I became a Mac user a little less than one year ago; before that I was primarily a Windows user. In this article I'm going to show you how to make the transition yourself.
Apple's "Switch" ad campaign has driven a lot of Windows users to Apple stores as well as to Apple's Web site in search of more information about the platform. Apple tells us that over 60 percent of the visits to apple.com/switch have been made from a Windows computer. The other 40 percent are more than likely made up of Unix and Linux users, as well as curious Mac users.
I also believe that OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) is going to be a big draw for new users. Mac OS X was driving force in my interest in the Mac platform and I bought my iBook when Apple started preloading it (Mac OS X 10.1) on its computers.
So, if you're contemplating a switch to Mac, or if you're just getting frustrated with Windows, this article is for you. It may also prove beneficial to new Mac users, like Astrid Storm, who is an Episcopal priest who considers herself a victim of the Switch campaign. Maybe Astrid would be happier if she had read a piece or two like this one after setting up her new Mac.
And finally, if you know someone who is thinking of taking the leap, send them a link to this article. My hope is that this information will help those people with their decision.
Mac OS X has native support for two-button mousing devices as well as the almost ubiquitous scroll wheel. Incidentally, I use a Logitech Dual Optical Mouse with my Macintosh. You don't need to load any drivers to get them to work either, just plug them in. However, if you would like to use a mouse with more than two buttons, you'll want to make sure there is Mac OS X software for the model you buy.
However, you don't need a two-button mouse to get the same context-click functionality you might be familiar with in Windows. You can context-click on a Mac by right-clicking, control-clicking, and by pressing. Pressing has other names, such as click-and-hold or half-click. The action here is to press the mouse button down but not release it. (Control-clicking is holding down the Control key (ctrl) while clicking.)
And for those of you who ask why Apple still chooses to ship a one-button mouse standard, I'll offer you this. Most of the Windows users I know do not use the secondary mouse button. I actually did telephone support for Microsoft at one point in my life and getting the average caller to understand what a "right-click" was stretches the bounds of your average techie's patience. A one-button mouse is also usable by people who lack the dexterity to manipulate a multibutton mouse. I recently heard from one Mac user who said he keeps his Apple Pro Mouse around for when his children need to use the computer; they aren't capable of using his multibutton mouse.
Kensington, a company that makes peripherals primarily for the Macintosh, has developed a wonderful new mouse called the StudioMouse. It has three buttons, comes with software to allow you to program its functionality, and boasts a touch sensor that replaces a scroll wheel. I may get one because the scroll wheel often hurts my finger during marathon computing sessions.
One of the first things you'll want to do is drag your Applications folder to the Dock. The Dock is the strip of icons located at the bottom of your screen by default.
Click on the Finder icon (it's the first icon) in the Dock to launch a Finder window. Select Go from the menubar (at the top of your screen) and then select Computer. Double-click on the hard drive icon, it should be labeled Macintosh HD. You'll see a folder labeled Applications, which has a letter "A" on it. Drag that folder to your Dock and place it to the right of the separator bar. From now on you'll have easy access to all of your Applications.
As an added bonus, if you context-click on the Applications folder in the Dock you'll get a contextual menu of all your applications, similar to Windows' Start Menu, which you can use to launch them from. Some other folders that you may or may not find handy to have in the Dock are your Home folder (it's named after your username) and your Documents folder.
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I also recommend placing your Dock on the side of your screen. It's best to not have it take up vertical space because that's what you run out of first. Horizontal space is usually bountiful on computer displays, especially if you have one of Apple's beautiful Cinema Displays. I tried the Dock on the left initially, because I'm used to accessing the Start Menu on the left-hand side. However, because most of my windows open on the left, I moved the Dock to the right to get it out of the way of those few applications that don't behave well. You can set the position through Dock preferences via the Apple menu in the menubar.
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Another neat trick is to turn on magnification, yet set the magnification to a low level. I have mine set somewhere below 25 percent. This causes magnification to kick in only when you've placed enough icons or minimized enough windows to make the size dip below the threshold. You'll never have to worry about icons in the Dock being too small.
