With Lion, Apple is touting the ability for applications to implement better full-screen features than were possible in the past. Lion’s full-screen capability is similar to how applications run on iOS devices—all you see is the app, nothing else. This can help you get more work done in a distraction-free environment, although on the Mac you still have the option of running in a windowed mode. Application windows in Snow Leopard have a green Maximize button, but it doesn’t work the same way for every application—luckily a preference pane called HyperDock can help.
Full-screen apps in Lion are reminiscent of iOS apps.
Currently in beta, HyperDock lets you control and manage your windows, and it easily makes any window fill the screen. Once you’ve installed it in your System Preferences, drag the desired window toward the top of the screen and hold it there; a gray outline of the window will fill the screen. When you release the mouse button, the window will enlarge to fill the entire screen.
Drag a window to the top of your display and a gray box appears, letting you know it's about to go full-screen.
In addition to this full-screen trick, HyperDock also lets you drag a window to the left or right to fill one half of the screen, stretching from the top to the bottom of your display. It’s perfect for comparing two windows side by side.
Lion will make full-screen view standard across all apps, but many applications already have true full-screen abilities, and very good abilities at that. iLife ’11 ($49, apple.com) includes a stunning full-screen mode in iPhoto, putting your photos front and center and giving you more room to edit. Pages, the word processor in iWork ’09 ($79, apple.com), has a full-screen mode to provide distraction-free writing, and so does Word in Microsoft Office 2011 ($149 and up, microsoft.com/mac). In fact, full-screen is popular in writing apps—OmmWriter Dana (name your price, ommwriter.com) takes that up a notch with unique full-screen editing features such as peaceful background music and moving background images. And when you want to browse the web in full-screen mode, Google Chrome (free, google.com/chrome) can remove all of the window clutter and leave you with just the web content.
These apps all have great full-screen modes. (Okay, except the Trash.)
Mission Control is a combination of Dashboard, Exposé, Spaces, and full-screen applications into a single area in Mac OS X Lion. It gives you an overview of all the running applications on your Mac and all of the open windows in those applications, including full-screen views. Mission Control is more of a combination of multiple, already existing Mac functions into a single area, and less of a brand-new feature.
Mission Control gives you a one-click overview of everything running on your Mac, including access to Dashboard widgets.
Because Mission Control is mainly just an accumulation of multiple Mac features into a single area of the OS, you can accomplish most of its functionality already, by using a combination of Snow Leopard’s Dock Exposé feature and HyperDock.
Dock Exposé was added to the Mac OS in Snow Leopard, giving you Exposé functions right in the Dock. To use this feature, click and hold on any open application’s icon in the Dock. When you do this, your screen dims and all of the windows associated with that application are presented in a handy grid, including windows that are minimized. Then you just click one of those windows to jump to it, and you get a tiny button near the application’s Dock icon to quit the app.
Windows that are minimized will be shown with a gray minus sign.
HyperDock can also help you juggle app windows. It lets you mouse over any open application icon in your Dock to view the currently opened windows in a popup. You can also mouse over applications to get valuable information like upcoming iCal meetings or the currently playing song title in iTunes, complete with playback controls.
Apple previewed a few of Lion's features, but like good Americans, we want more. Here's the Mac|Life staff's official wish list.
Susie: Apple should use its cash reserves to buy some killer third-party apps and build them into the OS. For starters, Dropbox, Hazel, TextExpander, and Things, which should all integrate with MobileMe.
Ray: Lion needs Bonjour for iOS devices. Put an icon in the menu bar that I can click to sync—over the air, of course. And let me define my own sync steps, routine, and schedule, queuing up items to sync when the device is present.
Roberto: Smarter MobileMe options would be nice, like a troubleshooting wizard for sync issues, and separate iDisks: one that keeps a local copy synced to the hard drive, and one that’s strictly a cloud-based archive.
Flo: I like the way Preview handles photo-importing, but that should be built into the larger OS. I’d like to be able to define separate photo-importing routines for different cameras, too.
Nic: How great would it be to use iOS devices as gaming controllers for a Mac-based game? Say, tossing cards from your hand to the poker table, or buzzing in when playing a game show.
Robin: I hate juggling multiple Finder windows to drag files around, but I dislike the column view too. Tabbed Finder windows, please!
Paul: Make the Multi-Touch gestures way more customizable. I should be able to record my own gesture-based shortcuts, like we can now with the keyboard.
Nano-fan
December 07, 2010 at 4:31pm
I think Apple should buy Screenflow and allow you to drag your cursor over an area, click record, and do a video screen capture without any expensive third-party app.
