Basic questions from a newbie

H

Harvey

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Hello everyone, I'm on my first Mac. Got one of the new iBooks. I switched from Windoes and Linux, though I will still be using Windows at the office.

There are a few basic things I haven't been able to figure out yet. If you could help me out, or point me to a good source to find answers to these questions, and more like them, I would appreciate it!

1. In Windows you can alt+click-drag to move windows around, without necessarily selecting the 'title bar'. Handy for moving windows that have 'gone off the top' of the screen. How do you do this in MacOSX?

2. I have been looking for a decent, free, email client, other than the one that came with my mac.

3. Looking for a freeware sftp client.

4. Are there any free HTML editing tools that you would suggest?

5. Is it possible to customize the look and feel of the terminal app? change font colors etc? Are there 3rd party terminal apps available? (ie. eterm aterm xterm in linux.)

6. I discovered CodeTek Virtual Desktop. Pretty cool stuff. Are there any other programs that serve the same function that people use?

7. Keyboard shortcut to minimize all apps on the desktop? (like 'windows + D' in Win)

8. It's cool... nothing personal... but how do I stop the windows from animating so dramatically when I minimize/maximize them?

Any other 'must have apps' that you would recommend?

Thanks :)

So far I have been pleased with this machine and OS btw! Looks promising!
 
They are probably as many ansers as they are mac users. Here are mine:

1. Windowns do not go off the top of the screen on Mac OS-X

2. Mozilla/Netscape

4. Mozilla/Netscape, Opera, BBEdit-Lite

5. Yes, but I don't remember how...

8. Check your preferences
 
1. To move a window without selecting it, hold the COMMAND key (the one with the Apple), click-and-hold the title bar, then drag the window.

2. What is wrong with Apple's Mail.app? Eudora makes a free Email client, but its look has not been updated in ages.

4. BBedit Lite is a free HTML editor. I love it!

7. Press command-option-h to hide all applications, except the current one. Press command-h to hide only the current one.

8. To kill the Genie Effect when maximizing/minimizing windows, go to system Preferences; it's the icon on the dock with the light-switch. In the window that opens, click on dock. Look for the phrase "minimize using:" and select SCALE EFFECT.
 
1. Well, OS X doesn't allow windows to go above the menu bar, but if one does,(I've had this happen a couple of times, but I don't think it's happened since ver 10.2) then ther's no way to grab the window and pull it down if the top bar is above the menu bar. You can delete the 'com.apple.windowserver.plist' file which is in the preferences folder in the Library folder on the root level of your HD. I think that makes windows positions to return to defaults. Must Have Apps? Chimera, no mail option, but the fastest browser for OSX, some say faster than any Windoze browser
 
Harvey,

If you look in the 'Terminal' menu in Terminal, you will see 'Window Settings' under 'Preferences' under OS X 10.2. I assume you are running 10.2. You can check, of course, by going to Apple Menu->About This Macintosh.

If not, get 10.2. Period.

Consider buying MAC OS X: THE MISSING MANUAL by David Pogue (O'Reilly Press). It's very clear and fun to read, and it is appropriate for both beginners and computer experts (really!!) who want to learn about OS X.

Doug
 
Thanks for all the quick assistance!

I am running 10.2.1.
I'm using Mozilla as my browser now, I decided to try Eudora for mail. I downloaded BBEdit Lite, haven't had time to play with it yet, btu I imagine it'll be cool.
Haven't tried the terminal tricks, but I'm sure they'll work, thanks.

I'll see if I can find that book dktricky.

I was also able to stop the genie effect... I didn't know that was what it was talkin about :) heh. Makes sense now though.

Still looking for an stp/ftp client though!

Thanks guys!

About my OS version, isn't like 10.2.3 out now or something? What does it take to make this type of an upgrade? Thanks.
 
to update, go to software upadate in pref panel and choose to update now. then choose to update the items it shows. it does the rest. all you will need to do is choose restart when it's done.
 
About my OS version, isn't like 10.2.3 out now or something? What does it take to make this type of an upgrade?
Click to expand...

Go to System Prefs. Click on Software Update. In the new window, click on CHECK NOW. Take it from there...

As to FTP clients. Did you try searching for "transmit" in the MacOSX section of versiontracker.com? It's not free, but good things have been said of it. From what I gather, it's better than Fetch and RBrowser (or whatever it's called). Check out all three.
 
3. Looking for a freeware sftp client.
DOES FETCH OR TRANSMIT COVER YOUR NEEDS? (VERSIONTRACKER.COM)

7. Keyboard shortcut to minimize all apps on the desktop? (like 'windows + D' in Win)
IF YOU'RE IN AN APP, HOLD DOWN THE OPTION KEY WHEN CLICKING ON THE DESKTOP, THIS WILL HIDE THE APP YOU JUST CAME FROM.
IF YOU'R E IN THE FINDER (DESKTOP), CHOOSE HIDE OTHERS (COMMAND+OPTION+H).

Any other 'must have apps' that you would recommend?
YOU SOUND LIKE A PROGRAMMER-TYPE, SO I HAVE NO ADVICE THERE.
I COULD RATTLE OFF A MILLION OTHER APPS THAT "I' MUST HAVE, THO!
THAT SAID, HERE'S A FEW TREASURES THAT I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT.

