GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 686707
App menu should have an item to unmaximize windows
Last modified: 2013-08-15 10:01:44 UTC
Windows that don't show a titlebar when maximized don't have a clear way of being unmaximized. We can't expect users to know about (or rely on) alt+F5, super+down or dragging the 5 pixels or so of draggable toolbar space in apps to unmaximize. Web is a prime example of the "there's virtually no area to drag to unmaximize" problem.
You can drag down from the empty space in the top panel. Maybe we should make this more obvious?
Holy crap. I would never ever have guessed that one out. Still, the various drag actions are not exactly expected/discoverable behavior for many users, especially in the case of apps that start maximized by default (web, software, documents, boxes, etc.). Not only that, but it depends on not having any widgets (such as buttons/entries in a toolbar, the shell's calendar, menus, etc) blocking the drag interaction.
Toolbars should always ensure that there's a space to drag down to unmaximise. In the case of Web, it is possible to restrict the width of the address bar, for example. Exploring options to expose unmaximise, is definitely a good idea, and something that I'm interested in. One thing that might make sense is an improved (and easier to discover) window menu. This is something that could be accomodated through HeaderBars. For example: https://raw.github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/master/theming/experiments/tabs.png However, the app menu is not an appropriate place for unmaximise - it is for application operations, not window ones.