Naive question from a mac newbie

When opening new windows, is there a one-click means to which users can enlarge a window to fullscreen?

Nope! Macs don't do that. Their zoom function zooms the window to the full size it needs, but not necessarily full screen. One of those things you have to get used to. Mac OS X isn't Windows - some things are different.

I'm still trying to get used to that...

That's a serious drag. Why would one want, say in firefox, to have web pages open only partially? I love OS-X but can't believe that this works in with its otherwise fantastic systen.

You have to take it all in balance. Mac OS X isn't necessarily perfection, just a WHOLE lot closer to it than Windows. There a few niggles like this that could yet be improved - gives us something to look forward to in Leopard!

MontrealMitch said:

That's a serious drag. Why would one want, say in firefox, to have web pages open only partially? I love OS-X but can't believe that this works in with its otherwise fantastic systen.

Click to expand...

Once you open Firefox, you can drag it to full screen from the lower right hand corner. Next time it opens, it will be full screen...

Ah, great!

MontrealMitch said:

That's a serious drag. Why would one want, say in firefox, to have web pages open only partially? I love OS-X but can't believe that this works in with its otherwise fantastic systen.

Click to expand...

The design is such that the application is responsible for what it thinks should be a full size window. So arguably a browser should know that you want the window be as long as it can be, and as wide as the web page you one on.

I consider this one of the inconsistencies of OS X, but still like it better than the Windows way, well most of the time.

Having a program taking up a full screen, especially on widescreen monitors, is the rigid, Windows way of doing things. OS X is designed to make it easier to switch between programs in layered, flexible way. Stretch a browser window to fill the whole screen and you usually end up with two large white panels on either side.

I've only been using OSX since Friday and had wondered that too. So far, it's the one thing I miss from XP. Everything else is better the Mac way so far.

Having said that, I think Alexis has made a good point. I can see where they're coming from - after over a decade of being a Windows user I guess it will take some getting used to.