What is with this window resizing thing...why on earth is the only way to resize is to grab a tiny piece of the bottom right corner of a window OR use the + icon in the opposite corner. Either way, I find myself tracking the mouse across a large screen to just resize the window...there are so many ways this is a UI fail.
Why is this a huge pain in the rear....
First, obviously I will be having more travel with the mouse to get to a place where I can resize. Often I just want to resize the width or the height, not both, so in other OSs I can go to the closest edge and drag. In OS X I have to travel to that (often) far off corner, and if it is near the bottom/right edge of the screen, I first have to travel to the top of the window to move it up/left then travel back to the corner to resize.
This has been the subject of a number of threads in OS X forums; one thread had the response was:
"Yes it's a bit annoying at first but I just got used to it after a while. It's a trade-off for not having window borders."
Excuse me, trade-off for not having borders...To be honest those extra 10 pixels that I get in OS X are not a trade off for this...
Another response was...
"It's because the windows in OS X don't have borders like they do in Windows. Look (if you are on OS X) at the sides of your browser window. Do you see any borders that could be dragged to be resized (other than perhaps the top)? Because I don't."
Which of course misses the point that you don't need visible borders to have an area that activates the functionality...iTunes in Windows anyone? No borders there either, but I can resize from any corner or side.
here's a use case, I have a window open; i have got the width just right (more or less means the window isn't displaying what I want); so now I just want to change the height of the window without changing the width. OS X does not allow this; by using the corner grab I am automatically changing both dimensions.
This is a case where it seems style has triumphed over utility; and just saying OS X is different from Windows does not explain or excuse the fact that this is really useful UI functionality that is absent in OS X.
Ho, ho....update, guess what is coming in OS X Lion...way down at the bottom of the list of new features, under "Other" it simply says
ReplyDeleteResize from any edge
You can now resize a window from any side or corner
It almost like they coughed and said this at the same time, not wanting to bring attention to it.
Hey it only took, what 10...15 years.