December 17, 2008
Full Screen Buzzword is Magic
Posted by Dave Owczarek at 7:38 AM
I have to write documents frequently in both my professional and personal life. One thing I share in common with the rest of the Buzzword staff (and Adobe, for that matter) is a true love for crafting a really good document. What can I say, I'm a bit of a word processing nerd. When I have something really interesting to write, I look forward to the process. I really look forward to writing in Buzzword because it is so easy to produce a fabulous document. Today I want to talk about a little trick that lets you totally forget about the outside world and focus on the subject at hand – your writing.
The trick I am referring to is the full screen mode available in many Microsoft applications that run on Windows/XP/Vista. Unfortunately, I am not aware of a similar mode on the Macintosh. So I apologize for that - most of my tips will be operating system independent.
For example, if you are using Internet Explorer to surf the web, your screen probably looks something like this:
At the top of the browser there is an address bar for the web page URL, menus, tabs and so forth. They take up space and are only relevant when you are actively surfing the web or using other features of the browser. Likewise, there is an extra status bar on the bottom of the screen.
To enter full screen mode, you either press the F11 key (F-lock also has to be on) or use View -> Full Screen. After you do this, pane of the web browser with the actual site content in it will expand to fill the screen. The menus on the top disappear and the status bar on the bottom does as well.
Microsoft Word works the same way. It removes all the framing from the actual editor and leaves you with a large palette to write on. In either case, you can get the menus and framing to re-appear, often by just moving the mouse up to the top of the screen. But that's not the point. In Microsoft Word, you need all those menus to get things done and the value of the full screen mode is dubious as you will be frequently forcing them to appear.
Buzzword is different. Buzzword has a new style of menu system (called a pleat) that expands and changes context horizontally. As a result, when you put Buzzword into full screen mode, this is what you see:
What a beautiful sight. There is finally an application that uses full screen mode effectively. With Buzzword, you get more editing space and only Buzzword (and Acrobat.com) functions visible. And that lets you focus on the most important thing – your writing.
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Comments
December 17, 2008
8:15 AM
Vadim P. writes:
On Ubuntu, you can press Ctrl+F10 to go fullscreen (on any application, even if they don't support it). It removes the window handles and makes window fullscreen.
December 21, 2008
7:31 AM
"rachelsmith6" writes:
This is very impressive. I really like this site. Thanks!
December 28, 2008
12:48 AM
a mohsin altuwaijri writes:
thanks acrobat very important
January 6, 2009
10:14 PM
Ximik writes:
good
January 9, 2009
2:56 PM
Joeflash writes:
Although I think that is a neat trick, it's not really what you would call FullScreen capability, as it's from the browser perspective, not from the Flash Player. Until the Flash Player FullScreen functionality allows for full keyboard functionality, Buzzword won't ever be fullscreen until an AIR version comes out which can be maximized in the OS. And it would be very useful for multi-page layouts to be possible in Buzzword: right now I have a 1920x1200 res screen, and half of the entire browser window is wasted when I maximize/fullscreen the browser.
Thanks for the tip, BTW. But Buzzword still has a ways to go before you can call it a "fullscreen application".
January 21, 2009
12:17 AM
Sieras writes:
realy interesting
January 22, 2009
1:47 PM
Andrew Pena writes:
This is very interesting. I am coming about to readjusting to all of this. Will keep reviewing and learning . Keep informing us of anything else that might stir within your creative mind. Thanks again.
February 12, 2009
3:51 PM
debbie thomas writes:
VERY cool!!!! really easy to follow and understand. I'm impressed.
February 12, 2009
3:53 PM
debbie thomas writes:
VERY cool!!!! really easy to follow and understand. I'm impressed.
February 17, 2009
4:43 PM
KennethM59 writes:
I agree w/ JoeFlash on this. It's not a full screen app. I find it particularly annoying that when signing into Buzzword - which I do like a great deal as a word processor - that I lose half my screen and have to constantly reset the size of the page from 100%, when it's not really 100%, to 120% or so to take fuller advantage of my browser screen, whatever the size monitor I'm using at the time.
February 18, 2009
10:56 AM
Dave Owczarek writes:
That's a good point, KennethM59. There's a product feature suggestion in there that is interesting - remembering the scale setting so that when you come back to Buzzword it picks up the previous setting. That behavior would help if you frequently use the same monitor. It might be less useful if you switch around a bunch and the monitors all have different sizes. I'll take that suggestion back to the Buzzword team.
March 14, 2009
12:32 PM
Mary writes:
That is awesome, I just hit F11 and boom.