10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows...
Being the sort of guy who likes to use keyboard shortcuts rather than having to reach for the mouse all the time, I felt a bit hostile once I got my new Macbook Pro. I knew how to do task X or Y on Windows with a few keystrokes, but having moved to Mac OS X (read 10 not X, as I made the mistake!), I found myself feeling annoyed that I didn't know my way around the OS smoothly.
So I searched the Internet to find out about some of the more obscure shortcuts. Below I've listed and explained some shortcuts that a new Mac user, especially those coming from a Windows environment, may not be aware of. It's definitely made my life easier, hopefully you're a new mac user, these will be of use.
1. Forward Delete On a Windows computer, the Backspace key deletes from right to left, where as the Delete key is used to delete from left to right (i.e. forward delete). But on a mac, there is no delete key (at least not the MBP). So at first I found myself clicking everywhere on emails to delete! So the solution: Fn+Delete. Simple!
2. Expose with F9 I found it annoying that I had to click Fn+F9 to bring Expose up. If I clicked F9, it would change the keyboard light intensity. So, the hardware F9 and the sofware F9 have to be swapped. This is how: Go to System Preferences > Keyboard and Mouse, click the Keyboard tab and check the box that says "Use the F1-F12 keys to control software features". Now when you press F9, it will bring Expose and when you press Fn+F9 it will change the keyboard light intensity. This is the same for the other keys like volume and display brightness. For example, the volume increase is situated on F5, which is used as the refresh button in browsers in Windows. By ticking the box mentioned above, you can use F5 to refresh you browser now!
3. Right Click Windows users love their right click button! It just doesn't make sense to have a computer without it! Well... Macs don't! They have what is called a contextual menu, and it is evoked by control clicking. Now there's two things you can do: First one works in Firefox (I couldn't get it to work in other programs or in Finder). All you do is click and hold and very soon the contextual menu appeares. You can do that anywhere: links, tabs, bookmarks, etc. Other method, which works everywhere is done as follows. First, go to System Preference > Keyboard and Mouse. Go to the Trackpad tab (assuming MBP) and click the "Tap trackpad using two fingers for secondary click". Now if you two-finger-click on the trackpad, the right click menu appears! So convenient, specially when combined with two finger scrolling.
4. Tab key Again, whenever I faced a dialog box with buttons, I used the tab key to navigate between the buttons. On a webpage, this was also true. On a mac, you'll probably get confused, as the tab key doesn't do that! Again, head over to System Preferences > Keyboard and Mouse, then go to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab and click the radio button at the end saying "All controls". Now you can use tab to move around just like windows! Still one thing left... say you have the shutdown dialog box and you use the tab key to navigate to Sleep, if you press Enter, it will shutdown, even though the blue highlight is around the Sleep button. You have to press the Spacebar instead! Confusing at first!
5. Shutdown shortcut Speaking of the shutdown dialog, you can bring it up using Control+eject. In Windows I used Win Key+U, then U again.
6. Maximise button and what it does So you press the green maximise button, but it doesn't maximise? Well, the button only maximises as much is neccessary. So, say you are reading a PDF document. If you zoom in on your document and then press maximise, you will see that the window will become large enough to hold the whole document. And if you zoom out and press the green button again, it will shrink to fit it. Again, different to Windows and needs some getting used to!
7. Alternative to minmise We saw what the maximise button does, what about the minimise button? Well, it "sucks" (as I like to call it) the document to the dock. What is the point of minimising? To clear your screen, to get rid of clutter. So, you can try these two alternatives depending on the need. Either press F11 to see the desktop, or press Command+H to hide the current window, which is what I tend to do.
8. Moving menu bar icons In Windows you can't move the task bar icons (or I don't know how), but on Mac, you can Command click them and move them around. Neat!
9. No Ctrl+Al+Delete ? I always clicked that well known combination to see my RAM and network usage and see what applications are running. On the Mac, go to Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor. Also, you can click Option+Command+Esc to bring up the Force Quit menu, if you need to quit any application that is not responding.
10. Cool shortcut combo To finish off, I'l give a cool (relatively) shortcut combination. Clicking Control+Option+Command+8 will turn the screen in some sort of high contrast mode, but more like an X-ray screen! Try it, it's fun! Hopefully, at least there has been one tip that has been useful to you. Please share other tips and tricks that you know in the comments. It is always interesting to learn new things.
Update: This article has been translated into Japanese at netafull.net. Visit here to read it.
