desktops.
In my experiance, the moment you move up from 15" 1024x768 display, there is no need for a maximize button.
I like to resize each window myself to the size that think it’s good for that window, and keep a nice empty space between window.
This makes it easy to see all the things I want in a glance, while being able to focus on a specific thing if I choose too.
In fact, I rarely minimize windows these days- when one desktop gets too cluttered I move windows to the next virtual desktop.
Even on my 15" wide screen laptop I never work maximized- I like having the “main” window in the middle, while having folders in another window to one side (makes for easy drag and drop without the need for window juggling), and an app I like to keep an eye on on the other (like my mail app, so I can see which labels got new mail).
Having windows laid out in a grid never made much sense to me.
I think window management is hard - even for power users - because the winder managers on Windows and Macs doesn’t offer much support to the user to let them easily and efficiently organise them.
Have a look at Metacity for the GNOME desktop. It’s a pretty boring window manager as far as wm’s for UNIX go, but it does let you move and resize windows using a keyboard modifier (alt+left button drag, alt+middle button drag) but also uses a small amount of edge resistance when moving windows at both the window edge and against other window borders. This makes it quick and easy to resize and move windows and greatly reduces the precision required when doing so.
As someone who never uses maximised windows, these features make doing so really painless.
maximised windows for me is usually stupid. For many uses I hate it in fact. The exceptions are watching a video or playing a game which will always be in full screen.
my default behaviour when browsing the web for instance is having the browser window using the full height of the screen and most of the width, but positioned to the left leaving a gap which allows me access to my HD and other important icons on my desktop… The browser remembers where I prefer the position and loads the window there by default behaviour on application launch. If I want a window to temporarily disappear I hit cmd-H and it remains hidden until I need it. minimise is just aggravating, especially since task bar gets bogged down with 2000 different tabs and you can’t tell the difference between any of them .
I’m a Windows and Linux power user. I recently bought a MacBook Pro. There are some GUI things, like the Maximizer, that really piss me off. The Maximize button should maximize the damn page. Both Linux and Windows do it. OS X should do the same thing. I don’t care who came up with what first, it just makes the most sense.
Second thing OS X should fix is Alt-Tabbing through windows. I don’t want to Alt-Tab through applications, I want to Alt-Tab through open windows. No, expose doesn’t do this well either. Go ahead and minimize an application to the Dock (another piece of OS X crap). Then hit the expose button. Where’d the window go??? Exactly. Can you alt-tab to it? Nope.
I think what the whole discussion touches on in this article, is the fact that OS X is so concerned with looking pretty, it slows down developers and power users. And it’s just a damn shame because it’s such a nice OS.
I want to maximize windows. I want to alt-tab between windows. Why is this so hard to customize?? Anyone know of any freeware/oss projects that enable you to do this???
I’ve just encountered this problem with Metacity. Yet another example of the Gnome folks forcing their ideas down peoples throats. It’s MY monitor and I want the bloody window to fill it. I’m working in an IDE. My entire work lives within that window. I paid 200 quid for a 22" screen. I don’t want to see useless bits of other windows poking out from under the border of the one window I’m interested in. I wish they’d just maximise the fucking window already and stop thinking they know better than I do what I want to look at…
It’ so simple…
the best thing on windows is it’s taskbar! working with maximized windows you can switch between Applications / windows / subwindows of applications by one click! and by one click you get what you wanted to see with maximized content!!! there is no need like in Mac OS X to have a look at the desktop because you don’t need icons for you harddrive you just have an opened explorer in the taskbar and by one click you have opened your whole filesystem! you want drag and drop with files open an other explorer window click the maximazed button again and the windows are decreased in size like in osx! you want a clean look on your desktop??? right beside the start button is the desktop icon one click and every window disapear/minimize to the taskbar! want to start working again in maximized applicationwindow with one click? right click on the application in the taskbar and coose maximized! or do all by just pressing keys! nobody needs jumping windows like osx expose 
start thinking multitasking - using shortcuts - drag and drop is something for housewifes!
“Can you name one application with a multiple window interface that’s even popular?”
Um… Microsoft Excel. 'nuff said.
Giving sizes in terms of pixels is just plain wrong. For instance:
With a 2048-pixel-wide screen, a maximized window is so grotesquely oversized that most users will resize it and work with two or more windows at a time.
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.
I use every window maximised and spread across a few virtual desktops, and switch between them using the window list I have at the bottom of the screen (one feature of alt-tab is that the order changes, but I prefer using the window list entries since they’re constant). This essentially acts like a tabbed desktop. Those windows are usually tabbed (web browser, text editor, etc.), and any program which uses multiple windows (eg. the GIMP) I simply run alone on a virtual desktop, which makes it behave the same way.
Macs tend to be more ‘document oriented’, so they can show a few documents at the same time with little confusion as many documents can be in use at the same time, thus ‘fit contents’. However Windows tends to be more application (task) focused which doesn’t lend itself well to multiple simultaneous things open as people only do one thing at a time, hence ‘maximise’.
Saying something like One of my great frustrations with the Mac is the way the maximize button on each window fails to maximize the window. is meaningless and completely loaded to coerce readers onto your side. Instead of introducing the button by saying what it is and does (eg. the Mac has a fit-to-content button instead of maximise), then attacking or defending it based on its merits, you instead state what you think the button should be and then paint it in a negative light, attacking a complete straw man (the Mac’s maximise button is broken). If you think your opinion is valid then allow it to stand up on its own, since to me such a coercive tactic hints that even the author does not find the opinion to hold water and thus must patch it artificially.