Mobile Tech Minutes: The Helpful Blue Button in Firefox on the Mac
The Firefox team spends a lot of time thinking about user interface features to maximize the browsing experience. One such feature is the use of the Mac “blue button”, the button located in the upper right corner of applications windows. Hitting this button hides all of the menus and maximized the viewing area of the program displayed. In Firefox this provides a good method for taking advantage of full screen real estate. A second tap of the button brings all of the hidden items back in view. It is simple to use, and the video demonstrates just how useful the blue button can be in Firefox on the Mac.
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Excellent!
I’ve never noticed that in my macbook of 3 yrs old with quicksilver and other scripting doohickies.
Sometimes the simplest tip can reap such productivity.
Another tip like is holding the ctrl key with a 2 finger vertical scroll to zoom in and out. My old eyes aren’t what they used to be.
Thanks for taking the time to share.
Application developers can enable this blue button if they choose and it’s random if a given program will use it or not. Not even all of Apple’s own programs will use it which is surprising since they put the ability in there.
I was confused by the “blue button” until I watched the video. At least on my iMac, the button is only “blue” while it is being pushed. Otherwise, it is the same color as the title bar — in my case, gray. Thanks for the tip!
Interesting that you should say that this “blue” button helps you maximise the viewing area of the screen because in my opinion it highlights the biggest flaw in Apple’s UI – the lack of maximise. Clicking on that button gave you the equivalent of a couple of additional lines of text and yet there’s all that space around Firefox that could be used but isn’t.
It’s poor design like this that will ensure that Apple remain a niche player in the OS market.
You can write an apple script to mimick that functionality that part is covered but one other niggling is the tabbing in text boxes and buttons. Not sure why Apple can’t get that straight either. Seem pretty simple items to implement considering the leaps and bounds they have made with Expose, Spaces and the Finder. I wouldn’t call the maximize and tabbing things big flaws but just small irritations. Isn’t that Apple’s claim to fame the little details?
You would get even more of the page if you maximized the window.
Try F11 in Firefox for Windows FTW!
What I like most about this method is sometimes, especially in Google Reader, I want to maximize the VERTICAL screen but not necessarily the horizontal. This does that wonderfully.
In case anyone is interested, double clicking on the top edge of a window (as opposed to the double clicking on the title bar) in Windows 7 will maximise vertically. Of course, Windows will really maximise and take up all the available vertical space ;)
set your dock to be on the left or right side. then you can get even more space back.