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Old Winows user! How do you do basic functions on a Mac?

mooncaine said:
Like I said, I had to break the old habit when I switched. I was constantly renaming files accidentally, and there was no Undo for that, so if I didn't remember the name of the file, I was outta luck. Now, at least there's one Undo level, if you catch your mistake soon enough.
Click to expand...

If you delete all the text then click away the old filename will come back.

mooncaine said:
It turns out [and research proves] that narrow vertical columns of text are easier to read, and read more quickly, without losing one's place in the text.
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Yup, about 66 characters a line are optimum for reading.

jim.arrows said:
As a frustrated switcher who hasn't used my macbook much since buying in May, all I want it to do is maximize the window when I double-click the title bar -- is there a widget or any other way that adds this functionality? I can't STAND having a busy screen space with multiple windows open! TIA
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As a workaround, if you hold down the option key when switch applications in the Dock it will hide the previous application. Also you have Command-Option-H, which hides all other open applications, leaving you only with the windows of the front-most app.

Apple did have a "single-window-mode" on early (pre-release) versions of OS X, but got dropped, which is a shame, because I liked the idea.

It basically minimised all other windows open, so you saw only the front most window.
 
jim.arrows said:
all I want it to do is maximize the window when I double-click the title bar
Click to expand...

Another feature that Microsoft just had to reverse. Double-clicking a Mac window title has always minimized the window. And because MS didn't want to directly copy features to Windows, they just thought "hmm, what would be opposite of what Apple does? Let's see, they minimize, we maximize. Great!"

Few more examples:

* Apple menu has always been on top of the screen. W95 introduced a start-button on bottom of the screen where it has stayed ever since. Apple menu bar also reflects the active window and saves screen space whereas Windows has a menu in every window which is just stupid waste of screen space.

* Apple window controls have always been on the left of the window where a right-hander is easier to point. For some reason, Windows has always had window controls on right side.

* Apple desktop has always had stuff on the right side where they are visible when a non-maximized application window is open on the left side where people usually keep the window; Windows has always had the desktop stuff on left where they're buried under application window, but that doesn't matter because application window in Windows seems to be always maximized so the concept of desktop is a mystery for most Windows people.

BUT, despite all feature-borrowing, Windows does have one thing copied better than the original: Windows allows window-resizing from every side and not only bottom-right corner. That feature comes in handy sometimes; actually not many Windows people even know that there is a resize control on the bottom-right corner because most Windows users just grab an edge to resize (if the window isn't maximized already). That said, I have learnt to use the resize control and don't miss this feature as much as I did during the first year after the switch...
 
mooncaine said:
I was constantly renaming files accidentally, and there was no Undo for that, so if I didn't remember the name of the file, I was outta luck. Now, at least there's one Undo level, if you catch your mistake soon enough.
Click to expand...

Sure there is undo, Apple has undo everywhere. Just press Command(Apple)-Z after you have mistakenly renamed/moved/copied/deleted a file.
 
I never was the big on maximizing my windows, even in Windows. I would make sure certain programs took up a lot of screen real estate (iTunes for example, so I can see more of my library), but others like web browsers, I would usually leave in a column. On a high enough resolution widescreen (1440*900 at the minimum in my experience) you can then have 2 browser windows, or documents side by side, very handy for editing and comparing things.

Another thing that I have completely gotten rid of since the switch is minimizing anything. The Dock is precious real estate for one reason. You want your currently active apps and commonly used apps stored there (Stacks in Leopard adds in the documents, downloads, and applications folders which is handy) so you can get at them quickly. Minimizing things to the Dock just clutters it up. Secondly, Expose is such a superior way of switching between open applications since you can actually see everything that is open, and it also lets you see just the open windows of a given application (have lots of documents open and need to switch from one to the next? Hit F10 and it will tile just the documents from that application) Alt-Tab on Windows is ok but needs improvement, and Flip3D is not that improvement, it is a shined up Alt-Tab.

Like another person suggested... go into it knowing that things will be different. If you are going to get caught up on every little difference (not saying that you are) and complain about it, then return the machine, and buy a dell. If you are willing to actually let go of your Windows mentality, and spend some time just experimenting, then I think you will come to really enjoy OS X, and may even find, like some of us have, that you would rather not use a computer, than use one without OS X.
 
Expose is such a superior way of switching between open applications since you can actually see everything that is open, and it also lets you see just the open windows of a given application (have lots of documents open and need to switch from one to the next?
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I'll second that! I am an Expose junkie!

BTW....OS X is not so foreign that you won't be able to figure out most things yourself. The difference is more in the details.
 
And if you have a Mighty Mouse, you can click the scroll wheel to see a list of open applications. Like Alt-Tab in Windows without having to let go of the mouse.

Beautiful!

Cheers.
 
The best advice I can think of for switchers is that OSX is not Windows - some things work differently and if you take time to learn the "OSX way" it will become second nature and you'll then realise it's very often a much better way than you're used to. It's a mistake IMO to try and hold onto window's habits (such as maximized windows) on OSX
 
vanmacguy said:
And if you have a Mighty Mouse, you can click the scroll wheel to see a list of open applications. Like Alt-Tab in Windows without having to let go of the mouse.

