Cascading Windows - How to Stop?

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charles1

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In Microsoft Word, Finder, Safari and probably others OSX likes to cascade windows. Can I stop this? I want every window to open as large as possible.
 
No, and I'm not gonna try and convince you that it's better or worse to work this way, but your line of thinking is very "Windows-ish," where application windows expand to take up the entire screen. The Mac just does not work like this, and trying to make it work like this or expecting it to work like this will only lead to frustration.

Some applications, like FireFox, expand their windows when the green button is clicked or option-clicked, but that behavior is completely application-dependent -- if the application is programmed to operate that way, it will; otherwise, it won't.
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
No, and I'm not gonna try and convince you that it's better or worse to work this way, but your line of thinking is very "Windows-ish," where application windows expand to take up the entire screen. The Mac just does not work like this, and trying to make it work like this or expecting it to work like this will only lead to frustration.

Yes - I believe you. The trouble is, when the windows are tiled or cascaded the bottom is not accessible. Often things at the bottom of the page are unreadable. Then you have to hit the green button to make the window smaller, then drag it to the proper size. It just seems so strange that they don't give the user an option to maximize everything all the time. Whatever I'm working on, it always seems to get bigger and I need the whole window. (99% of the time.) Options are good because everyone can do what they want. Maybe there is an application out there for me?

Its like Finder columns. I have to constantly resize those things a hundred times a day. Why can't Finder open a column to the minimum size to show the widest column in its entirety? Is this so illogical? Who wants wasted blank space on their desktop? So many things about OSX I admire. These are a mystery to me.
Click to expand...
 
charles_atlas said:
In Microsoft Word, Finder, Safari and probably others OSX likes to cascade windows. Can I stop this? I want every window to open as large as possible.
Click to expand...


Change your screen resolution to a lower setting¿
 
I don't understand what you mean about the bottom not being accessible. When cascaded windows are created they should fit the screen and not hang off the bottom.

A you running at some obscenely low resolution where you are hitting the minimum size of the windows?
 
charles_atlas said:
I want every window to open as large as possible.
Click to expand...
I've come across a lot of people like you. They can't work unless everything else is completely hidden.

Which makes Windows the perfect environment for you.

Macs have always been user multitasking systems. They are design to let the user multitask by seeing other applications open in the background. Most (good) mac apps give you drag-n-drop abilities between applications, so over sized windows for no other reason than to take up that space are not part of the design of the environment.

And it should also be noted that the implementation of full screen windows in Windows was not a feature, it was a requirement of the environment. Windows apps are contained within a root window which is the instance of that application. This is a legacy limitation from when Windows was a GUI shell to run applications in DOS.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with liking full screen windows, they are very good at keeping people on task (great for secretaries and the like who use one application at a time). It is just that the Mac environment is designed for people who multitask.

Windows is ideal for one type of person, Macs for another. If this is that important to you, you should consider another platform.

Otherwise, learn to take advantage of it rather than fighting it.
 
There are so many advantages to full screen windows - but I'm not going to bore with you my reasons. I have at least 5 things running all the time so I'm constantly multitasking. To switch between apps I use Command+Tab. Never the mouse since by the time I have reached for the mouse, my keyboard shortcut is already done. Mice are intolerably slow. To say otherwise, means you have the finger coordination of a sloth with Parkinson's Disease...:)
Also, whenever windows are cascaded, the bottom of the column is hidden. I'm using 1280 x 1024 on a 19" LCD screen (native resolution) so it can't be changed, not that I should have to. So when I want to change the width of a column in Finder or Pathfinder, I have to drag the window up so I can click or drag the column on the bottom. Its just so retarded. If the windows would just open "the way I want" which is centered and all in the same place, life would be so much better. Oddly, often I can get it to remember for the first 2 windows, but not for the third. I can't believe how ponderous so many Mac users are - in that they use the mouse so much for such silly things. Its like they have all the time in the world to fiddle with their rodent. Mice are a pest in real life, and should be viewed the same in computing. Only used when necessary. Which is mighty often already!
 
Does anyone know where the cascading is controlled? There must be a file that says the first window is "there", and the other windows are "there".
 
RobinS said:
Does anyone know where the cascading is controlled? There must be a file that says the first window is "there", and the other windows are "there".
Click to expand...
I doubt it. I believe this is hardcoded into the Carbon/Cocoa APIs, so it could not be changed on a system-wide level without overriding those APIs.



I'm not sure what you mean, Charles, about the bottom not being visible. If that happens, it is certainly a bug in the individual application, not a system-wide behavior. The application should either reposition or resize the window to fit. The default behavior the system uses is to reposition. Which apps exhibit this problem?

I have seen apps with this bug, but not in the past couple years. When OS X first came out this bug ran rampant among poorly-ported OS 9 apps, for example.

Oh, and I agree completely about column view. It's the main reason I rarely use it.
 
Using Pathfinder or Finder causes the bottom of the window to go below the screen so its inaccessible. Using latest OS X on a 1280 x 1024 screen.
 
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