Full-Screen Manifesto — You Paid For Your Pixels; Now It’s Time To Use Them. Here’s How.

A Specter Is Haunting Software Development — The Specter Of Full-Screen.

This manifesto has been synchronized to Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. Please listen to the second movement while reading.

Use full-screen. Your apps will reach their full potential if they use every pixel on your device.

It’s an abomination to have any other size besides full-screen.

And don’t even get me started on those so-called “responsive” designs. Ignore the fake promises of flexibility.

You need to go full-screen, and you need to do it now.

A brief history of the screen.

The human mind evolved to multitask because it was a requirement of our hunter-gatherer past. We had to decide which berry looks less poisonous while planning the best time to go hunting based on the weather and the sacrifices to the god of fertility.

It’s not so tricky nowadays because we have spreadsheets and because many startups offer “Sacrifice as a Service” to appease the gods for you.

As our modern world demands more skilled work, we must put aside our ability to multitask. Soon, every task worth doing will have its dedicated full-screen app.

For the time being, it is true that we require some non-full-screen apps, like windowing interfaces and operating systems. Yet, these apps should be few and tightly controlled by a small elite group willing to selfishly sacrifice themselves to the dangers of multitasking.

Apps like Windows, macOS, and zombo.com will be allowed to exist as long as they understand their limited place as a necessary bridge into a bright full-screen future.

The benefits of full-screen.

Biology already has a full screen. And that screen is your eyes. So you already follow the full-screen manifesto, even if you don’t know it yet.

A full screen covers the entire field of view. That means the user is completely immersed in the information on the screen. There is no escape, and that’s a good thing.

A full screen makes a statement. It says, “I’m a big important screen, and I demand your attention.” Smaller screens don’t have the same impact.

The future.

All programs will soon be full-screen.

Apple already enforces full-screen apps on iOS. Google does the same with Android.

Even Microsoft is following suit. In Windows 12, the Start Menu will be full-screen. The clock will be full-screen. Even Clippy will be full-screen.

Clippy might seem overkill on an ultrawide display, but it’s a minor price to pay for full-screen salvation.

The far future.

The dictionary definition of “screen” doesn’t suggest at all that it refers to a two-dimensional object. Screens were never meant to be confined to a plane.

Research is already ongoing for volumetric screens, in which any three-dimensional image can be projected onto a volume.

There’s no doubt that this technology will catch on because the universe itself is a volumetric screen, and the universe has been tested and approved by uncountable life forms.

To put it bluntly, we will have the ability to grab a whole piece of spacetime and do anything with it. Literally anything. You could walk into it, touch it, and smell it.

It will be the perfect way to spice up the physical world for those times when we need to take a break from our life in the metaverse.

We should use our current 2D screens to their maximum potential so that the switch to volumetric screens goes smoothly.

Action plan.

If you are a programmer, plainly refuse to code any app that’s not full screen.

Use JavaScript to block the app with a message that says, “To use this glorious program, go full screen.”

Or at least, make some features full-screen only, even if no technical limitation exists (although full-screen, when used to its maximum potential, will unlock an infinity of amazing features that we can’t yet imagine.)

If every screen is full screen, then the whole of humanity will share the same degree of fullness. That means world peace to me.

Full is Screen.

Screen is Full.

Full Screen.

If you are currently in full-screen, you can see this final message:

Wow, that message was beautiful. Non-full-screen users will never know. And how could they? It doesn’t even fit on their screens.

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