switcher with dumb questions

[gekko513]

Thanks Cless, much nicer now, is there some reason why someone would want that dock there all the time? Is there some disadvantage to having that hidden? I just like things to be as uncluttered as possible. Thanks

I just put the office cd in, computer started humming but didnt do anything, where do I go to install it? Thanks

Sure, there are lots of reasons to have the dock there. There is no start menu in OS X, the dock will fill it's purpose and more. You keep the applications that you use most often there. It is also very convenient for opening files. Just drag a file to the dock icon of the application where you want it to open. I use that frequently for images. Drag an image from iPhoto to the Photoshop Element icon and it opens in Photoshop Elements for editing.

You can also use the Dock to switch between apps, although that can be done with Command-tab or Exposé (F9), too. There's also Command+< to cycle between different windows in the same application.

You can do all this with the dock set to automatically hide, too, but I use it so often that I like to keep it there at all times.

Some more dock tips:
1. There is a divider line in the dock. You can drag documents or folders to the right side of this divider line. Drag the Applications folder there if you want a start menu replacer.
2. Ctrl+click or right mouse click the divider line to quickly change dock options.
3. Drag the divider line to resize the dock.

 

[thorshammer88]

Thanks, I got office installed, Im just used to it popping up when I insert the CD like in windows. Why does the little arrow still appear under an icon even after I close it? Like with my address book, even after I close it it still shows up with an arrow underneath it and also appears when I scroll through my apps using command + tab but when i tab to it, it doesnt do anything, I figured it wouldnt since I dont have it open to begin with, but how do I get it to go away? Thanks

 

[gekko513]

Thanks, I got office installed, Im just used to it popping up when I insert the CD like in windows. Why does the little arrow still appear under an icon even after I close it? Like with my address book, even after I close it it still shows up with an arrow underneath it and also appears when I scroll through my apps using command + tab but when i tab to it, it doesnt do anything, I figured it wouldnt since I dont have it open to begin with, but how do I get it to go away? Thanks

Most apps don't quit even if you close it's window. For many applications it still makes sense to run even if there are no windows open for it. To really quit an application you must select quit from the menu or hit command+q.

Edit: It does actually do something when you command+tab to it. It displays the menu bar for the application.

 

[iBlue]

if you have an external mouse you can also right click and quit the application.

you'll get more used to it and probably love it - I've found that because I learned on a Windows OS that switching to Mac was strange because I was taught to "think difficult"... Half the time the solution on a Mac is so simple that it doesn't seem real. (i.e., most programs need only be drug into the trash and trash emptied to uninstall) I'm still learning though; there's always something to learn.

The Finder and help ("mac help" in the menu) will be useful, a lot of info is sitting on your mac waiting for you to read it

 

[maxterpiece]

I just put the office cd in, computer started humming but didnt do anything, where do I go to install it? Thanks

There are no Auto-Executables in Mac OS. Everything is drag and drop. SO, to install an app from a CD, you put the CD in, the CD will then show up on the desktop. Usually you then just open the CD and drag the the program icon into your applications folder. Everything copies and you're done. Some programs still run installers, but I don't think Office does.

You can also use the Dock to switch between apps, although that can be done with Command-tab or Exposé (F9), too. There's also Command+< to cycle between different windows in the same application.

Yes, Thor, I highly recommend this it is the easiest way to switch from window to window. Just press F9 once and all your open windows shrink so that they all fit on your screen at once. You can then click a window and it immediately zooms back to its normal size and comes to the front.

thanks everybody, My brain is on system overload, I'm trying to take all this in. When I push command + ` it doesnt seem to do anything. When I hit command + tab a window pops up and lets me scroll through all my open apps, but when I scoll through them it doesnt put them up on the screen it just changes on the top next to the blue apple.

An important and sometimes hard to understand conceptual difference between OS X and Windows is that a program can be open without having any windows open. In order to actually close a program you have to go to the file menu and select 'quit' or just hold apple and press Q. Just about all programs except for some very basic ones work this way.

If you still have a program open with no windows open, you will be able to cycle to it using apple-tab, but once you bring it up, nothing will come up on your screen except the application name next to the blue apple. The purpose of this is so you can save yourself the load time of reopening a program you use regularly every time you want to use it. OS X doesn't mind having a lot of programs open at once (it won't slow it down), so if you are planning on using an app again, it is often a better idea to just leave it open with all of the windows closed.

Now another important difference is that OS X also differentiates between windows in different applications. For example, say you have 2 office documents open, and 2 safari browser windows. Apple-Tab will only cycle you through 2 different windows - whatever browser window you had in the front and whatever office document you had in the front. Also keep in mind that OS X wont actually switch programs until you let go of the apple key.

Now, in order to cycle through the windows within an application you have to use apple- " ` " - yes that's the button right above tab. In the above example this would cycle you through your open office documents if you have office in the front.

