Quick Mac guide for switchers from Windows: Adding to Walter Mossberg's tips

As switching from Windows to the Mac approaches national pastime status in the US, lots of new Mac owners are running into small speed bumps in the form of interface differences. The Wall Street Journal's inimitable technology columnist Walter Mossberg offers a helpful list of general tips to quickly acclimatize those jumping from Windows to Mac OS X (more specifically its latest version, 10.5 or "Leopard"). Take a read:

Some General Tips for Switch to Mac From Windows

While the guide is both useful and a nice quick read, some spots are a little too brief and miss finer points. With thanks to Mr Mossberg for his compilation, I'd like to repeat his tips (in blue) with clarifications and additions of my own. (Be sure to read the original article linked above, for added introductory information, reader comments, and helpful links.) 

Walter Mossberg's tips for switchers, with Mactivist's unsolicited commentary 

Menu Bars: In Windows, each program typically has its own menu bar. On the Mac, there’s a single menu bar at the top of the screen that changes, depending on which program you are actively using.

It's more helpful to note that in Windows, each window, not each program, has its own menu bar. (A program can have many windows, so a single Windows program may display many menu bars.) Conversely, in Mac OS X, each program has its own single menu bar, which, as noted above, always appears at the top of the screen.

To further describe the difference: In Windows, you can typically see a menu bar in every open window of every active program. In Mac OS X, you can only see one menu bar at a time, belonging to whichever program is "active" (that is, whichever program is "in front", ready to take your input). The commands in the menus will apply to the entire program, or to whichever of the program's windows is in front, as appropriate. 

Task Bar: The equivalent of the Windows XP Task Bar on the Mac is the Dock. Unlike the Task Bar, which primarily holds icons representing open windows, the Mac Dock primarily holds icons of programs you use most often. To place a program onto the Dock, you just drag its icon there. To remove it, you just drag its icon off the Dock and it disappears in a puff of animated smoke.

Let me expand on the word "primarily" in the description of what the Mac's Dock does. The Dock holds one-click icons for quick access to programs, folders, and more. Specifically, icons in the Dock represent:

• All active applications (indicated by a small blue dot under the icon in Leopard)
• Other applications which you want to quickly access (with no blue dot underneath until activated)
• Folders whose contents you want to quickly access
• Documents which you want to quickly access (i.e., open) 
• Any program windows which have been "minimized" (to temporarily clear them from the screen)
• The system-wide "Trash can"

That's a lot of stuff. Just think of the Dock icons as quick-access buttons for 1) all active applications, all minimized windows, and the Trash can; and 2) any applications, folders, and documents you want to get at easily.

(Incidentally, I've had a hard time explaining the Dock to one non-technical user, who had trouble with an application etc. being "in the Dock" and also "in the Finder" or "in such-and-such folder". I finally described the Dock's icons as buttons to get at the original object, which still lies in its original place. Like buttons in an elevator: the "5" button represents the fifth floor, and lets you get to the fifth floor, but the button isn't the fifth floor itself. I think that helped, but does anyone else find it enlightening? Or just more confusing?)

Start Menu: There is no Start Menu on a Mac. Its functions are divided between the Dock and the Apple menu at the upper left of the Mac screen.

The Windows Start Menu's one-stop functionality can be handy, so its disappearance is disconcerting for some switchers. It may help to think of the Mac OS X replacements in this way:

• Apple menu: Go there for things related to controiing the computer overall: restart, shutdown, logging out, System Preferences (Control Panel in Windows parlance), software updates, etc.
• Dock: Go there for quick access to all Dock items described earlier: active applications, other favorite applications, favorite folders and documents, minimized windows, etc.

I have to add, though, that the two together don't necessarily offer access to everything. If you want to get at an application or document not appearing in the Dock (or in the Apple menu's handy "Recent Items" menu item), you'll have to use a program called Finder, the Mac OS X's equivalent of Windows Explorer.

Fortunately, it's simple to make your Dock as useful as you like: by placing icons for key folders like Documents and Applications – or even for your entire hard drive – into the Dock, you can truly get at any application or document from the Dock.

The team of a well-prepped Dock plus the Apple menu offers you far better access to everything and anything than does Windows' combination of the Start Menu and Task Bar!

Control Panel: The Mac equivalent of the Windows Control Panel is called System Preferences, and it can be launched from either the Dock or the Apple menu.

System Preferences is a single application in Mac OS X. It can always be launched from the Apple menu, as noted above, and also from a place not noted: from its location with the Applications folder.

It can also be launched from the Dock, per the above – if its icon appears in the Dock! Macs ship with a System Preferences sitting handily in the Dock, but a user may have removed it. If that's the case, you might want to place it back into the Dock for easy access in the future. 

Keyboard shortcuts: Common Windows keyboard commands, such as Ctrl-S for Save, Ctrl-P for Print, and many others, are also available on the Mac. However, instead of using the Control key, they use the Mac’s Command key, which bears either a cloverlike symbol or an Apple logo. So, on the Mac, for instance, Command-S is for Save.

All true. It's also worth noting that keyboard shortcuts are famously more consistent across applications in Mac OS X than in Windows, a nice aid for new switchers and experienced users alike.

