window resizing

[wnowak1]

I'm an OS X newbie. I've dug everywhere in the OS trying to find a way to change the way windows resize and move. Instead of moving/resizing the window while displaying the window contents, can I make a change to move/resize the window using frames?

Thanks

[Androo]

i don't get what you're asking, but you can probably download something that does what u want to do here:
http://versiontracker.com

[hulkaros]

Originally posted by wnowak1
I'm an OS X newbie. I've dug everywhere in the OS trying to find a way to change the way windows resize and move. Instead of moving/resizing the window while displaying the window contents, can I make a change to move/resize the window using frames?

Thanks

There are some hacks (also known as haxies) that let you disable some GUI stuff in order to speed up the way that OS X feels to user... However, keep in mind that these things may not work at your Mac(s) as advertised as well as that maybe you want find the speed increase that you expect

One other thing is that for Windows moving around I cannot understand your need for more speed because I've installed the OS X in anything above G3/233 with 96MB of RAM and windows move around just fine... The so-called problem of window-resizing is that as you already know that is a LIVE resizing which means that while you resize your windows you can actually see what's in it... This depends actually on the graphics hardware that your Mac has... Anything that has above or equal to 32MB of VRAM it resizes almost without a problem and on bigger graphics cards the window resizing is smooth. I think this may, just may, improve with a future OS X release in order to work better with older Mac systems. But then again if you find yourself resize THAT much your windows, get yourself a better Mac or even a Wintel

The Androo gave you one of the best sites for Mac software in general:
www.versiontracker.com/macosx/

And here are some more:
www.xlr8yourmac.com
www.macupdate.com
www.macosxhints.com
www.unsanity.com
www.opuscc.com

I'm sure I'm forgetting some but anyways check those out

Welcome to the real computing world: The Mac one!

PS. Also, try to search on the internet about Terminal commands in OS X for doing some OS alterations if you feel more adventurous and also access here in www.macosx.com the other forums like the HOW-TO ones

[wnowak1]

I've tested window resizing and moving on various macs and its slow on all of them. The moving is ok, but resizing is horrible.

My mac is a duel 1ghz w 1gb of ram using radeon 9000 graphics. I don't think its the hardware...its the software.

I was actually expecting more from OS X. I hope its a feature in the next upgrade for sure.

[lurk]

Originally posted by wnowak1
I've tested window resizing and moving on various macs and its slow on all of them. The moving is ok, but resizing is horrible.

My mac is a duel 1ghz w 1gb of ram using radeon 9000 graphics. I don't think its the hardware...its the software.

I was actually expecting more from OS X. I hope its a feature in the next upgrade for sure.

I'll just give a little bit of some low level info on this and why I would not hold my breath for faster resizing - it is something that we will just need to grow into with faster machines.

First to address the "platform foo resizes faster" issue. That is only partially true because OSX is doing much more than other systems when resizing. Some use a frame like you mentioned (windows) and others have simpler layout semantics (X11) which potentially allows for more responsive resizing. That means that windows only has to figure out one new rendering of the content while OSX may need litterally hundreds.

Now why is that a good thing that it does all that extra work? Particularly when I only get 5-10 fps when resizing which can look fairly jerky? Well the answer is that it is actually providing useful feedback to the user that I did not appreciate until I went back to the faster platforms.

When I resize a window it is usually to alter the arrangement or relative size of the elements internal to that window. For instance to get rid of the silly horizontal scroll bar that appears on various poorly designed web pages. Live resize allows me to easily find the point at which that transition occurs even if the animation is not super smooth. On windows I have to do a click-drag-wait loop and a binary search to find the right spot. And yes I have found myself cussing the lack of live resize in just those situations.

In the end analysis I am not interested in resizing the windows per se but rather their content. For that purpose the solution OSX uses is ultimately a better use of my time because I can get it right the first time.

Gee this is getting longer than I had intended but I still need to touch on why you won't see a direct resize improvement from Apple. (Of course if rendering get faster so will resizing). The simple reason is that the onus is on the application designer to make resizing responsive and that is the way the system is designed. In responding to resize messages an application can abbreviate its display. For instance lets say there is a dataview which is just slow to draw then the application should use something like a cached image of the content or even just a colored box. Then when the resize is complete finally draw the updated contents. For that matter the application could hijack the whole process and just draw the outline like on windows.

The haxies and such mentioned above work in exactly this way. They dynamically are loaded into each application where they hijack the resizing behavior. But the fact that Apple has given controle of this behavior to applications means that they will be hard pressed to significantly alter the way things work across the whole system while honoring the current programming contract.

As for expecting more form OSX well you are getting more it just wasn't the more you were expecting!

-Eric

[wnowak1]

I understand what you're saying, but OS X lacks many features especially for more advanced users. The resizing "feature" you said is good for first time users that have a problem with mouse coordination. I never had problems with window resizing in windows or linux as you described. The idea that you can only resize a window from one corner is also another horrible idea.

All in all, os x is fast and slow. It is fast once the application is running, but its not as "snappy or instantaneous" as say windows xp. Try opening up a calculator in windows xp and in os x. About 3 second difference.

I find os x a dumbed down operating system. The only thing that makes it good is the layer of unix underneath.

[Arden]

Ooh ooh, you just gave me a great idea for the thread in my signature! Read it to find out...

I don't know where you're coming from or what you switched from, but I don't know how you can really call OS X "dumbed down." It's much better than 9, even if it lacks a few nice features, and it's worlds better than Windows and its blue screens of death, etc. OS X is basically the Aqua GUI grafted on to a BSD transmission. It's meant to be easy to use on the surface for casual users (although most people probably get annoyed at permission issues, etc.) while allowing power users to utilize its UNIX underpinnings to get things done quickly and easily. Plus, you have to remember that X only 2 years old, compared to 9, etc.'s and Windows's almost 20 years. As X grows and matures, it will only grow smoother and easier to use.

[fryke]

Originally posted by wnowak1
I understand what you're saying, but ...

but its not as "snappy or instantaneous" as say windows xp. Try opening up a calculator in windows xp and in os x. About 3 second difference ...

I find os x a dumbed down operating system. The only thing that makes it good is the layer of unix underneath.

Hmm. Opening a calculator as benchmark and using 'dumbed down operating system' in the same post doesn't sound that qualified to me...

Here's how I benchmark OS X against OS 9 and Windows XP: I get more work done faster because of the very useful graphical feedback the new OS gives me, the stability of its core and the amount of applications I can keep open at a time (for weeks, not hours or days). I have worked as a graphics designer on Mac OS 7.x, 8.x, 9.x and 10.x, I've taught Photoshop and Webdesign on Windows machines, and all I can tell you is: If you're really into using your computer, nothing beats the Mac with Mac OS 10.2.4 right now (okay, maybe 10.2.3). Yes you're right, some apps take longer to load (and quit) on a Mac, but I can _actually_ work on a document while Photoshop is starting up in the background - something I can't really accomplish with neither Mac OS 9 or Windows 2000 or XP. Also: Windows 2K and XP tend to slow down too much when all of my apps that I use concurrently are open, switching between apps then takes too long. And, yes, I _do_ have enough RAM on all of my machines.