Beautiful!

Cheers.
Click to expand...

Actually, with a mighty mouse you can set the controls to do what you want, so I have my scroll wheel activate dashboard and when you squeeze it activates expose, but if you'd rather not hit alt tab then you can set one of the mighty mouse settings to do that.


I'm surprised no one has mentioned Mac 101 and Switch 101 on apples website. There's some really useful information in the support section of their website, and you can search for more specifics. Quite often I have a question I find the answer to through google and later find that it was spelled out for me right on apples page.

http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/
 
I just got my MacBook Pro today

hey,

I just got my MacBook Pro TODAY (YES TODAY). I have been using windows since the win95 days. I last time I used a Mac was in junior high mabye 16 years ago.

I have already got used to the Mac interface. I think its pretty easy. Being a MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) and all I never saw such an easy to use control panel before in my life. I think I'm going to enjoy this purchase. If you consider yourself a Windows power user, you will not really have any problems switching to Mac OS. PLUS with the ability to run windows apps via Bootcamp and Vmware I have the best of both worlds. There is no reason not to get a Mac.

While i'm here, does anyone know when i download a .dmg file and it's on the desktop, I notice that it allows me to "EJECT" the file. I can't copy the download to say my Docments drive. A good example is Firefox. After it dowloads it becomes this "hard drive lconisy" on the desktop. Can anyone explain?
 
mm1250 said:
hey,

I just got my MacBook Pro TODAY (YES TODAY). I have been using windows since the win95 days. I last time I used a Mac was in junior high mabye 16 years ago.

I have already got used to the Mac interface. I think its pretty easy. Being a MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) and all I never saw such an easy to use control panel before in my life. I think I'm going to enjoy this purchase. If you consider yourself a Windows power user, you will not really have any problems switching to Mac OS. PLUS with the ability to run windows apps via Bootcamp and Vmware I have the best of both worlds. There is no reason not to get a Mac.

While i'm here, does anyone know when i download a .dmg file and it's on the desktop, I notice that it allows me to "EJECT" the file. I can't copy the download to say my Docments drive. A good example is Firefox. After it dowloads it becomes this "hard drive lconisy" on the desktop. Can anyone explain?
Click to expand...

DMG (short for Disk iMaGe) is the preferred way to package things for the Mac. When you download DMGs with Safari, they will auto mount onto the system, just like you would an ISO in Windows. Once it is mounted, you go into finder, and then in the Sidebar (left side of the window) click on the firefox item, and now, drag the firefox icon into the Applications folder (also located on the Sidebar). Safari in Tiger defaults to the desktop for downloads, so does most everything else. If you are going to use Firefox, once you fire it up (from the applications folder, you can go ahead and eject the DMG once you are done copying) hit Command(apple)+, to bring up the preferences (point of interest, that keystroke brings up the preferences for pretty much every thing on OS X) and change the default download location to something else. No one likes a cluttered desktop.
 
mm1250 said:
While i'm here, does anyone know when i download a .dmg file and it's on the desktop, I notice that it allows me to "EJECT" the file. I can't copy the download to say my Docments drive. A good example is Firefox. After it dowloads it becomes this "hard drive lconisy" on the desktop. Can anyone explain?
Click to expand...

This is called a Disk Image. You can't copy the image directly, but you can copy the contents. In the Firefox case it will be the Firefox application inside the disk.

Drag the file(s) you want out the disk image then eject it (file > Eject or Command - E). Once that's done you can trash the .dmg file.

A .dmg file is like the rough equivalent of an .ISO on windows.

Hope that helps, if that was too brief and you want more detail or don't quite understand then just ask.
 
I would suggest going getting a book, like the missing manual series and reading through that, that will answer most of your questions
 
Piling on this question

I can sympathize with this topic 100%. My wife bought a Macbook Air 2days ago and assumed I could get her up to speed quickly.

That being said I was able to set it up - connected to our wireless network and installed our HP printer - hoo rah.

Unfortunately, that's where I came to grindoing halt. I can't even figure outhow to create new folders to store Word & Excel files I want to transfer from her PC.

Is there a Mac Functionality for Dummys available?
 
Uhm, didn't you study or do any fact finding on how to use OS X prior to buying a fairly expensive laptop (MB Air)? Since you knew you were changing from one OS like Windows to something totally new, it would have been best to understand what you were getting into before you jumped.

Try using Finder to create new folders. Experiment with Finder and I think you'll find out you can do as much or more than you could with Windows Explorer. Also remember OS X now enables use of the right mouse key which has a lot of similar options that are used by Windows.

Best thing is to experiment and look at the Apple tutorial videos.

Good luck!
 
pjmandmem said:
I can sympathize with this topic 100%. My wife bought a Macbook Air 2days ago and assumed I could get her up to speed quickly.

That being said I was able to set it up - connected to our wireless network and installed our HP printer - hoo rah.

Unfortunately, that's where I came to grindoing halt. I can't even figure outhow to create new folders to store Word & Excel files I want to transfer from her PC.

Is there a Mac Functionality for Dummys available?
Click to expand...

Right click -> New Folder, just like on Windows. It's not rocket science. This works on the desktop and in any other folder.
 
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