Mac OS X 10.7: a Lion in Apple systems The management of the finest: Mission Control and full screen applications

The window management of Mac OS X has been gradually improved and simplified with the introduction of a number of features in previous editions of the operating system. The first and most crucial in improving the management of space on the desktop has been Expos in 2003 with Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" with the push of a button or moving the cursor into a specially designated area of the screen (typically One of four corners) it was possible to obtain an "overview" of open windows, with their representation in miniature.
With the release of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Apple has instead introduced the Dashboard and widgets: small applications and tools that could be called overlay again with the push of a button. Arriving in 2007 with the marketing of Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" operating system users can now make use of the Apple, in a native virtual desktops that go under the name space.


Lion takes all these features introduced over five years and puts them under one umbrella: Apple has decided to raise the capabilities of Exposé, the Dashboard and Spaces in Mission Control. In one screen you can have a glance of the windows open, and manage access to the Dashboard Spaces, and see which applications are open in Full Screen mode (each of them will be assigned a Space). Through the Mission Control will also be possible to move application windows from one Space to another.

While it appreciated the decision of Apple to gather under one umbrella three of the most interesting feature about the management of the windows, the other must find that the management of Spaces is to be a bit 'more limited compared with that in previous versions of the operating system: where to Leopard on it was possible to organize the location of its user-configurable Spaces in a grid, in the Lion Spaces are placed in a sequential manner.

In terms of window management Lion also sees the extension to all the native applications (and those of third parties through the appropriate API) of the possibility of being open to full screen as was the case in the past with iPhoto and Aperture 3. In this way will be hidden from view, and Dock menu, leaving the application available to all operational area of the screen. For each open application in full-screen mode, the operating system will assign a dedicated Space and, conversely, when an application will be resized will be reallocated to the previous desktop space.

A new function in the small window management is the ability of being able to resize by dragging any corner and edge, while in earlier operating systems scaling was only possible to act on the appropriate tab on going to the bottom right corner.

With the introduction of full screen Apple has also added new four-finger gestures to scroll, which allows switching between applications and the other, and the ability to access the Mission Control.

Posted by: Wasim Javed