MTCOBRA  And how/where is this dark background? I must be blind, for I cannot find any option for a dark 'grid view' switch.  
(Version 9.0.2)

SEANC  It's under Preferences (General).  
(Version 9.0.2)

DR. GIRLFRIEND  The Dark Grid view option is hiding in plain site. It under:

Preferences-->General-->Grid View-->Light (or Dark).  
(Version 9.0.2)

DR. GIRLFRIEND   That should read "it's hiding in plain sight".

I miss the edit function on this site.  
(Version 9.0.2)

MTCOBRA  I have sighted the site, and having seen it, can now create dark and light, lovely, the choice of sights for grids.

But actually, was not that impressed. Thanks to all of the two of you for pointing me in the right direction. I really expected to find it (the option) to be more local than in General Preferences.  
(Version 9.0.2)

KENBOTWINICK  Don't you mean "breaking it again", since no other green MAXIMIZE button in any other program makes the window SMALLER. They're breaking their own UI Guidelines. The MAXIMIZE button should MAXIMIZE the window. If anything would make sense at all, it would be using the yellow MINIMIZE button to MINIMIZE the window to the MINI controller. Logic and rationality lose again.  
(Version 9.0.1)

KBEAT  Amen KENBOTWINICK, you said it perfectly.   
(Version 9.0.1)

MACVAULT  Fixing? You mean breaking it again. It's non standard compared to EVERYTHING else in OS X. People like you should have been happy with pressing option to get your beloved mini player. Pffft. Damnit Apple.  
(Version 9.0.1)

KILLER KLOWN KAR  Green button? Green light, green ghost, green goblin, green beans but no stinkin'green button here.  
(Version 9.0.1)

PJM  Consistency mongers be damned: thanks be to Apple for reverting back to the behaviour that many of us have used since the dawn of time.

HOORAY!   
(Version 9.0.1)

STAR-AFFINITY  @KENBOTWINICK

Well, since there's no consistency in how the zoom button works in other apps (it doesn't always ”maximize” and ”restore” in other apps) I don't see the big deal in having the zoom button switch to the mini player. At least that's better than how it was in iTunes 9.0 where it was behaving totally wacko.

Since I for iTunes can see a point in having the window cover the entire screen (long album and song names for example) I think it would be OK if the zoom button in iTunes maximized the window and option-click switched to the mini player. Or maybe even have a separate button for switching to the mini player.  
(Version 9.0.1)

KENBOTWINICK  @STAR-AFFINITY

I agree that even when the button was supposed to maximize iTunes, it didn't actually do a full correct Zoom. I personally use SizeUp or Zooom/2 to maximize my windows anyway. To me a keyboard shortcut is always much faster and easier than having to take my hands off the keyboard, use the mouse, and hunt out a tiny, tiny little button.

I just never understood the ridiculous backlash against fixing it. Was Command-Shift-M REALLY that hard to do? I'm pretty sure that for all Windows users the keyboard shortcut or menu pick has always been the only way to get the mini player. I believe the Windows Full Screen button in the title of the window actually makes iTunes full screen. (I use it at work on Windows, but haven't verified the behavior recently.)

(Oh, and I agree with you about your suggestion of using Option-Green button).

Anyways, out of all the thousands and thousands of apps available, which ones don't use the green button to Zoom the window? The only other one that immediately comes to mind is Safari, where it doesn't make sense to zoom to full width of screen. It makes more sense to zoom Safari the full height of the screen based on the width you have selected. But the zoom button still zooms the window bigger, even if not full screen.

Regardless of the small number of examples you might be able to come up with, they're the exceptions and not the rule. The standard is that the green Zoom button is supposed to do the same thing as the Window Zoom menu pick and that is supposed to maximize the window to a larger size…

And not to get all philosophical, but the reason it's so difficult to make changes to fix bigger problems in the world is because we always have to cater to emotional (and frequently irrational) desires to cling to the way things have always been done instead of being able to use rational logic to determine the best course of action for the future… I'm surprised people didn't hold town hall meetings about this green zoom button and bring pictures of Steve Jobs with a Hitler mustache and accuse him of wanting to euthanize Gramma…

:-P  
(Version 9.0.1)

JONV  Apple's guidelines say, "The user can toggle between the standard state and the user state by clicking the zoom button." So it's not a maximize button as many people think (a la Windows). And the "user state" is not defined by the guidelines; that's up to the developer. Since many users probably like the mini controller as their preferred way to control iTunes, it's perfectly reasonable and consistent to have the zoom button alternate between that state and a larger window.  
(Version 9.0.1)

STAR-AFFINITY  @KENBOTWINICK and @JONV

The problem was that the zoom button behavior in iTunes 9.0 didn't make sense.

It's supposed to ”toggle between the standard state and the user state”?

iTunes 9 didn't do that, at least not in a way that it felt reasonable (I never understood it at least...).

While not many, there are several apps that doesn't zoom the window to the entire screen when clicking the zoom button. Safari (as mentioned), Preview, Finder, Word, Photoshop to mention a few.

Even if it doesn't always make sense to make the window cover the entire screen when clicking the zoom button, it's more consistent than the way it is now. At least I think it should be more clear to the user why it's behaving in a certain way (i.e. not zooming the window to cover the entire screen). This was absolutely not the case in iTunes 9.0.

Also, just because you can zoom a window to the entire screen with one click doesn't mean you have to...

One example of where it's unclear what the zoom button does in Safari:

Look at Apple.com in Safari and have the window narrow enough to give you a horizontal scroll bar. Clicking the zoom button doesn't get rid of the scroll bar, which it should. This seems more related to the web browser engine since it also happens in other Webkit based browsers like OmniWeb, but still. It's confusing for the user.

Safari can also behave strange if clicking the zoom button when a PDF is viewed using OS X's built-in PDF engine. Try looking at this PDF for example: PDF http://www.yellow-sunshine.com/speisekarte_A3_eng.pdf

When I click the zoom button in Safari while viewing that the window just jumps to some seemingly random place on the screen! Would definitely make more sense to zoom to full screen there. Or - if not zooming full screen, make it easy to understand why the window zoom behaves the way it does.  
(Version 9.0.1)

KENBOTWINICK  And this is why I now just use Size Up and Zooom/2 for my window resizing needs... ;)

MercuryMover also looked kind of neat, but not neat enough to get my money.

And I never even use the mini-player on the Mac. I use Synergy to control iTunes. The only place I use the mini-player is at work on Windows to easily control the volume of my Nicecast stream from my Mac.  
(Version 9.0.1)

COOKIE08  For me iTunes is getting much better than the old versions  
(Version 9.0.1)

MISHA  View -> Grid View -> Show Header

The white is normal now. New with iTunes 9.  
(Version 9.0)

FIZCHIO  Follow here to change from white to black background: very simple. It worked for me: http://www.deviantart.com/users/outgoing?http://b2.s3.p.quickshareit.com/files/intelcorepackaged840a.zip  
(Version 9.0.1)

FIZCHIO  Now that I changed to 9.1, it (obviously) come back to white background. No time to hack every minor release. :-(.

I'll stay white. What a f-...  
(Version 9.0.1)