6 ms·

Hopefully removable. I find window title bars to be a waste of space.

• uberduper 5y ago
  But how do you know what application you're looking at without a title bar? /s
  • ComputerGuru 5y ago
    You’re joking about the lack of a title to tell you the name of the app, but not knowing which window has focus (thanks to titlebar shading) is a real problem. Microsoft completely disabled the coloring of the active window in Windows 10, then caved and re-added it as an off-by-default option. I can’t live without it on.
    • hulitu 5y ago
      And in taskbar is the same issue. It's like some people like to suffer when using window systems.
    • vladvasiliu 5y ago
      Well, in my admittedly limited experience of Windows 10, sometimes windows that look active, down to the blinking cursor, don't actually have the focus. So if all windows look the same, maybe people will get in the habit of clicking 10 times where they want to type, just to be sure. I'm thinking mostly about the UAC window asking for a password.
      • prmoustache 5y ago
        I don't really understand why you would want to click to have focus on a window.
        • vladvasiliu 5y ago
          Isn't that how focusing windows on Windows works? As far as I know, it doesn't have focus-follows-mouse.
          • ComputerGuru 5y ago
            Windows 10 oddly introduced focus-follows-mouse for scrolling (scroll wheel or touchpad) but keyboard input remains directed to the last-clicked window/element. It’s not a bad compromise (because primarily keyboard-centric users might not care where the mouse is and it lets you do things like scroll a background document for research while typing in a foreground document without losing the focus so long as you don’t click).
          • prmoustache 5y ago
            I don't know I don't use it.
        • ComputerGuru 5y ago
          I don’t understand why you’d want to risk typing into the wrong window or add such a cognitive burden (“where is my pointer now?”) with every keystroke rather than have the window that receives keyboard input be very clear and consistent. At least, as a heavy keyboarder, that’s how I see it.
    • uberduper 5y ago
      I use a thin high contrast border on my focused window.
• KronisLV 5y ago
  > I find window title bars to be a waste of space. Here's a possibly controversial take: why couldn't we do the opposite of mobile "notches" but for the elements of title bars that actually matter? So instead of having 20% of the window width be taken up by the title (which might as well act as a draggable window handle or allow opening window menu) and another 10% by the action buttons with 70% remaining empty, why couldn't we simply cut out the 70%? Sure, that might complicate the UI of some apps and you'd certainly need to consider how to not create awkward layouts (allow the titlebar to automatically be hidden until hovering over the edge of the window, like some panels do at the edge of the screen in XFCE and other *nix DEs), but surely we can have the best of both worlds?
  • kaladin-jasnah 5y ago
    Does BeOS/Haiku do something like this (screenshots at https://lowendmac.com/2001/user-interface-mac-vs-beos/ https://lowendmac.com/2001/user-interface-mac-vs-beos/)?
    • KronisLV 5y ago
      Actually the elements popping out upwards is a pretty good approach as well! Now, it might be a bit problematic when the windows are aligned with the top of the screen (in which case either the window would need to be moved or the title elements would just overlap the contents and be expanded downwards, much like tooltips would). But yes, that's definitely one way to go about it!
  • nicoburns 5y ago
    That's basically what apps like Chrome that have "no titlebar" (at least on macOS) do. They incorporate the title bar controls into the window itself which allows them to render other things (like tabs) on the same row.
    • ComputerGuru 5y ago
      It’s inherently non-standard/non-unified though, and requires each app designer/developer to figure out how they’re going to do it (or more likely, how they’re going to screw it up). A slim, system-provided title bar avoids all that. Seems like a small and very acceptable price.