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Switcher need help, has questions...

F

friendlyghost

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 29, 2002
52
0
Hey everyone,
So, I've bought an iBook, and there's a bunch of stuff I'm not sure about. If you would be so kind, could you tackle a few of these questions?

1. Where should I put my documents? I've found a couple folders called "documents", but which one is the appropriate choice? In Windows I'm used to putting them i the My Documents folder.

2. Where do I put my Pictures? I had a bunch of photos in a folder on the desktop and I dragged them into iPhoto. That's great and I like iPhoto so far, but did iPhoto make a copy of my pictures elsewhere? Do I then delete my folder off the desktop? How should I deal with this in the future? I'm confused on this one.

3. When I hit the Red X to close a window, in many cases it seems to be as effective as minimizing the application. I've found in a lot of cases that to actually close the application I have to choose Quit from the pull-down menu. Why does the red X behave this way?

4. iCal cleverly shows today's date in it's own Dock icon except when the machine first boots up. Then it always says July 17th. Anyone found a way to resolve this?

5. How can I get the iDisk Icon to appear permanently on the desktop? If I connect to iDisk through the Finder it then appears on the desktop, but not before. I created a shortcut to iDisk, but once I click it, the other iDisk icon appears on my desktop and now I have two iDisk icons which is hardly a good solution. Any suggestions?

6. Can anyone suggest a Mac OS X version of solitaire and freecell?

I hope I haven't asked too much. Thanks for all your help.

FriendlyGhost
 
Nipsy

Nipsy

macrumors 65816
Jan 19, 2002
1,009
0
1. DRIVENAME/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Documents

2. DRIVENAME/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Pictures

3. The red x closes the window, but since an application can have many windows open, you need to quit the application with the Quit command or via command-q. Mac OSX doesn't lock everything in one window. Thie is exceedingly useful with applications that have palletes (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, FCP, etc.) as you can manage windows individually (even across many monitors).

4. Hadn't noticed...

5. Well, you could create a login item which calls the iDisk, or a login script, or do things in many other ways. I would suggest going to http://www.macosxhints.com and searching for 'Login idisk mount'

6. versiontracker.com is your best resource for finding software downloads.

Enjoy!
 
robbieduncan

robbieduncan

Moderator emeritus
Jul 24, 2002
25,611
893
Harrogate
iPhoto Icon

There is no fix for this. I will elaborate: Before and application is running the OS shows the icon specified for the app in it's plist file within the bundle. As this icon is a static file it will always be the same. At the moment there is no way for the application to run some code to generate the icon as required. Once running the app can use OS level services to change it's dock icon in any way it wants. Therefore once running iCal shows the date, mail shows the number of unread mails and so on.

Real solutions: if you have enough RAM add iCal to your start-up applications and have it start hidden.
 
Doctor Q

Doctor Q

Administrator
Staff member
Sep 19, 2002
39,795
7,540
Los Angeles
Re: Switcher need help, has questions...

Originally posted by friendlyghost
6. Can anyone suggest a Mac OS X version of solitaire and freecell?
Click to expand...

Try Burning Monkey Solitaire. I have not tried it myself, but they claim it is a Carbon app.

I've bought a couple other programs from this company (Hearts and Enigma) and they are fun to play, and just wacky enough to give you that extra smirk you need sometimes.
 
F

friendlyghost

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 29, 2002
52
0
response and some other questions

Thanks for the feedback.
macosxhints is a great site. Thanks for the tips.

It would seem that iPhoto makes it's own copies of your pictures when you import them. What should I do with the originals? Just delete them since iPhoto has made copies? What does everyone do?

Also, I tried adding iCal to my startup, but it still doesn't work quite right. Even with hidden checked, it isn't hidden half the time when I boot up.

The red X behavior does still bother along with the icon thing, but I figure I'll summarize all this and send it in to apple. Hopefully they'll be listening.

Thanks,
friendlyghost
 
Nipsy

Nipsy

macrumors 65816
Jan 19, 2002
1,009
0
Re: response and some other questions

Originally posted by friendlyghost


The red X behavior does still bother along with the icon thing, but I figure I'll summarize all this and send it in to apple. Hopefully they'll be listening.

Thanks,
friendlyghost
Click to expand...

They won't on that point.

It is important to understand that your feelings about the behavior are based on 'being used to' Windows.

One of the big points of the Apple Human Interface Guidelines is that windows do not represent applications, unless they are apps designed as accessories. For instance, if you open address book to look up a phone number, you can quit it via the button.

However, if you open Mail, and are copying messages from one window to another, hittting the button closes the window (not the app).

You gotta accept command Q as your new alt F4, and come to terms with window independence. It is one of the best things about the Mac UI.
 
iscripter

iscripter

macrumors member
Jul 18, 2002
86
0
iPhoto pics.

iPhoto stores all of the images into it's own library folder, similar to iTunes. The library folder for iPhoto contains all of the originals plus copies of any edits you make to the photos (crops, rotate, brightness, contrast). At any time you can revert back to the original photo because I photo always keeps a copy of the original. The revert command is somewhere in the menu bar ( I dont remember exactly where).

Here is how I use iPhoto.
1. I copy all my photos to iPhoto.
2. I categorize all photos (makes them easier to find when you have 1000+ photos.
3. I burn to cd all the originals for backup just in case some thing happens (you should always backup your data).
 
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