Quitting programs: In Windows, you can quit a program by clicking on the red “X” in a square at the upper right corner of the window you’re using. But on the Mac, if you click on the equivalent button — a red “X” in a circle in the upper left corner — you are merely closing the window, not quitting the program. To quit the program, you must either select Quit from the leftmost menu or press the Command and “Q” keys together.

This calls for clarification. Contrary to the above, clicking the red "X" in the upper right corner of a window in Windows doesn't necessarily quit a program. It only closes the window, the same as in Mac OS X. However, if that window was the program's last (or only) window, then Windows does indeed quite the program entirely, as described above.

What's different on a Mac? As described above, if the program has multiple windows (or can have multiple windows), then closing a window only closes the window, and nothing more – even if it's the last window! The program remains active, as is indicated by the "active application" blue dot under its icon in the Dock, and its Menu bar at the top of the screen. So, despite no open windows, you can still use the program's Menu bar to perform usual functions, such as calling up a new window, opening preferences, or finally shutting down the program. This behavior is different from Windows.

However, here's the kicker: if a Mac program has only one window and can have only one window, then closing the window will typically close the application as well. This behavior resembles Windows.

is the Mac method inconsistent? No, there's a logic behind it – though many experienced Mac users themselves fail to grasp it. It's this:

If a program can have multiple windows, as a web browser or word processor can, then closing the last window is not necessarily a sign that you want to shut down the program. You might very well want to simply close the single open word processor document, and then start a new one, for example. Mac OS X makes no assumptions about what you want here, and lets you actively shut down the program when you're ready. (Think of it this way: if a program can have any number of windows open, "zero windows" is just another valid possibility. The Menu bar – sort of an "honorary window" itself – remains available for giving new commands to the program. )

But if a program can have only one window, like Mac OS X's little Calculator program, then in all likelihood, you're closing the window because you're just plain done with the program. True, you could think of contrived exceptions to that, but it's logical for Mac OS X to assume that by closing a one-window application, you're indicating that you're finished using it. 

There you go. It takes a lot of words to describe Mac vs Windows behavior in detail on this point, but it's a minor issue to begin with, and in the end you'll probably find the Mac's behavior perfectly comfortable.

Maximizing windows: When you click on the blue maximize button in Windows XP, the window you are viewing occupies the whole screen. In Leopard, the equivalent button — a green circle at the upper left — increases a small window’s size to a footprint deemed optimal for its contents, which isn’t always the whole screen.

Mossberg's word "optimal" neatly catches the general intent of the button. Let me add that in practice, the green button's intent is a bit of a black box. It'll toggle back and forth between the window's current size (and position) and some other size (and position) that Mac OS X deems "optimal". (The user may not always agree...) Or it can toggle between two sizes/positions, both set in turn by the user. Or in some cases, as in iTunes, it can change the appearance of the window.

You'll need to experiment to get the feel of it. Just keep in mind that it's generally a handy button when a window shows up too small, or partly off-screen, or otherwise inconveniently; a quick click on the green button can smarten up the window faster than manual moving and reshaping will. (Usually.)

Note too that many applications will have a Menu bar heading called "Window", with a "Zoom" command underneath, which will perform the same task as the green button.

Switching programs: One common way to switch among running programs in Windows XP is to press Alt and Tab together. This displays icons of each running program and allows you to switch among them. On a Mac, the same trick can be performed by pressing the Command and Tab keys together. The Mac also has a terrific feature called Expose, which shows every open window at once, in miniature form, so you can navigate among them. You can trigger Expose in a number of ways, but the most common is to hit either the F9 key or the dedicated Expose key, depending on your Mac model.

This is all good, but two notes are in order:

1) Exposé is Mac OS X's preferred way to switch among open windows, not among applications. That is, switching to a window that belongs to iTunes is naturally a way to switch to iTunes; no objection there. But to split hairs, selecting an Exposé window as described issues the command "Take me to this window!", and not the command "Take me to iTunes!".  (When showing all windows as Mossberg describes, Exposé doesn't even make clear to the user what windows belong to what applications.)

2) The good Mr Mossberg doesn't mention the canonical way to switch among applications in Mac OS X: just click on the application's Dock icon! (Remember, active applications always have an icon in the Dock.)

Right-clicking: Contrary to common belief, the Mac has a right-click menu function, just like Windows. Most desktop Macs now come with a mouse that allows right-clicking, and you can use almost any two-button USB mouse with any modern Mac. If you are using a Mac laptop, which has only one button under the track pad, you can simulate a right-click by either holding down the Control key when you click, or by placing two fingers on the track pad while clicking. The latter technique, which I favor, must first be turned on in System Preferences. 

One important note on the above: while any Mac running Mac OS X should be fine with either a multi-button mouse or the Control key method described above, the two-finger track pad approach will work only on more recent Mac laptops.

Screen: Your desktop picture and screen saver on a Mac are set via a System Preference called Desktop & Screen Saver. Screen resolution is set in the Displays System Preference. In Windows XP, all of these things are included in the Display control panel.

I can't think of any comment to add to that one.

All in all, a good list from Walter Mossberg. I hope his list, with the extra notes above, will help any Windows user leap right over those "hey, things are different!" hurdles.

Any questions, switchers?

Are there any points still unclear in your upgrade from Windows to Mac OS X? I'm an experienced switcher myself, so fire away!