the dock and viewing individual files

[bj70]

I often have many excel files open at the same time. When I had a windows machine those individual files would appear in the 'taskbar' and I could switch between simply by clicking on each one because they had their own space (small rectangle at the bottom of the screen). I've noted with the mac the I need to minimise (yellow dot) the open file to find the one I want. Is there a setting that will show all open files at the bottom of my screen instead of having to minimise all the time?

Also on a side note.... another annoying aspect is when minimising eg Chrome, the Chrome menu will still be at the top of the screen, meanwhile another screen that was the layer behind (eg, excel) is shown. Chrome menu bar, excel main window. Seems weird? Any way to stop this happening?

 

[ApfelKuchen]

There's no need to minimize windows the way you describe unless you simply want to reduce the clutter on the desktop.

If you have multiple windows open for the same app (eg. multiple Excel spreadsheets), you can right-click/control-click on the app's Dock icon to select the window you want to bring to the top/de-minimize (I can't call it maximize because on Mac "maximum" is full-screen mode, which takes an additional step to achieve). The same functionality is available from the Window menu in the Menu Bar.

As to your "minimizing Chrome" issue... Chrome allows for multiple open windows, so clicking the minimize button on a window (even if it's the only open window) minimizes only that window, not the entire app. To minimize the entire app you can either select Hide from the app's dropdown menu (Chrome > Hide) or use the standard Hide keyboard shortcut: Command H.

You have to be willing to accept that different is different. You can't make a Windows PC mimic a Mac and can't make a Mac mimic Windows. There are ways in which they work essentially the same, there are other aspects that will remain distinctive to that OS.

 

[prosopopeia2112]

Both of these sound like typical blues for someone trying to get their Mac to act like a PC, which it won't always go along with. Let me start with the second point. When you minimize Chrome or Safari or most other application windows, you're not exiting the program as perhaps you are in Windows. You're just putting the windows in the Dock and the app is still running, and still in the foreground. So, Chrome is still the foreground application--it just doesn't happen to have an open, visible window, so you can see whatever's behind it. That's normal behavior (if slightly confusing--why would you want an app running with no open windows?), and I don't think there's any way to change it.

On the first point, you're trying to use the Dock like the Windows taskbar, and it isn't, so it will keep resisting you. The Dock is for a few frequently used applications, folders, and files, and is largely static (i.e., unchanging). There is, however, a way to suddenly see all open documents and windows, and that's the Mission Control button (the F3 button, or a gesture with the Trackpad) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Control_(macOS)). In particular, you want "App Exposé" version (ctrl-F3), which will show all open and minimized windows in whatever the current app is. Then you select the document you want and keep working. It's very handy when you have a lot of windows open, especially if they all take up most of the screen (typical of Excel documents).

 

[deeddawg]

I often have many excel files open at the same time. When I had a windows machine those individual files would appear in the 'taskbar' and I could switch between simply by clicking on each one because they had their own space (small rectangle at the bottom of the screen). I've noted with the mac the I need to minimise (yellow dot) the open file to find the one I want. Is there a setting that will show all open files at the bottom of my screen instead of having to minimise all the time?

This is the sort of thing Mission Control is great for - give it a try.

See Use Mission Control on your Mac - Apple Support

You can also use Command-` to move through the different windows within the application.

Also on a side note.... another annoying aspect is when minimising eg Chrome, the Chrome menu will still be at the top of the screen, meanwhile another screen that was the layer behind (eg, excel) is shown. Chrome menu bar, excel main window. Seems weird? Any way to stop this happening?

When you minimize Chrome it remains the active application (menu @ top of screen) until you make another application the active one by clicking on the desktop background or one of the other application windows.

You'll also notice that closing the last window of an application (red dot) doesn't exit the application.

Just another of the various different nuances between Windows and macOS.