Vertical close-collapse-maximize buttons? Apple, are you serious?

Dave DeLong wrote:
This just popped up on twitter. If you open Terminal.app and paste this line of code and hit enter, it changes the buttons back to their original horizontal layout:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -int -1

(from here: http://twitter.com/rudyrichter/status/22767583924)

Thanks for this, I just tried it and it worked perfectly.

If Apple proclaims that ALL programs are from this day forth to use the vertical orientation, then we would probably be able to get used to it. Consistency is the key.

Now if someone can just find a terminal hack to bring back the color in the sidebar icons...

I'm a Mac/iPhone/iPad developer and have been for over two decades.

Yes, it's a variant, but you know what? You have to pick your fights, and there are always tradeoffs to be made.

iTunes is a one-off UI to begin with, and because of that—specifically, no titlebar—Apple was able to save vertical space by reorienting the window controls.

Additionally, there's no disruption when minimizing the window: the minimized version of iTunes has had the window controls in a vertical orientation for a very very very long time now.

I've been known to engage in "the ferocious quibble over a comma" many, many times in UI discussions, but this one?

Feh. It's self-consistent within iTunes, even if iTunes itself isn't consistent with other Mac apps.

But iTunes has a brand that transcends a Mac app.

I can't find anything in the HIG that says they will be horizontal.
The pix show them that way but nothing describes their orientation.

Gee...why not fix the mini player so its buttons are horizontal? Anyone ever think of that instead of jacking up the main program?

<sarcasm>
Yeah, I'm sure the only reason they did it was so the main screen would match the mini player.
</sarcasm>

Am I allowed to voice that this is one of the silliest complaints I've ever read?

Care to name another reason? To save 12 pixels? To set it apart from every Mac application? Makes perfect sense 😉

To save 12 pixels?

Sure, why not? That's 12 pixels more you have to mess with at the bottom.

If there was a reason to change the orientation of the control buttons then it would be fine. But I can see no good reason for the change, and it does make it a little harder to work with.

The lack of color is a big problem though. I makes it much harder for me to work with iTunes.

But I can see no good reason for the change,

To save 12 pixels at top of the window.

So? Why break the top to add to the bottom? And what's so important at the bottom of iTunes 10, that the top now be different than every other Mac application?

Dunno. Apple has not explained why they did it this way.

Since I hear that there's a way to return the orientation to the well established GUI pattern, it seems like this is an attempt on their part to solicit feedback. This new orientation may be something their floating for the next major release of Mac OS.

I reckon apple makes mistakes just like anyone..and quite a lot of them, and this is one.

The thing thats wrong with the vertical buttons is that you generally mouse up to them rather than across to them (I do anyway), which means you have to go over the other buttons to get to the yellow or red when they are vertical. If you are working fast, its easier to click on the wrong one. Given the buttons are horizontal in every other application you also have to check yourself rather than do it subconsiously which is a pointless additional effort. Small I know, but pointless and annoying.

I also have noticed they seem to be losing control of the UI consistency the last couple of years. I hope its not the slippery slope that Microsoft is firmly at the bottom of where with every release there are so many things you think "what the .... have they done that for"...

At the health and safety briefing at work yesterday someone complained that the corners in the office meant that people could bump into each other as they walked around the corner. And that mirrors should be installed on the ceiling. Then someone else said if people were looking in the mirrors they might be likely to bump into people in front of them. I think these are sillier complaints.