If you're running Max OS X on a slower computer, such as my iBook, you might want to look into setting the Dock to minimize using Scale Effect--that is if you can bear changing it from the delicious but difficult-to-render Genie Effect. Mind you, Genie performs much better on a computer running Jaguar. It is especially better on a computer with a powerful enough video subsystem to drive Quartz Extreme.
To put new applications in your Dock all you have to do is drag the application file to the Dock and it'll be there from then on. You can also context-click on the icon of any running application and select Keep In Dock. Removing applications from the Dock is just as easy: simply drag it from the Dock and the icon will disappear in a puff of smoke--seriously. Don't worry, your application will still be fine. It's merely the icon in the Dock that has been banished.
Task switching in Mac OS X is a bit different than in Windows. You'll need to use Command+Tab instead of Alt+Tab. Thankfully, the keys are in about the same location. In previous versions of Mac OS X, task switching occurred in the order that the applications appeared in the Dock. As of 10.2 task switching still follows the order of applications as they appear in your Dock, but now starts with your last used application. In other words, all you have to do to switch to the last used application is hit Command+Tab. Holding down Shift reverses the direction and you can hit Q while you have an application icon highlighted to quit it. This is a lot more like Windows and obviously Apple agrees with me that it is more logical than strictly following the order of icons in the Dock.
With that aside, I'd like to introduce you to LiteSwitch X. It brings the Windows functionality (and much more) to Mac OS X in a beautiful package. I have LiteSwitch X set up to use Alt+Tab (also referred to as Option+Tab) as the task-switching function. It cannot override Jaguar's keybindings. You have access to a lot of features by pressing certain keys while an application is highlighted. For instance, you can mark a group of applications for termination by hitting Q--they'll terminate once you release the Command key. You can also hide and show, quit immediately, force quit, or hide all other applications through a simple keypress. Dragging a file onto an application while you have the LiteSwitch menu up will open the file in the application. You can also context-click on the icons in the LiteSwitch menu.
How much does all of this functionality cost? It's free. Although I'm definitely willing to kick $10 Proteron's way if it'll increase the chances they will continue to support it.
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In the past, I almost had to use LiteSwitch to get any work done. But now with Jaguar's new functionality I'll have to see if I can go it alone without LiteSwitch X.
Apple takes advantage of using symbols to represent certain keypresses in menus and elsewhere in the operating system. However, if you don't know what these symbols mean, you'll be lost, as I was for at least a week or two. That's why I created this cheat sheet for you. Below you'll see an image I created that you can save for reference in your first few days of Mac use.
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Windows 3.0 and later borrowed a lot of key combinations from the Macintosh, so it shouldn't take you too long to get used to them here. However, there are several other combinations that Apple has standardized, which are missing from Windows. Next you'll see a layout of many useful commands with their corresponding keypress symbols.
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Feel free to print this image out and tack it up to your wall for a few weeks.
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The Finder is the Mac equivalent of Window's Explorer. Most users don't even know what Explorer is in Windows because it is normally accessed via the My Computer icon. On the Mac you access the file browser through the Finder icon in the Dock, or alternatively, from disks you may have mounted on your desktop.
In Explorer, pressing Enter while you have a file selected will either open the file or run it. In Finder, pressing Enter allows you to rename the file. To launch the file, you should use the Command+O key combo. At first this may sound counter-intuitive to a Windows user--as it did to me. The explanation I have heard is that Macs tend to have the default action be one that is non-destructive. Using Enter to open a file could be seen as disruptive, if not destructive, and if for some reason you enter rename mode by accident, hitting Enter again will end rename mode with no changes made. I've come to enjoy the quick access of renaming a file because I do that rather frequently, and Command+O is easy to use and remember.
You'll get a lot of use out of the Command key while using Finder. Command+O also opens a folder if it happens to be the selected item. You need to use the key combination Command+Delete instead of simply hitting the delete key to delete files. It's great. Apple has made deleting files deliberate without annoying prompts. Command, when used in conjunction with the up-arrow and down-arrow will issue back and forward commands respectively. This will function much like the buttons in any Web browser.
While Finder is active, clicking on it in the menubar will give you access to its preferences. I would advise settings the option to show Home in new Finder windows. It will give you fast access to all of your documents and files, and since your Applications folder will be in the Dock you'll rarely need to access other folders on your hard drive. In the same vein, I would uncheck the option for showing hard disks on the desktop--unless you just can't get away from having something like Window's "My Computer" on your desktop.
