- a "minimize all" button like the one on the Windows task bar. Great to set a clean slate when things get too busy, and also if you need quick access to the desktop.<hr></blockquote>Here are a couple of handy tricks for you to try that should make app and window management a bit easier:
* Hold the option/alt key while minimizing a window. That will minimize all the windows for that specific app.
* Hold the option/alt key while closing a window. That will close all the windows for that specific app.
* Hold option/alt while clicking an app in the dock. That will hide the current app before switching to that next app.
* Hold option/alt and the apple/command key while clicking an app in the dock. That will hide all other apps when switching to that next app.
There are lots of little shortcuts like this throughout the system that will end up making operations much faster and easier. It just takes a while to learn them and get used to using them regularly.
[quote]- I wish all the wonderful apps in the Utilities folder were more exposed and somehow better integrated into the system (maybe through the Apple menu?). Things like: process viewer, cpu monitor, terminal etc. I'd like something along the lines of the cpu monitoring tab of the task manager of Win2k. I have that open all the times as it lets me keep an eye on the health of my machine (both memory usage and CPU usage)<hr></blockquote>Yes, I can see where getting to those quickly would be a nice, but they really are not necessary for the vast majority of users. In fact, a lot of people cringe at the thought of having to see the Terminal or Process Viewer. The one most common function that people would use is the ability to kill a slow or hung app -- but you can do that globally already. Simply press apple-option-escape (as Luca just explained). Mac OS X 10.2 improves the "force quit" window by highlighting apps that are hung with red text.
If you *really* think you need an Apple menu like the old Mac OS had, then you can try the shareware tool called <a href="http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/"; target="_blank">FruitMenu</a>. It should be noted, however, that this is a hack to the system and has on rare occasions caused some wild instabilities. Most users don't have any problems, though.
As for a global CPU monitor, I believe there are some shareware or freeware utilities you can download that will put a CPU load graph as an icon in the top right of the menubar. The advantage here is that it can run without taking up space for an icon in the Dock.
[quote]- window borders! the tiny little resize widget at the bottom right of each window is way too hard to target especially when you keep bumping into the dock instead.<hr></blockquote>Borders are another relic of the past, as far as Mac OS X is concerned. Sorry, no dice.
You don't even need the command-option-esc to force quit an application. just hold click the icon in the dock and hit force quit in the popup menu. You can also quit and hide apps by simply pressing "Q" or "H" while the icon is highlighted (while command tabbing through the dock)
<strong>Shift-Command-H will trigger the Hide Others command, which will hide everything but the frontmost app. That's not quite minimize all, but if you click on your Desktop folder in the Dock and then press Shift-Command-H, you've just hidden everything except Finder.</strong><hr></blockquote>Bzzt!! Wrong!
That only works in OmniWeb because the OmniGroup chose to make that command. There is no key command for "hide others" in 10.1
However, in 10.2, Apple has assigned apple-option-h to hide others.
<strong>just hold click the icon in the dock and hit force quit in the popup menu. You can also quit and hide apps by simply pressing "Q" or "H" while the icon is highlighted (while command tabbing through the dock)</strong><hr></blockquote>Actually, this needs some clarification.
To get the force-quit option in the dock menu, you have to hold the option key.
And pressing Q as you tab through the Dock will only quit an app if it is responding normally. If it is hung, you will have to force-quit it.
It's always a pleasure to read someone's balanced, thought-out experiences with an OS -- hope you're having fun.
minimize all / showing the desktop:
option-clicking the minimize button will minimize all windows in an app. But, as I'm sure you've discovered by now, the secret to working well in OS X is the combination of minimizing and hiding.
The best way of hiding everything that I've discovered is command-option-clicking an icon in the Dock. This will hide *everything* except for the app you've clicked. The only downside to this as a way to show the desktop is that if you click on the Finder in the Dock you do get a new Finder window, which can be a bit annoying if you don't want or need one.
By the way, Jaguar has an keyboard shortcut (option-command-H) for "Hide Others" in the Apple Menu which can do much the same thing (click on desktop to switch to Finder, then hit option-command-H).
