window size

Hi all gurus

I am new to MAC, the very basic question I have at this time is the 'application windows' or for that matter any popping up windows opens in just 1/3 of my screen size, for example when I click on the hard disk icon on desktop the resulting popup screen is just that size but does not occupy the full screen. Do I have to manually drag the right bottom corner to my desired size? or is there any setting I can make so that any application I start or any window that opens to have a full screen?
In 'Windows OS', at the top right side we have a '-' minimize button, then a 'maxmize'/'restore' button which is what I am referring to here, we use this button to make te screen float or go full screen...how do i do this in MAC? I have a macbook pro...

Thanks
Sany

Hi All

Sorry for bothering all, after I posted the above I then noticed members have already discussed on the topic and therefore I conclude that its not possible in MAC. Please correct me if I am wrong.
This I just wanted to make sure that I am not missing anything.

But once I resize my window, for example I am resizing my 'safari' windows pane, is there a way my machine remembers the size I fixed the last time?

thanks
Sany

Hi there. Welcome to the forums and, more significantly, to the world of Mac. I'm a recent switcher. I think this weekend makes it a full month since I bought my iMac and became addicted. So, I've made a bunch of the "mistakes" common to switchers at one point or another.

OS X handles windows differently than Windows. It seems as though the idea is that a window should never occupy the whole screen unless it contains enough content to fill the space (or you really, really feel it should and drag it there). If you click the "+" button at the top of the window (roughly equivalent to the maximize button in Windows), the OS will expand it to be just the size necessary to display the content within it. You're also right that if you resize a window (let's say Safari), your window size will be remembered the next time you open a new window in that program.

I also remembered seeing this linked from a thread in here, and I thought it was funny. I've made a quite a few of these.

http://danwarne.com/?p=20

Enjoy your Mac!

thanks buddy!