Now as Gekko has suggested, you can just use Exposé instead. Press F9 and don't worry about apple tab or apple - ` again.

 

[thorshammer88]

thanks for the offer Cless, Now that I know some of the basics its getting a little easier

Yes, some of the conceptual differences are a little hard to get used to. I'm so used to using alt + tab to scroll between any open apps. Like with an open browser I'll just get used to clicking between tabs at the top of the screen.

The command + tab key doesnt seem to be doing much for me. I have two safari browsers open but command + tab wont scroll between them.

 

[killmoms]

thanks for the offer Cless, Now that I know some of the basics its getting a little easier

Yes, some of the conceptual differences are a little hard to get used to. I'm so used to using alt + tab to scroll between any open apps. Like with an open browser I'll just get used to clicking between tabs at the top of the screen.

The command + tab key doesnt seem to be doing much for me. I have two safari browsers open but command + tab wont scroll between them.

Command + tab is like alt+tab in Windows, but for entire applications only. Command + ` will flip between windows in one application (i.e. multiple Safari windows). The reason for this delineation is that applications and windows have a clear parent-child relationship in OS X, unlike in Windows.

The F9 Exposé tends to be more useful in Mac OS X. Or F10, to do windows within a single application. You can also bind Exposé functions to screen corners, though that's a bit more advanced. Give yourself a couple weeks to get used to things like Exposé and you'll end up wondering how you ever lived without them.

 

[thorshammer88]

my bad, I was using firefox which doesnt seem to allow that. I opened multiple browsers in Safari and it worked fine. Looks like Ill be using Safari from now on. Now that I have the command + tab and command + ` difference worked out this is going much easier thanks.

 

[kidA]

The command + tab key doesnt seem to be doing much for me. I have two safari browsers open but command + tab wont scroll between them.

cmd-tab toggles between applications. two safari windows being open are not two different applications, or even two instances of the same application. they are two windows open in the same application. cmd-` (` is the key directly above tab and below escape. it is also the ~ key) toggles between open windows within a single application.

so, say you have open: three safari windows, two word documents, two pdf documents in preview, and address book. to switch from safari to word, you press cmd-tab. once you're in word, say you want to see the other document. you then press cmd-`, which will switch between the documents you have open. does that make sense?

 

[thorshammer88]

This is wierd, Now when I am try to toggle between two open safari browsers using command + ` it wont let me, before it was though. Did I change something?

 

[mfacey]

This is wierd, Now when I am try to toggle between two open safari browsers using command + ` it wont let me, before it was though. Did I change something?

The only thing I can imagine happened is that you clicked outside of the safari application somewhere (for example the desktop) and are therefore no longer "in" the application. When you're attempting to use command +` check if Safari is still named next to the apple logo on the top left of your screen. If not, you'll need to reselect safari through either command + tab or in your dock. Then it should work fine!

 

[Vanilla]

There is a lot of great advice for you already posted on this thread, but you may also find "Switching to the Mac - the missing manual" by David Pogue useful. It certainly helped me when I switched...

You can find it on Amazon here

Vanilla

 

[Vanilla]

This is wierd, Now when I am try to toggle between two open safari browsers using command + ` it wont let me, before it was though. Did I change something?

I guess you could always hit F9 to run EXPOSE and then select the window you want.....

vanilla

 

[PB_deprived]

An answer to the original question

...how do I get the browser to cover the entire screen similar to windows?... Thanks

I know this thread has evolved, but i couldn't help notice that this question never got answered. If you really want to make a window expand to fill your screen, simply hold down the shift key while clicking the green button in the upper-left part of the window. This will expand it to it's largest possible size.

Now, that being said, I would recommend against doing that for reasons others have made clear: There are many useful aspects to OS X that you would be limiting if you did this. Mind you, as you become more accustomed to using expose however, filling your screen with a web browser is less of a problem. I am a switcher myself, so I understand completely that there is a good deal of un-learning required. I have noticed with time though, that OS X's different parts, features, whatever, are so well designed and integrated, that I can do the same things I used to do on a windows machine, many times faster and more intuitively.

Anyhoo, whether or not you choose to use the shift-click feature, I just wanted you to know it's there if you need it.

Hope this helps

 

[mfacey]

I know this thread has evolved, but i couldn't help notice that this question never got answered. If you really want to make a window expand to fill your screen, simply hold down the shift key while clicking the green button in the upper-left part of the window. This will expand it to it's largest possible size.

Now, that being said, I would recommend against doing that for reasons others have made clear: There are many useful aspects to OS X that you would be limiting if you did this. Mind you, as you become more accustomed to using expose however, filling your screen with a web browser is less of a problem. I am a switcher myself, so I understand completely that there is a good deal of un-learning required. I have noticed with time though, that OS X's different parts, features, whatever, are so well designed and integrated, that I can do the same things I used to do on a windows machine, many times faster and more intuitively.

