OX 10.7.1 Fullscreen View Mode

In a quick update I thought I would pass on my experience with the new built in fullscreen option of OS X Lion.  It has not trickled out into all apps yet however I found my first application where it makes perfect sense and works very effectively (although it should considering the app).

First off let me say if you have a Mac you need to do this:
1) Find a .pdf.
2) Right click or command click to get the pull down/option menu.
3) Go to "get info"
4) Go to "open with"
5) click on the pull down menu and pick "preview.app"
6) click on "change all" to apply the changes system wide

I don't care if you use Adobe Acrobat or Reader religiously.  Adobe has all sorts of security issues and flaws within the pdf reader functionality of Reader and Acrobat.  New exploits are found weekly.  Preview app is much less of a target and should not have all of the immediate exploits as Adobe's products do.

With that said, I own a MB Air (late 2010) and read pdfs all of the time.  Some are very complex documents and some are very simple.  I also use a privacy screen.  Sometimes my screen is not large enough to read docs formatted for 11x17" pages very well.

I saw the little double-arrows in the top right of the application bar and thought to click it.  I don't use this option often.  It doesn't always work well and doesn't always go away easily.  With Preview app it transitions to full screen beautifully and renders the page very well.  I could read an 11x17" document very easily.  The page to page transition is beautiful and even seems to handle the page turning better than in non-fullscreen mode.  It actually flips pages like on an iPad instead of scrolling the pages.  It must buffer the next page since it can anticipate what is next and what is before....what the hell do I know.  It sounds plausible.

When you move the mouse over to the left of the screen, the open documents are shown (I had two preloaded into Preview) and when you move the mouse up to the top of the screen the menu bar and application bar appear with an option to leave fullscreen.  I think Esc button will also get you out of the fullscreen mode but that doesn't seem to work for me.

Menu bar and application bar shown above

I am pleased with this option and continue to be generally pleased with Lion.  Hope this encourages you to try out some of the less traveled options within the OS.

UPDATE: If you use Mission Control then you are in for a HUGE treat.  I happened to hit my hot corner where Misson Control is activated and to my surprise the fullscreen Preview and Chrome apps had their own space!  That is genius.  Check it out below.