Why is Maximize missing on RUNMODAL page?

My colleague consultant did pose this question this morning. Or actually he was expressing a disappointment both he and a customer were sharing that apparently any page activated through various line actions do open a page without the Minimize/Maximize buttons on the top right corner of the window. I must admit: I probably did notice this half consciously a dozen times, but never really wondered why.

Some simple test on the Sales Order page, opening the Reservations Entries page from a sales line, showed me that the appearance of the Minimize/Maximize buttons depend on the the mode in which the page is called. Typically this code is activating the Reservations Entries page:

ShowReservationEntries(Modal : Boolean)
TESTFIELD(Type,Type::Item);
TESTFIELD(“No.”);
ReservEngineMgt.InitFilterAndSortingLookupFor(ReservEntry,TRUE);
ReserveSalesLine.FilterReservFor(ReservEntry,Rec);
IF Modal THEN
  FORM.RUNMODAL(FORM::”Reservation Entries”,ReservEntry)
ELSE
  FORM.RUN(FORM::”Reservation Entries”,ReservEntry);

In our context ShowReservationEntries is called with Modal is TRUE and the Minimize/Maximize buttons are missing:

Indeed if we call with Modal is FALSE the buttons are shown:

In the almost 3 years of having NAV 2009 out my colleague surely wasn’t the only to notice this. F.e. this mibuso post did discuss the issue already, where Mark Brummel gives some kind of explanation to the why, but still leaves us unsatisfied. As such the absence of the Minimize makes full sense to me. But having a Maximize button would be very welcome.

If you agree with me feel free to give your vote here.

Note

• In either case (RUN of RUNMODAL) the form will be shown with the Minimize/Maximize buttons, where the Minimize doesn’t work at all:

•  Running on Win 7 the shortcuts Win + Left Arrow, Win + Right Arrow and Win + Down Arrow are applicable to the RUNMODAL page