Comments
I always confused with mac keyboard shortcut, thank a lot!
Another alternative to delete on a Mac is ctrl-D
Control-Option-Command-Eject will shutdown the computer without the dialog box.
In addition to X-Ray Mode, you can hit command-option-8, then command-option-+ and - to zoom in and out on the screen. It lets you make anything fullscreen.
I switched the other way, from MacOS X to Windows. Although I liked the pretty Apple hardware, I found MacOSX slow and restrictive. The user interface was truly awful, and there always seemed to be an 'Apple knows best, you shall do it our way' feeling about the whole thing. I also found that it performed very poorly with my code (I am a software developer), which was very performance critical, and depended on having a quality multiprocessor kernel that supports high thread counts. If you are switching from Windows to MacOSX, be prepared for serious frustration, and be prepared to switch back. Ultimately, I'd like to use Linux, but there are still applications that I just can't get running with WINE, and for which there are no (known??) Linux equivelents.
Great post.. very helpful.
option+apple + 8 to turn on
after press
option apple + (+ or -)
this will allow you to zoom in realtime which really comes in handy when you are trying to fill up the screen with videos embedded in websites
And don't forget about the great zoom feature of Mac OSX. Press Command+Option+8 an enable/disbale this feature. When enabled press Command+Option+ + or - to zoom in or out from the mouse cursor.
It's great for watching small movies on the web, you can zoom it to make it take up more screen space.
First of all, right clicking works perfectly fine, just go and spend a few dollars on a usb mouse or a mighty mouse, now guess what, right click and it works; also right clicking does work in almost any place you need it to not just firefox, you can right click delete just like windows.
next, i would like to make a point of the green "maximize button" this is not a maximize button, it is whatever the developer choses it to be, and yes it tends to expand the window to a larger space, however most apps just need to be click resized in the bottom right corner.
I dont know what this tab key crap is, i use tab all the time and yes it jumps from one box or object to the next without a change from the default install.
your activity monitor ... Apple, shift, U... A... Apple, O.
now it's open without searching for a path, right click on the dock icon and click "keep in dock" and now when you need to check the ram or cpu usage click the dock icon.
delete... Apple, Delete. nuff said
if you need any more help email me at Pyromusic@gmail.com
dear guru,
i have this weird pop-up which reads "Sleeping Mode: move your mouse to terminate sleeping mode". this is sometimes followed by a crazy non-stop toggling of my workspaces on my expose without me touching anything.
drive me crazy!
do you whatsup and how to fix?
TomK
#3. come on with the "no right click" thing. I was almost impressed with this post until I read that long debunked windoze myth. Plug in any two/multi-button usb mouse and it works right out of the chute. No drivers to download. In fact, I believe new mac desktops come with a mouse that is right-clickable. I'm using it right now.
"This is a great post. Thank you for putting this post out there for all of us.
Thanks!"
I have been writing programs in RPG, Cobol, Fortran, C, C++, etc. for over 30 years; the Mac OS blows Microsoft out of the water without question and anyone saying differently has their head stuck in the sand.
i was trying to figure it out, under Edit it says to undo typing press [weird key beside spacebar + Z] so i did that on Safaris adress url bar, and it deleted the whole bar! now i have to Yahoo search to change the URL, any fixes?
[...] 10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows… § Soroush Javidi Great tips for people like me that are new to using mac full time (tags: tips hacks howto apple mac windows shortcuts keyboard) [...]
[...] 10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows… § Soroush Javidi Great tips for people like me that are new to using mac full time (tags: tips hacks howto apple mac windows shortcuts keyboard) [...]
"I'm a lifetime Mac user, so these "tips" are pretty basic and I don't think I would classify them as "tips". I'm pretty amazed at the little things that switchers are concerned about doing on their new Macs."
I have also been using macs for a long time, but the fact that I find these tips to be indispensable aspects of my workflow just emphasizes how important they would be to the new mac user. I HATE clicking buttons with my mouse, so my fingers are always on the keyboard, mostly launching apps with the amazing free Quicksilver, switching apps with cmd-tab, opening new windows with cmd-N, or closing them with cmd-W. The first thing I do for a new mac user is Install Quicksilver, and set up expose to show me all my windows or my desktop with the flick of my wrist.
A great shortcut that clears the clutter FAST is pressing alt-cmd while clicking the dock icon of the application you are using. This hides all windows EXCEPT the one you're in, I just wish there was a way to do it without clicking!
[...] 10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows [...]
[...] 10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows [...]
