Re: Resizable windows, zoom buttons, & palettes - a GUI design question

Eric Gorr wrote:

>>>> If it's like the button bar, I wouldn't worry about ever showing the
>>>> zoom button.  I can't think of what would constitute the preferred
>>>> size (which is what the zoom button does; it toggles between preferred
>>>> and user sizes).  You would trade visual consistency for behavioral
>>>> inconsistency.
>>> 
>>> This is interesting. It would seem to imply there is a fixed set of preferred sizes and, if your window's content doesn't fit nicely into this set, then the zoom button shouldn't be there as the user would be unable to predict what it is going to do. So, what preferred sizes have been discovered? I can think of a couple that would be included:
>> 
>> Where Kyle wrote "preferred" the documentation has (at least historically) used "natural." There's not a fixed set of natural sizes. There's the application designer's/developer's notion of what is the sensible size for the window at the time the zoom button is clicked.
> 
> So, would you disagree with the notion that I would be trading visual consistency for behavioral inconsistency if I decided that a sensible size for my window when clicking on the zoom button would be 2 columns and 4 rows of buttons if there were 8 buttons?

I was primarily answering the abstract question regarding the behavior of the zoom button. In your specific scenario, I agree with the prior poster but not with the same justification. While utility windows in general are often resizable, I can't recall in 20+ years of Mac use having running across a tool palette that was. In the context of the Mac user experience as a whole I would argue that allowing that would represent the introduction of behavioral inconsistency.