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The Mac OS X Finder gives you three ways to view your files: icon, list, and column view. Icon view shows icons of any size from 16-by-16 pixels (that's pretty small) to 128-by-128 pixels (mammoth in relation to Windows' icons), along with labels displaying the filenames below or to the right, and optionally, some meta-data about the file. Folders are intermixed with files according to your configured arrangement order.
List view lists all the file and folders in your current folder and places an arrow next to folders. You can expand folders and the arrow will point down to reflect the fact that Finder is now also displaying the folder's files indented below it.
Column view is very useful and is also the view used in file open and save sheets. (Mac OS X replaces dialog boxes with sheets that slide down from the title bar of the window they are associated with.) It has one column for each folder. Deeper folders are displayed to the right and more shallow folders to the left. If you have a file selected, the right-most column will display a preview of the file. I'm using this view as I write this article to sample some MP3 files, without having to launch iTunes or QuickTime. You can type Command+J to access view options for Finder.
You can customize the Finder's toolbar from the View menu. But, one of the best ways to customize its toolbar is to drag a folder into it to give yourself a shortcut to that folder.
You can copy and paste files in the Finder just like you do in Windows via the Command+C and Command+V combinations. However, you cannot cut files. That's a good thing. Microsoft chose to implement cut in a way that is inconsistent with the standard cut, copy, and paste metaphor. The only way to do it so that it is consistent is also dangerous. You don't want to cut files and wind up losing them because you forgot to paste them.
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Many applications for Mac OS X are distributed as disk images. Disk images are files that represent the layout of a physical disk. They're also used to create images of CD-ROM discs for burning to CD-R at a later date. To install an application that is distributed as a disk image, all you have to do is mount it by double-clicking on the file. Once the image is mounted, just open the disk (they appear as white, external disk drives in Finder) and copy your application to the Applications folder or any folder under it. Some applications may use an installer instead of drag-and-drop installation.
One of the most difficult things for me to understand about how Mac OS X works is uninstalling an application. During my first week I wanted to remove an application from the system and immediately opened System Preferences to look for an uninstaller. I finally figured out that all you have to do is drag the undesirable application to the trash. Now this is the way computing should be.
Even to this day I have a voracious appetite for new and cool applications for my Mac. I'd like to share a few of my favorites with you:
SearchGoogle Service allows you to search for your currently selected text using Google. Services are a great feature of Mac OS X. Instead of having to put interoperation menus in every separate application, Apple has the Services menu under the application name in the menu bar. This allows you to send selections or files to an email recipient by going to the Services menu and selecting Mail. That way you don't have to hope that the developer included a mail-to function in his or her application, as you do in Windows.
OmniWeb is a user-friendly Web browser for OS X. I love its user interface. Unfortunately, it is behind currently on standards compliance. The next version, 5.0, is supposed to bring it up to date. If you need current standards compliance in your browser, I would advise downloading Mozilla. Chimera is an up-and-coming Web browser that integrates Mozilla's Gecko rendering code into a native Mac OS interface.
Okito Composer is a word processor that is in development, but there is currently a preview version available for download. Version 1.0 should be ready in September. I look forward to using the first version of this because Microsoft Word has become increasingly frustrating since before Word 97.
Candy Cruncher is a great little game for passing time. Pyrogon's next game for Mac OS X will be NingPo MahJong.
TinkerTool is a program that you can use to enable or disable certain Mac OS X features that don't have an interface already exposed for them. I used to use this for a few things on my computer. But, Jaguar has brought enough of the features that TinkerTool has exposed in the past that I decided I no longer needed it. Still, many people appreciate what it can do. I would recommend not using TinkerTool until after you're comfortable with Mac OS X.
I hope that this has proven to be a good primer for the Mac OS X user experience. If there is something you're interested in that I didn't touch on feel free to post a comment in the discussion forum below.
Michael Brewer is a developer based near Charlotte, North Carolina. His interests include web development of various flavors, databases, and Java. One of the off-shoots of these activities is his website Brewed Thoughts.
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