[...] 10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows [...]
Thanks so much! I just got a MacBook 3 days ago and I'm learning... been a Windows user for years and have always wanted a Mac. I love it!
I'm all about keyboard shortcuts on te Mac. You'll eventually find that there are equivelants on the Mac for any Windows keyboard command.
Also, all Mac users should check out Quicksilver from quicksilver.blacktree.com
I can't live without it. It has allowed me to COMPLETELY clear my dock of all icons! It was way too full and I was spending too much time looking for apps on it. Now I can easily launch any app I want. QS has a ton of other uses too which I'm just starting to discover.
DEATH TO THE MOUSE!!
[...] 10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows… « “The Authentic Fake!” Shortcuts and Tips for new mac users (tags: macosx shortcuts tips dress-down) [...]
[...] of Mac stuff, here’s a great listing of Mac hints and tips for those of you who may be new to using an Apple (but I found some things on there I didn’t [...]
Hey In repsonse to the question 'How to switch between open windows of the same application'. Thanks for your tip, I found that useing Command ` does work in Safari or other aps, but it doesnt work it Word, where I need it most. Any ideas?? Please help! Thank you!!
just want to say thanks very much for putting that article together! Much help, and the Xray tip was great although I can't quite figure out it's use. (fun! )
thanks so much for these tips! the keyboard/f keys thing was messing me up pretty badly! thanks agin!
very interesting, but I don't agree with you
Idetrorce
I would like to see a continuation of the topic
Thanks for the useful article. I've been using OS X for over 3 years and never knew about #4 (Tab key). Every time some warning unexpectedly popped up, I grumbled about having to use the mouse/trackpad to select "Don't Save" or "Close" or whatever.
Here are a few other famous tips:
11. Windows vs. Mac Keyboard Shortcuts
If Ctrl-x did something in Windows, Command-x probably does the same thing on a Mac. (If you need to be absolutely sure, press Command-? or click on "Help" and type "Keyboard Shortcuts." The "Command" key is sometimes nicknamed the "Apple" key because, once upon a time, it had a picture of an apple on it.)
12. Closing A Window Is Not The Same As Closing A Program.
If you click the little red light at the top-left corner, of a window, it closes that window but leaves the program running! To terminate a program, choose "Quit" from the menu bar at the top (e.g. in Safari, click on "Safari" and then "Quit Safari.") or press Apple-Q.
And, If you never need to write code or work with Unix/Linux/Solaris/etc computers, you can safely ignore this next part - but for those of us who do, it's a big deal:
13. Open-Source Software and the Terminal
The "real" OS X is essentially a cute, easy-to-use graphical interface for Darwin, Apple's open-source, UNIX-based OS. The Terminal program in Applications>Utilities is a BASH shell for Darwin with UNIX commands, file systems, and script support. Lots of open-source software can compile and run on a Mac, and some of the most popular programs like Emacs, vi, the GNU C/C++ compilers, and the X11 X Windows display system are installed by default on new versions of OS X. Programs designed to help install free software correctly on a Mac are available at FinkProject.org and MacPorts.org .
[...] I'm still trying to get used to this UI, and I want it to feel like those Mac vs PC comercials claim how a Mac is easy to use. That and Apple has already said it will cost me nearly 200$ in restocking fees, just to return an Xmas present that was bought more than 14 days ago, so I'm trying to make this over priced laptop actually worth what it should be. Mac guys help me before I make this become a piece of landfill. At this point I'm not pleased with Mac, or Apple customer service, but I'm really really trying to be happy with my purchase, help make this a pleasant experience. If you really dislike Mac OS X that much, you can always install Windows XP or Vista on it without a problem using bootcamp. At least the hardware will be nicer than most PCs. Also, go to the Apple store and talk to a Mac genius, often times they're more than happy to help show you whatever you want or need to know. Basically, don't overthink it- Windows forces you to think of all these weird, convoluted ways of how a system should operate. I know, because I used Windows since version 1.0 until XP, and I've been working in IT since 1999. Switching to a Mac, it took me about a day to adjust, because I had to stop thinking and remembering all those weird ways I made the computer work, and just do it intuitively. Here's some other tips: 10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows… « “The Authentic Fake!” [...]
Thanks for putting this together. I'm a recent switcher as well and these tips are very handy.
Dugg!
Press cmd + opt + eject and will go to sleep
Press crtl + opt + eject and will restart
Press cmd + opt +shift + q and will logout
Dont' forget about how to select the apple icon and apple menu. ;)
ctrl=f2 to highlight the apple icon, then use the arrow keys to move between menus.
