Common Usability Terms: pt. VI: the Dock
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 18th Nov 2007 15:46 UTC
Graphics, User Interfaces This is the sixth article in a series on common usability and graphical user interface related terms [part I | part II | part III | part IV | part V]. On the internet, and especially in forum discussions like we all have here on OSNews, it is almost certain that in any given discussion, someone will most likely bring up usability and GUI related terms - things like spatial memory, widgets, consistency, Fitts' Law, and more. The aim of this series is to explain these terms, learn something about their origins, and finally rate their importance in the field of usability and (graphical) user interface design. In part VI, we focus on the dock.
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phoenix
Member since:
2005-07-11

How applications open is set in the shortcut (.lnk) to that app. You can set it to Normal Window, Maximised Window, or Minimised Window.

The default is Normal Window, which starts the app with whatever window size it was set to the last time you opened it, or a default size as set by the app coders.

This has been the behaviour since Windows 95 and the birth of the .lnk file. It was also possible to do this in the Windows 3.x days by hand-editing the .pif file.

There has never been a "default to maximised" or "always start maximised" setting in Windows.

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