The zoom button is the green orb on the upper left hand of windows in Macs. The zoom button behaves differently depending on the app - Finder and Safari sizes to best fit, iTunes’ zoom button switches between the mini player and the normal window, Mail goes full screen. Often times, the behavior differs from one app to another and many Mac users find this behavior inconsistent, unpredictable and disorienting to use. New switchers from PC to Mac might even find it a shortcoming of the operating system.
Part of the design philosophy of Apple’s Human Interface guideline, windows that are blown full screen is inherently inefficient, making dragging of content between one window to another rather cumbersome. Also, an apps window size is not always efficient on all kinds of display screens when blown full screen. Therefore, the zoom button’s behavior acts differently from one app to another, implementing a “best fit” behavior instead of just maximizing full screen.
In theory, this is a sensible philosophy. However, in practice - and in every day computing - this can be a crippling philosophy to adhere to, and sometimes maximizing windows manually to fit full screen when you need it can feel somewhat of a hassle.
Thankfully, RightZoom has come into the picture to automate this basic task for you in Mac OS X.
RightZoom provides a quick and easy solution for a common woe in Mac OS X - the zoom button's inconsistent behavior. It enables you to make the zoom button maximize to full screen when you click the green orb.
By default, RightZoom makes a number of apps blow full screen when hitting the green orb. You can add or remove specific apps if you wish on this white list. But upon a fresh install, here is the list of apps that work with RightZoom:
• Finder
• Safari
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Pages
• Numbers
• Keynote
There is also a list of exceptions where RightZoom will not change the zoom button's behavior - working like a blacklist for your apps so RightZoom doesn't change their behavior. By default, RightZoom does not apply to iTunes, for example. iTunes' zoom button is a toggle between the normal window and the mini player window. If you don’t want RightZoom to change this default behavior in Mac OS X, the exceptions list is the solution. Also, you can add or remove entries in the exceptions list if you wish.