Great post!
Another way to "contextual menu": hold down ctrl+click
usefull in some app where holding the click(LMB) don't work, like Vienna.
I recently blogged about some other differences, mainly keyboard shortcut differences in menus. Check it out here: http://www.corbinstreehouse.com/blog/?p=157
I also talked about this a longer time ago:
http://www.corbinstreehouse.com/blog/?p=49
More cool things: CMD-Q works when using alt-tab to quit apps without having to switch to them. Very cool.
The last item wasn't a link..here it is:
http://www.corbinstreehouse.com/blog/?p=157
hopefully this works
Came from Digg! Thanks for the shortcuts, it is a life-saver for another Windows to Mac convert like me.
;-)
[...] There is a helpful post from the folks at "The Authentic Fake" that has various MacBook Pro shortcuts. I found several I didn't know about. My favorite was:10. Cool shortcut combo To finish off, I’l give a cool (relatively) shurtcut combination. Clicking Control+Option+Command+8 will turn the screen in some sort of high contrast mode, but more like an X-ray screen!1 Pretty cool! [1] 10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows…,http://hyperreality.wordpress.com/2006/07/17/10-tips-for-new-mac-users-switching-from-windows/, posted July 17,2006, viewed July 31, 2006↩ [...]
Instead of using Tab to switch between buttons and hitting the space bar simply press the letter "S" on your keyboard. You'll find that normally in Mac OS X that the more "distructive" command takes a bit more effort to operate. So by hitting "S" it defaults to sleep mode instead of shutting down, which you'd lose you work if you accept the shutdown confrimation.
The same idea goes for deleting files; You have to hold CMD/Apple key plus Delete to actually delete something. Again you can't just hit Enter to run a program: hold down Apple+Enter.
two quick notes
#4 - in all instances with multiple buttons
space bar for buttons with a blue highlight
return for the blue button
#5 - shutdown shortcut
just hit the power button - pops up the shut down/restart/sleep menu (at least it does on my MBP)
and to russelj
it's not just spending a couple bucks on a new mouse, sometimes using a mouse is not practical with a laptop. the MBP has a huge mouse button no reason it couldn't be 2 buttons
Great post, thanks! Over the last 18 months since switching, the delete/backspace thing has been my biggest pet-peeve.
It also bugs me that when I have a file highlighted in the Finder, I can't just hit the Delete key to delete it.
Chris
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/
Thanks -- this is a really compilations of links. About to switch to a Mac myself (hey Brajeshwar -- nice to see you here, man!) and I've noted a few a didn't know before :)
I am really grateful for all the tips but HELP!!!!!!!!!!! I now have a lovely X-ray screen that I cant get out of. How do you undo??
"Core Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts" book has over 1,000 OS X for Leopard including keyboard shortcuts for Finder, iTunes, Safari, Apple Mail, Address Book, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, iWeb, the operating system itself and special features like a list of keyboard symbols and their meaning, mathematics symbols, troubleshooting keys, punctuation and currency symbols, foreign characters, access codes and how to use the character palette. Check it out at www.osxkeyboardshortcuts.com
I have seen nothing like it on the web.
Thank you.
great list! thanks, but you forgot one of the most integral parts of OS X (at least in my workflow): Spotlight. (10.4.x only)
Wherever you are, press cmd+spacebar and it brings up a menu in the top right corner (you can also achieve this by pressing on the magnifying glass on the very right of the menu bar). from there you can search for little anything, and I mean anything, on your harddrive. spotlight will search through word documents, emails, etc. spotlight will even search through the documents for specific words.
With respect to #7 (Minimising), while Cmd+H will hide the current window, it's sometimes useful to hide everything except the current window. If you want to do this then press Cmd+Option+H.
For those of you with a laptop keyboard like mine (old Ti PowerBook), the Option key may be labelled as Alt. If anyone knows why this is then I'd love to know as it confused the heck out of me when I first started with a Mac and instructions kept referring to a mythical "Option" key.
[...] Am I feeling lucky or that many people on the Internet are getting converted to Mac from Windows. Today, from Digg, I found the 10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows and it was a much needed shot in the arm. Let me archive the main points for future reference. [...]
Another keystroke combo to cycle through running apps is Command-Tab. If you use it to switch to another application, pressing it again will flip back to the previous app. Very handy especially if you have several apps open, but there are two you are using currently in a project or task.
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