New to Mac OS X - Questions (from a Ubuntu convert)

[Pasoa2k]

Hi all,

So I'm now a proud owner of a Macbook Pro 13'. I'm fairly new to Mac OS X and have been using Ubuntu for probably the last 4 years which I really liked.

Mac OS X Lion definitely seems like a great OS, but I have a few questions in regards to some things that are "different" that I'm not too fond of.

1) What is the best way on a Mac to browse files? Finder? What I really don't like is how Max OS X doesn't keep the Folders at the top, and the files next. Doesn't make any sense to me. I did find a way to change the view in finder to change this, but I couldn't figure out how to make it "stick".

2) What is the best way to view media (various movie formats) in Mac OS X? I have downloaded Perian / VLX / Mplayer but it seems like I need to use a different tool for almost every file type. In Ubuntu, I could add a repository to the software sources and it would download every possible codec known to man. The built in movie player, Totem, would then simply play every file format.

3) QuickTime - Is there a way to default quick time to:
a) Automatically start playing the file once opened, rather than having to click on play
b) When one opens a different media file, not have it open in a 2nd window, but open in the quicktime window that is already open
c) "Scrub" through a movie with the trackpad?

That's it off the top of my head.

Thanks for any help!

 

[hammie14]

I use VLC for my Media! play almost every media format

 

[Pasoa2k]

I use VLC for my Media! play almost every media format

So is the best way to handle media to only install VLC? Will VLC allow for the generation of thumbnails of the video in the file browser?

Does is there a way to setup a "tabbed" file browser in Max OS X ala Ubuntu?

 

[TheGdog]

So is the best way to handle media to only install VLC? Will VLC allow for the generation of thumbnails of the video in the file browser?

Does is there a way to setup a "tabbed" file browser in Max OS X ala Ubuntu?

Not sure about the first question, but I know there are some "replacement" file browsers for OSX. Try Pathfinder, they have a trial version you can try. Also might be some file browsers in the app store.

I too wish finder would grow up a little bit more, but I have been using OSX for so long I am used to it.

Let me know if you have anymore questions. Hope you enjoy your new machine!

 

[Synergie]

For the question about Finder:

IN LION: You can two finger tap in any Finder window and "Clean Up By" -> "Kind". That will separate folders from files putting the folders at the top.

In Snow Leopard: two finger tap in any Finder window and "Arrange By" -> "Kind" (note: in Lion now this is the Clean Up function, if you use Arrange By in Lion, it will organize the contents into strips of like file types....something I didn't realize they had changed until I just tried it now!)

For QuickTime Player, I don't see any preferences that you can change to make content start playing automatically. However, if you open the movie with iTunes, it will start playing automatically. You can two finger tap on the movie icon and "Open With" and just choose iTunes instead.

iTunes will play most media.... I used to hate it on my PC - iTunes would never work right on a PC, but I use it for 99% of my media on Mac.

The only things you might run into for codec issues are Windows based media like wmv files. There are third party apps for those that you can get. (understandable that wmv isn't readily supported by Apple since that's Windows proprietary format) But really those should be rare anyway. Most stuff you will find are .mov or .avi anyway and you won't have an issue.

Edit: I just noticed your question about thumbnails of video... I'm not sure if I have VLC (I don't think I do) but my video thumbnails will play from the Finder window if I just click once on them. Is that what you meant?

 

[Madd the Sane]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

For generating video thumbnails, the Perian codec works just fine. Also, if you want to play WMA/WMV files, get Flip4Mac. Both are free for playback. Perian is just a wrapper over FFmpeg so that QuickTime apps can play them.

 

[singhjeet29]

2) What is the best way to view media (various movie formats) in Mac OS X? I have downloaded Perian / VLX / Mplayer but it seems like I need to use a different tool for almost every file type. In Ubuntu, I could add a repository to the software sources and it would download every possible codec known to man. The built in movie player, Totem, would then simply play every file format.

3) QuickTime - Is there a way to default quick time to:
a) Automatically start playing the file once opened, rather than having to click on play
b) When one opens a different media file, not have it open in a 2nd window, but open in the quicktime window that is already open
c) "Scrub" through a movie with the trackpad?

Once Perian is installed it allows QuickTime to play a lot of the unsupported codecs for QT, but I find MPlayer OSX Extended seems to play All the video files I want and I love that program, VLC hasn't been updated on the Mac OSX Platform (the last time I checked, which was quite a while ago)

MPlayer OSX Extended or you could try MPlayerX (which is in the App Store - although no body I know seems to like it, myself included).

But MPlayer OSX Extended, will do everything you want in 3)
and if you want every media type to open in MPlayer OSX Extended, you just have to choose a file of that filetype, lets say perhaps, Game of Thrones 104.mkv (although that already automatically opens up with MPlayer) -> right click and choose Get Info (which is CMD+i) -> which will get you the following menu

and then just choose to Open With and then "Change All"

 

[fortheloveofmac]

1) What is the best way on a Mac to browse files? Finder? What I really don't like is how Max OS X doesn't keep the Folders at the top, and the files next. Doesn't make any sense to me. I did find a way to change the view in finder to change this, but I couldn't figure out how to make it "stick".

2) What is the best way to view media (various movie formats) in Mac OS X? I have downloaded Perian / VLX / Mplayer but it seems like I need to use a different tool for almost every file type. In Ubuntu, I could add a repository to the software sources and it would download every possible codec known to man. The built in movie player, Totem, would then simply play every file format.


I'm sorry to say that I just switched from PC to Mac about 3 weeks ago (as in, why the hell did I wait so long hahaha), and I've only heard of Ubuntu mentioned like once in my life, but either way I just recently got my Mac, and I've found some things to become new habits since not having my formerly beloved Start menu (does Ubuntu have that? eh who cares how haha):
Finder seems to do just as it says, thankfully. Haha. Also, the Launchpad seems great to see the major applications you'd need to get to that aren't in plain view on the bottom of the screen. I'm big on Netflix, so I had to download Windows Silverlight for that, which is fine, and I've been using Flash without problems so far. Videos from my digital camera have been playing just in the picture viewer. I haven't personally had to download a darn thing other than Silverlight because it's Microsoft. Do you watch DVDs or things online? I haven't tried DVDs yet.

 

[hollerz]

As someone else said, with Perian installed, QuickTime should play most file formats. To have QT auto play, enter this in terminal:


defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGPlayMovieOnOpen 1

 

[Pasoa2k]

As someone else said, with Perian installed, QuickTime should play most file formats. To have QT auto play, enter this in terminal:


defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGPlayMovieOnOpen 1

Awesome, will have to try that!

 

[Pasoa2k]

As someone else said, with Perian installed, QuickTime should play most file formats. To have QT auto play, enter this in terminal:


defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGPlayMovieOnOpen 1

Any tricks to make it so that when you double click on a new movie file, the new movie open in the existing quick time window, not a new one?