Maximise Windows Vertically With A Double-Click In Windows 7

I hate aero shake though. It seems to randomly go off when I'm just dragging a window slightly, but then to get it back I have to shake my mouse like mad for a few seconds. It never seems to do it when I want it :(

mejobloggs

@kstagg: Trust me, it really makes a difference on a wide-screen monitor when you are trying to work on an assignment in word, side to side with an information webpage in firefox.

Lakshan

Windows 7 looks great, and many people are saying how it is a huge improvement over the 'failure' of Vista. However, people overlook the fact that Vista was more stable than XP was when it came out, and XP was also slammed at the time for its large RAM requirements and pointless eye candy (remember when square grey taskbars were cool, and beige was awesome, anyone?). I use vista regularly, and I can honestly say that Microsoft has patched it to perfection and it works fine. I love the way where I just plug in hardware, and even though I am on a 64 bit system it automatically checks online and installs the driver in the background, while XP takes you through an annoying wizard which isn't really helpful. Windows 7 is obviously better, but it would be a terrible shame if Vista was remembered as worse than the great OS it is.

Lakshan

@asurroca: Its UI assumptions like this by people at MS that really annoy me. Your reasoning for why they didn't include a horizontal component for this feature is probably dead on, but who is to say that people wouldn't use it. I definitely would have. There are definitely programs that it wouldnt work well in but thats not a reason to just leave it out completely. It wouldn't have been difficult at all to provide.

I also wish there was a way to turn off the drag upwards to maximize feature. That thing annoys the piss out of me when I'm trying to horizontally tile windows manually.

ericisshort

@ssj4Gogeta:
Thanx for clearing it up, I had to ask, never seen it because I'm not a Chrome fan. I'm currently converting to portable applications and I simply love Iron ;)

@ssj4Gogeta: Nah, the DWM can do it live - the early showings of Vista had it in, even. Dunno why they took t out, even as an option.

Although I really like the Snap feature, I would prefer if instead of using half the screen I could choose the size the window would take - IE: using a wide 22' the browser will not show 1024px, and I will get that nasty bar at the bottom.

Just like what Winsplit used to do. Also, is there any way to make the screen (or other windows) edges magnetic? I use Ubuntu at work and moving windows or putting them side by side is a lot easier this way...

nhcotrim

@WhACKSTER: You mean the one on the Google Chrome window? It indicates that you're in "incognito/private browsing" mode. Your history, cache, form auto-complete etc. won't be saved while you're browsing in the incognito mode. You can press Ctrl+Shift+N or choose "new incognito window" from the wrench menu.

Since an incognito mode window doesn't share cookies with normal mode windows, you can also use it to log into two email accounts at the same time. (One from a normal window, one from an incognito window).

ssj4Gogeta

Windows 7 will also do this if you drag-resize the top or bottom edge of the window to the screen's top or bottom edge.

Bighaugs

I would love a span window across all screens aero-ism or shortcut. Nvidia has yet to allow spanning screens so my dual screen seems to be less useful when I use a screen that want's full-screen and would be more useful across two monitors. Not many apps are like this, but for those that two or more screen spanning would be better, it's a god send.

@penguiniator: Well I noticed it the first day I installed Win 7. :P I was trying to maximize a window by double-clicking the title bar.

KDE has great window management features. When I first used KDE I wondered why Windows doesn't have them. And a month later I heard that Windows 7 is going to have most of them. MS has certainly closed the gap.

ssj4Gogeta

@mcnuggetofdeath: I don't think it will need some low level restructuring because I found out that wobbly windows is just animation. That is, you can't click on the items in the window while it's dancing. So what they probably do is just take a screenshot of the the window just before you start moving it, then make it wobble.

ssj4Gogeta

Yes. This is a very useful feature, especially with a vertical task bar. Task bar and a few desktop icons on one side and essential gadgets on the other. I was never a big fan of the vertical task bar in XP because it only half worked. It has full functionality in W7 and with today's widescreen monitors a vertical task bar makes for efficient use of screen space. I've only been a convert for a few weeks now but I would never go back to a horizontal one.

thepcguy

What's with the shadowy icon in the top left corner, in the first screen shot?

I really don't see what the big deal about this feature is - and I'm a Windows user.

kstagg

It would make more sense to place this feature in the maximize button. Say, middle-click that button to maximize vertically and right-click it to maximize horizontally. At least, that's how KDE has always done it. I would think positioning a mouse motionless on a window border and double-clicking would be more difficult. It's certainly less obvious... How long has it taken anyone to notice it was there?

penguiniator

@asurroca: If you have a program that allows you you compare two different documents in the same window (eclipse for instance), it is useful to span 2 screens horizontally. This is especially true if you have two widescreens both rotated 90 degrees (excellent for viewing large pages of text).

jc364

@the_gank: nice.

wakebordr

i read about this feature in the comment post mentioned in the article. since i recently got a much larger monitor, i rarely do a full maximize and now use the vertical maximize all the time

awperk

@ssj4Gogeta: Neat! Win+Shift+left/right also pops the selected window to another monitor!

Oh you tricky Windows key, is there ANYTHING you can't do?

Mykie Gunderson

I love aero peek in windows, but find myself spending the vast majority of my time in Linux Mint. Compiz mimics some of aero peeks features, IE tearing a maximized windows away and placing it on a second monitor causes it to be maximized again, Window Previews allows live video of open windows (Aero Peek) Currently waiting for a full on clone of aero. The one thing i miss when i boot into windows is Wobbly Windows, Im assuming that would require some low level restructuring of explorer, but I would love to see that hit windows.

@ssj4Gogeta: Yep, and Win+Right or Win+Left to toggle left, right and back to original snaps.

@Mykie Gunderson: With the number of widescreen monitors these days, I can't imagine many scenarios where you'd want to have a thin horizontal sliver of a window open? I will admit though, the first thing I did after trying this was double-click on the horizontal edge of a window to see if what you're talking about would work :p

@Mykie Gunderson: Hmmh - AHK to the rescue?

tylerf

I like it!

But I wonder why MS felt it necessary to omit the horizontal counterpart to this maneuver?

Mykie Gunderson

There's also a keyboard shortcut for that: Shift+Win+Up Arrow.

ssj4Gogeta

@the_gank: Apparently I didn't read quite well...... ignore my post above.

the_gank

Does this work in Xp? I just tried this but no luck. Makes me feel like a n00b. I'll try this on my win 7 box at home.

the_gank

I love all of these aero snap-features, they really make my life easier.

NickBomb