YOUPI KEYS—Allows you to launch apps and do other Macros with keyboard shortcuts.
LABELS X— One of the very best underused features of OS 9 back in OS X thanks to shareware developers. (versiontracker.com) Allows you to add a color tint to any file or folder. Great for organizational stuff like "the red ones have all been edited".
ADDRESSIX—One click envelope printing with barcodes. Now if it just tie in to Apple's address DB, we'd be set.
BATCHMOD—GUI for mass-edits of permissions of files. Bailed me out of many a jam.
CAPTURE ME—One of few apps that allows you to take screen captures of DVD sources. Apple's built-in screen cap blocks that ability.
FONT RESERVE/SUITCASE/FONT AGENT PRO—Pick one. I have them all. You need a good font manager in X if you do layout stuff. Otherwise, forget I said anything. They all have their problems. I have settled on FAP for now as it is Cocoa native and has the best overall font previewer. All they need now is auto-activation plugins for my main apps.
iCal—Nice little scheduler.
 
Hi Harvey. I expect you will be very happy with the iBook, I have one of the first ones in the new format, a first-batch 500, and I've found it immensely useful and powerful, though rather slow. The newer ones would be very nice.

1. Generally, you can't put windows off the top of the screen. They don't do that.

2. There are other free mail clients but none compares well to Apple's Mail.app (though Eudora has a following).

4. Netscape Communicator is nice for a freebie. BBEdit is a shareware one that has some nice features. I use Dreamweaver myself, but that's commercial.

5. You can set colours in Terminal preferences, but as for actually colour ls and so on, I haven't tried.
 
tinkertool.com has a great app that lets you change a lot of prefs that aren't available in the normal system prefs. It may have something for the terminal. It also has an additional minimizing/maximizing thingy called "suck" or something...
 
Thanks for all the tips guys!

Fugu looks interesting. Seems to be a gui for sftp from the shell. That would work.

As for the windows off the top thing, I'm serious, it has happened to me twice now. If I had decent bandwidth I would take a screenshot and upload it somewhere to show you guys :) It must just be a specific application problem I guess. It happened to Mozilla btw.

Have you guys tried Chimera? I don't think I will ever go back to IE with Mozilla and Chimera around. Great stuff.
 
1. If you ever have a window go above
the top of the screen, all you have to do
is increase your screen resolution and wa-la!
You can adjust the window size, then go back
to your previous screen resolution (ex:
From 800 x 600 to 1600 x 1200, then back).

3. sftp? Try opening up a terminal and
type "man sftp" It's free and built in.

4. BBEdit

Must have? OmniDictionary, OmniWeb, Chimera,
Mozilla, and last but not least Pacifist
(package installer - A must of you want to
re-install iCal, Sherlock, Terminal, etc..).
 
here's a whole little thread devoted to 'must have' apps.

i think i forgot to mention Default Folder X when i made my list. nice little finder enhancer that costs money but is worth every penny. i use it almost every day without even thinking about it, hence i forgot to mention it. saves lots of time and keeps me much more organized.
 
Have you guys tried Chimera? I don't think I will ever go back to IE with Mozilla and Chimera around. Great stuff.
Click to expand...

Chimera (and Mozilla BTW) are respectively very populaar and popular on this board (and in the rest of the MacOSX community I hope ;).

Welcome here.

1. Move off-windows: never occured to me (not a Mozilla user though).

2. Decent, free, email client: I like Mail, you may prefer Mozilla's one which looked great in v1.0 (don't know newer ones).

3. Freeware sftp client: Fugu IS cool :) !

4. Free HTML editing tools: again, Mozilla will be fine if you need WYSIWG; otherwise, BBEdit Lite will convince you to buy the complete version of BBEdit, which is definitely one of the first software you need if you're concerned by web design.

5. Customize the look and feel of the terminal app: has been answered: Window Settings.
3rd party terminal apps available: don't know any.

6. Any other programs that serve the same function [than CodeTek]: answered: visit Version Tracker (a must-bookmark site !).

7. Keyboard shortcut to minimize all apps on the desktop: dunno ¿¿¿.

8. Stop the windows from animating: answered too: Prefs.

Any other 'must have apps': let's see...

Goldberg - Freeware picture editor which does the very basics: rotate scale crop save as JPEG,TIFF,PSD,PNG. I was very bored running Photoshop to take off borders from pictures.
SpaceTripper - Little shoot game.
Transmit - Can't think of a better FTP client.
Chimera - You kow this one.

Utilities:

CandyBar - Change the OSX GUI icons.
DivX Validator - You'll need this one soon :).
iPulse - Nice system/disk/CPU/network info displayer.
Trash It! - Force-trash items.
Windows Media Player - Because there are ASF files in this world.

As you don't seem to have a correct Web connection, I won't evoke Carracho :p :p :p.
 
Thanks a lot for the link to that thread EdX, that is exactly the type of discussion I was looking for.

I succeeded in upgrading to 10.2.3 on a 32k/sec PHS modem over night. I hope I won't be doing that again anytime soon... 60 MB at 32k is not cool!

I guess I am going to have to break my linux habits and start paying for software I want huh. With all the rave reviews of BBEdit I might purchase it after I give it a shot. Also Transmit looks quality.

Since my modem is so slow... it should be a while before I have time to download and try out all these apps. Thanks guys!
 
Originally posted by DeltaMac
1. Well, OS X doesn't allow windows to go above the menu bar, but if one does,(I've had this happen a couple of times, but I don't think it's happened since ver 10.2) then ther's no way to grab the window and pull it down if the top bar is above the menu bar. You can delete the 'com.apple.windowserver.plist' file...
Click to expand...
...or you can just resize the screen resoltion to make it pop back onto the screen...
 
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