Enable Full Screen Support in All Apps Under Mac OS X Lion With Maximizer

Jul 22, 2011 - 27 Comments

Maximizer brings more Full Screen Apps to OS X LIon Maximizer is a free utility that brings Full Screen app mode to all Cocoa apps running in Mac OS X Lion 10.7, even if they don’t technically support the feature yet.

Lion is needed, as is the following to get this working:

  • Download SIMBL – SIMBL stands for “SIMple Bundle Loader” and basically allows app and OS modifications to be made in the form of plugins, which is exactly what Maximizer is
  • Get Maximizer from chpwm.com – Uncompress the zip file and drop the .bundle in ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins

You will then need to relaunch any open apps for the plugin to load, but be aware that Full Screen won’t work in some apps as anticipated, if at all.

Is this necessary? That depends on who much you like Full Screen. Quite a few apps don’t support true full screen yet, ranging from Firefox and Chrome to even apps that ship with Lion like the App Store, TextEdit, Address Book, iWeb, Disk Utility, iChat, and many more. Admittedly, some of these apps don’t make much sense to be full screen, but some would be good and just haven’t been optimized for Lion yet. This should hold you over until then.

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Posted by: Matt Chan in Mac OS, Tips & Tricks

27 Comments

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  1. Tim Harper says:

    It’s not just about the screen real-estate, although that’s part of it. Sometimes, it’s about distraction-less mode, and having the operating system support it natively and provide a way to switch between full-screen apps in an intuitive way.

    It’s a small think, and certainly not rocket science here, but I like it.

  2. […] is a simple solution. OS X Daily has a writeup on a little plugin that manages to do right what Apple couldn’t get around to in all those years. Check it out, […]

  3. Anonymous says:

    I really like this plugin. For applications that would use most of the screen anyway but might get in the way eg Eclipse it gives them some extra real estate and focus but keeps them separate from other things you could be doing.

  4. […] all apps that support it natively, and the ones that don’t yet support it should work through Maximizer […]

  5. […] word is that Chrome will get native true full screen support soon, but until then you can try using Maximizer which works across all apps. And just be sure to remember that keyboard shortcut, it’ll save […]

  6. Mikkel G Christensen says:

    Works, but I experienced this strange bug:

    When in safari in full screen, bookmarking a site results in fullscreen not functioning properly, and had to be turned of and restarted.

    This disappeared when I uninstalled.

  7. […] don’t want to delete the entire SIMBL plugin folder because apps like Maximizer for Lion and Visor require SIMBL in order to work as […]

  8. […] En OS X Daily han mostrado cómo, gracias a SIMBL y su plugin Maximizer podremos poner nuestras aplicaciones en modo pantalla completa. El único requisito es que las aplicaciones han de estar escrita en Cocoa, nada de Carbon. […]

  9. […] OS X Daily han mostrado cómo, gracias a SIMBL y su plugin Maximizer podremos poner nuestras aplicaciones en […]

  10. Shalabh says:

    I want to use jitouch to add more gestures. Does anyone know the shortcut to go full screen in chrome after i have made it ‘full-screen’ capable ? (i do not mean chrome’s full-screen option)

  11. […] Chrome, iWeb and iChat do not work in full screen mode, even with this application installed. (via OS Daily) […]

  12. AirUser says:

    Actually I consider myself a power user but love fullscreen on my MacBook Air 11″ – it really works when you only have a little screen real estate to work with.

    I agree with the comments that it may not make as much sense on a 27″ display though!

  13. […] mucho sentido ponerlas a pantalla completa, pero algunas podrían ser de gran utilidad. Visto en: OS X Daily InformacionMac OS X LionMaximizerPantalla […]

  14. […] OS X Daily This entry was posted in 苹果业界 and tagged Lion, 中的所有程序都可以全屏, […]

  15. […] Enable Full Screen Support in All Apps Under Mac OS X Lion With Maximizer (tags: mac osx via:zite) […]

  16. James says:

    Yeah… I don’t really get the full screen thing. The difference in real estate between maximizing a window and full screen is what? A couple of millimeters of the top menu?

    I guess most of my work involves multitasking between apps/windows so I’m not the one it’s geared toward anyway.

    • Alex says:

      Maximizing a window not only gains that few millimeters of space..but it also creates a whole new desktop space as you can see in Mission Control. This allows you to swipe through each full screen app kind of like a smartphone experience.

    • The difference is that you don’t have maximized windows behind one-another. They get their own screen and you just swipe left or right to get between them.

      Also, just a personal thing on my part, I don’t like the dock all up in my grill when i’m working in photoshop or komodo. I’m working, and i’m right where i want to be, i don’t need to waste an inch of screen space to give me options of other applications to open.

  17. caze says:

    “Is this necessary? That depends on who much you like Full Screen.”

    who -> how

  18. A friend is really upset that is isn’t enabled in Chrome YET, so here ya go, bro!

    -Chris
    FOM

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