Exposé: A scientific exploration

Macaholic · Jun 18th, 2004, 03:30 PM

This post started out life as a reply in a different forum about Exposé and dual monitors. The significance of my findings compelled me to present them to my esteemed colleagues (such as they are [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) here at ehMac.

INTRODUCTION:

Expose has odd ways of arranging windows.

METHOD:

When having windows distributed across the two displays, Exposé arranges the windows in a way where the windows are "exposed" (or distributed) ONLY on their respective displays. So, if you have two windows on one display and SIX WINDOWS on another, the two are exposed nice and big on the one display and the six are smaller on the other display. Further (and DUMBER), the real-sized positioning of the windows on your display will also have an impact on their position -- and MORE IMPORTANTLY THEIR SIZE -- when Exposed. And the results can be less than effective. I took screenshots of this to illustrate. As I wanted to leave them at full size, they're linked, rather than hogging bandwidth and screwing up this thread's formatting:

On the left, we have one iTunes window, two Entourage windows (one big, one a status window). On the right, FIVE web browser windows that are positioned in a messy fashion (i.e.: not all the browser windows are positioned starting at the top-left of the display).

That window configuration EXPOSED. Okay. Fair enough -- SORTA. There is still some real-estate on the left monitor that could have been used to expose the web pages on the right monitor a little bigger. Now, two thoughts come to mind, here. One is that, by keeping the windows restricted to the monitors they're on, it will be less confusing to the user as he searches and UNEXPOSES the windows. It's like, you hit Exposé and a window that's on the right goes FLYING over to the left. You select it and it goes FLYING back to the right again. That might induce motion sickness in the user! Also, transporting all the windows in this manner when using Expose might slow it down. With Exposé, speed is of the essence.

Then, I positioned all five browser windows so that they ALL start at the top-left of the screen. In other words, they are ALL neatly stacked upon each other. WELL GET A LOAD OF THIS.

That sucks.

That's a lot of tiny windows and a lot of wasted screen real-estate. AND, this goof-up in Exposé will be experienced by single monitor users as well.

Now, I just discovered why it happens. As perhaps many of us do, I size my browser windows to consume as much vertical space as they can (I also hide my Dock). They go right from top-to-bottom (less paging!). When creating new windows, OS X tries to make them the same size as an existing active window. As a result, you get an equally sized window, positioned to the right and (naturally) overlapping the existing window -- but BOTH windows are on the same vertical plane. It is this common vertical plane condition that causes Exposé to tile the windows on a common vertical plane. If your document windows are NOT maxed out in size, vertically, which would allow the positioning of new windows to not only be offset vertically BUT HORIZONTALLY AS WELL, then Exposé distributes the windows in a more advantageous manner.

CONCLUSION:

Exposé ROCKS. As it's new, however, it's not immune to requiring some tweaking. It is my conclusion that this counts as being very "tweakworthy".

Respectfully submitted to the academy:

I remain sincerely,

Professor Macaholic

Pelao · Jun 18th, 2004, 04:06 PM

I am deeply honoured that one of my posts is so prominently displayed in your pic of the dual monitor layout.

There are 2 things to address:
1. Very interesting, and you're right: Dear Apple, tweaks to a great tool, please.
2. You have too much free time

Macaholic · Jun 18th, 2004, 05:27 PM

1: Don't take as an honour that your post was there. It was dumb luck [img]tongue.gif[/img]

2: It is NOT that I have too much time on my hands; it is that I manage my time very VERY POORLY. Get it straight, will ya?

Pelao · Jun 18th, 2004, 05:35 PM

Know what you mean. Surfing & posting is so much more rewarding than projects etc...

My greatest challenge is that my kids demand food and shelter. This forces me to focus and be productive for short bursts.

ehMax · Jun 18th, 2004, 06:13 PM

Macaholic, thanks... you made some of my Smarties McFlurry come out of my nose. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

The photo just tickled my funny bone.

Macaholic · Jun 18th, 2004, 07:03 PM

	Quote:
	My greatest challenge is that my kids demand food and shelter. This forces me to focus and be productive for short bursts.

Me too. Dang them rugrats!

Macaholic · Jun 18th, 2004, 07:25 PM

	Quote:
	Macaholic, thanks... you made some of my Smarties McFlurry come out of my nose

Ah... Smarties McFlurry out yer nose... warms the cockels of my heart. I know I've done well when Smarties McFlurry comes out their nose [img]smile.gif[/img]