[TxMt] Full screen

[Dudley Flanders]

On Nov 5, 2005, at 5:16 PM, Benjamin Jackson wrote:
> It's about minimizing distractions. There's a significant mode  
> switch that's triggered when all of a sudden the only thing you  
> should be doing is the only thing you can see on the screen. No  
> bouncing dock icons, no flashing news reader, no growl  
> notifications, just your words staring you in the face. It kind of  
> reminds me of the good old days of green screens and ascii text.

Definitely. I use emacs with ratpoison and X11 when I really need to  
focus, and there's a distinct productivity increase when I do. Of  
course, since I've discovered TextMate, I do that a lot less because  
TextMate is more fun.

One problem with full-screen apps on the Mac is the fact that good  
Cocoa interfaces don't lend themselves to a full-screen environment.  
Ulysses is a good example. It works full-screen because its interface  
is a single monolithic window, but that makes it look like hell when  
it has to share a desktop with other apps. A full screen TextMate  
would require either a significant interface change or a loss of  
functionality, and I don't know that I'd really want either of those.

-dudley