guys, can you enlighten me on what problems I’ll encounter going from windows to Mac? how do they work differently?
Here’s my situation, I’m going to start college doing audio stuff, and opted to miss out on the first part of the course(mainly some Flash, photoshop, dreamweaver, etc.). However, I know I’m going to be working on Macs when I start, which I haven’t used much since the days of tiny black&white screens. I don’t want to take too long to get to grips with the OS.
So therefore, please no opinions on OSX .v. windows, I just need to know practical differences I’ll have to deal with. Cheers.
The biggest difference, in my eyes at least, is the common menu bar for all applications. That and closing application windows doesnt exit them.
First the menu bar. this is the menu bar at the top of the screen. This changes for whatever application currently has focus. In Windows, each application window has their own menu bar. OSX has one for all (hense the changing based on focus). This can be confusing especially when dealing with finder or desktop options and you think youre focused on the desktop but in actuallity you’re still in the program which (#2) you thought you exited but didnt because you just closed its window and didn’t actually quit. So the menu bar is still for Safari, but you only see the desktop (finder is the application that “runs” the desktop and folder views) and you want the finder menu. So you either have to quit the program completely or click on the desktop to bring it into focus.
Another difference is window control. There is no maximize as in Windows. The closest you have is the zoom button (green plus). This can act like a maximize but it doesnt necessarily maximize and it can be frustrating at times. On top of that, you can only resize a window from the lower right corner (or with the zoom button). This can be a pain when migrating from Windows were you can size a window from any edge on any side or corner. And if youre familiar with OS9 (which you may not be) you can also not move a window in OSX using its edges as you could in OS9. This was a nice feature I wish they didnt drop. (linux actually wins the windowing war in OSes since you have so much more control with the windowing systems available there - but thats besides the point).
Another thing to be weary of is that you can not only minimize windows, but also hide them. They are not the same thing, so to check to see if a program is running, you just need to keep an eye on the little black triangles in the dock. Even though there may not be any minimized windows shown in the right side of the dock (where they go), windows can still exist if they’re hidden. You may also confuse this with an application thats open with no windows and one that has hidden windows. Select the application from the dock to see existing windows, but watch for programs like safari which actually open new windows if you select it from the dock and no windows exist for it.
I think that kind of UI interaction is probably the biggest thing to worry about. All other applications pretty much work the same for both OSes - photoshop for example. You may find some dragging and dropping difficult in Mac since there are rarely any application backgrounds as there are in Windows - so instead drag documents into application icons as opposed to applications them selves.
thanks a lot sen, should prove useful. Does anyone have anything else to add?
I’ll need to try to get a shot of one, but who knows where… Maybe I can go into a computer shop and pretend I’m interested in buying one(like I could afford that) and get a “test-drive”
yeah you should do that … I was about to suggest a place but I doubt they have what I’m familiar with in scotland Play around with one a bit, just to get the feel. Of course, once you start using one enough, you’ll know it just fine. Just give yourself a few days to get familiar with the system you’ll be using.
… I was about to suggest a place but I doubt they have what I’m familiar with in scotland 
Play around with one a bit, just to get the feel. Of course, once you start using one enough, you’ll know it just fine. Just give yourself a few days to get familiar with the system you’ll be using.