Anyhoo, whether or not you choose to use the shift-click feature, I just wanted you to know it's there if you need it.

Hope this helps

Learned something new again! Cool!


EDIT: Seems not to work the same in every app though. Mail - yes, Safari, Itunes - no. Weird.

 

[sourcemonkey]

Command + tab is like alt+tab in Windows, but for entire applications only. Command + ` will flip between windows in one application (i.e. multiple Safari windows). The reason for this delineation is that applications and windows have a clear parent-child relationship in OS X, unlike in Windows.

The F9 Exposé tends to be more useful in Mac OS X. Or F10, to do windows within a single application. You can also bind Exposé functions to screen corners, though that's a bit more advanced. Give yourself a couple weeks to get used to things like Exposé and you'll end up wondering how you ever lived without them.

I have to agree.

I personally don't really use 'command tab' at all. my apps are in the dock so they're one click away. expose is IMO a preeminent feature of OS X. i have 'show all windows' bound to the top right corner of my screen (bottom left for dashboard) and this makes for unbelievably quick access to whatever is going on.

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

Like I posted before, read this page, it will really help you, http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/

 

[thorshammer88]

Thanks Ive been reading that plymouth, its helping me figure out some of the questions that Ive been having.

Alright, this is the last thing thats really frustrating me. When I click on the link you posted Plymouth, it opens up a new browser, now if I click on one of the links listed on that page, it doesnt open a new browser, but instead uses the browser already there, unless I hit command click which opens up a new one. Now I have five browsers open for the chapters listed on that mac 101 tutorial, but when I try to scroll through them by using command + ` it just scrolls me between the macrumors page and whichever of the five chapters I last clicked on. I would like to be able to just scroll between the chapters I opened using command click. Does that make any sense? I have trouble explaining exactly what Im trying to do. Thanks

 

[PlaceofDis]

Thanks Ive been reading that plymouth, its helping me figure out some of the questions that Ive been having.

Alright, this is the last thing thats really frustrating me. When I click on the link you posted Plymouth, it opens up a new browser, now if I click on one of the links listed on that page, it doesnt open a new browser, but instead uses the browser already there, unless I hit command click which opens up a new one. Now I have five browsers open for the chapters listed on that mac 101 tutorial, but when I try to scroll through them by using command + ` it just scrolls me between the macrumors page and whichever of the five chapters I last clicked on. I would like to be able to just scroll between the chapters I opened using command click. Does that make any sense? I have trouble explaining exactly what Im trying to do. Thanks

what browser are you useing? Safari, Firefox, Camino?

one easy way is when you click a link and hold the command key it will open a new tab, but to cycle through open windows is application specific. look under Window on the menubar and see if that allows you to cycle through the open windows

 

[thorshammer88]

Thanks, Im using Safari. What do you mean by looking under window in the menubar?

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

I'd really suggest using Tabs...

Under Safari, go to Preferences, and then Tabs. Enable Tabs.

 

[mkrishnan]

Thanks, Im using Safari. What do you mean by looking under window in the menubar?

He means that if you click on Window in the menu bar, at the bottom of the menu is a list of all open windows, and you can select whichever you want.

On using Cmd-` to cycle through windows: If you hold down the command button, and press the ` button multiple times (without letting go of command) it will keep cycling through all the windows. If you hit command-` and then let go of both keys and then do it again, it will alternate back and forth between those two windows. I think this behavior is identical to the behavior in Windows, actually. Same is also true for Command-Tab for applications.

One more vote for using tabs, though. After you enable tabs, you can switch between the different pages in the different tabs by command-shift-right/left. Much much better.

 

[talz13]

One more vote for using tabs, though. After you enable tabs, you can switch between the different pages in the different tabs by command-shift-right/left. Much much better.

Or command-shift-{/} for left or right

 

[njmac]

You can also use tabs in Safari which are really convenient. However tabs are disabled by default. To enable them go to Safari (in the menu bar) > Preferences > Tabs > Enable tabbed browsing. Once you do that, you can simply press Command + T to open new tabs

EDIT: I could have sworn I did not see wordmunger's post oh well.

Holy crap! I've been using safari since Feb '04 and I had no idea you could do that! I thought it was for your menu bar, when you have a folder and it opens all of the links from your folder in tabs. Thanks

 

[sourcemonkey]

I'm not trying to be 'funny' (just curious) but why doesn't everyone just use expose? that way, for example, if you want another page you can show all pages by hotcorner and pick the one you want. this has three advantages: you can see all the possible pages; your non-mouse hand is free; and you save space on your screen by not having the tabs bar. (which is a big deal on my 12" ibook).

am i missing something here?