Thanks all for the advice: i'll try it out. One thing about the minimize is that all those shortcuts sound awfully complicated to a newbie.. nothing's bad with a little more discoverability, beside removing the geeky pleasure of exclusive knowledge out of it
today I alleviated one of my fears about iDisk/WebDAV in OS X: it's almost as easy to access any WebDAV server as it is to access iDisk volumes. All one has to do is enter the server's URL in the "Go to server..." prompt and get authenticated. I tried it on my iDisk volume and it worked perfectly. Hooray for comprehensive standard support!
Sometimes when an app freezes in OS X, you'll be unable to bring up the "Force Quit" dialogue box. This has happened to me a couple times, and I was forced to restart my machine... :eek:
...that is until I discovered this little app, called Escapepod.
"escapepod is a little application that lets you terminate the frontmost application by hitting Control-Alt-Delete, or do a force-logout by hitting Command-Control-Alt-Delete.
There are times that Mac OS X appears to be hung (especially in some games) when it really isn't -- just the frontmost application's GUI is wedged. Additionally, when the entire GUI appears to be hung, it is safer to do a force-logout than to simply reboot your machine (and it is quicker, too)."
Since I installed it on my machine, it's come in handy several times. Now, if WC3 freezes, I hit control-alt-delete and save myself from rebooting. Even when "Force Quit" does work, Escapepod is faster since it immediately kills the frontmost app, and you don't have to wait for the "Force Quit" window to appear. You'll appreciate the ability to kill the frontmost app quickly if you use IE or other Microsoft products on a regular basis, although I have used it a lot in iMovie too
[ 08-20-2002: Message edited by: Son of Pismo ]</p>
<strong>OS X really needs a running task/process list like OS 9 had. It's really a pain to hunt through the Dock item list for those apps that are running</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's time to relearn the old three finger salute: [Command]-[Option]-[Escape].
But I personally recommend LiteSwitch X. This wonderful utility, even better in X than 9, will let you command-tab to switch in load order, see running apps at a glance, and quit and hide with a keystroke (Q, H, etc.).
Drop your Utilities folder into the Dock. All your Utilities are now available from the pop-up menu.
<hr></blockquote>
Thanks, James. For some reason, I was too lazy to try this, and yet it's exactly what I was looking for.
[quote]Originally posted by Kickaha:
Not to engage in sadonecrobestiality here, ...
<hr></blockquote>
Two double-letters, and a triple-word score! Look like Kichaha is going to the bonus round!
Wait... judges can't find this word. Ohhh... too bad, but for playing, you get a home edition of AI, and leather chaps with stitched "Marquis de Sade" satin embroidery.
Thanks for coming by. Hope you all enjoyed the show!
Try Photoshop (OS 9 or OS X) for a great implementation of Contextual Menus. Very well done.
Somone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think if you hold down the Option key while clicking the Yellow minimize button, all windows for that application will go down into the dock. This should work in the Finder, too.
[quote]Originally posted by GardenOfEarthlyDelights:
<strong>
Two double-letters, and a triple-word score! Look like Kichaha is going to the bonus round!
Wait... judges can't find this word. Ohhh... too bad, but for playing, you get a home edition of AI, and leather chaps with stitched "Marquis de Sade" satin embroidery.
Thanks for coming by. Hope you all enjoyed the show!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Comments
[quote]Originally posted by cygsid:
- a "minimize all" button like the one on the Windows task bar. Great to set a clean slate when things get too busy, and also if you need quick access to the desktop.<hr></blockquote>Here are a couple of handy tricks for you to try that should make app and window management a bit easier:
* Hold the option/alt key while minimizing a window. That will minimize all the windows for that specific app.
* Hold the option/alt key while closing a window. That will close all the windows for that specific app.
* Hold option/alt while clicking an app in the dock. That will hide the current app before switching to that next app.
* Hold option/alt and the apple/command key while clicking an app in the dock. That will hide all other apps when switching to that next app.
There are lots of little shortcuts like this throughout the system that will end up making operations much faster and easier. It just takes a while to learn them and get used to using them regularly.
[quote]- I wish all the wonderful apps in the Utilities folder were more exposed and somehow better integrated into the system (maybe through the Apple menu?). Things like: process viewer, cpu monitor, terminal etc. I'd like something along the lines of the cpu monitoring tab of the task manager of Win2k. I have that open all the times as it lets me keep an eye on the health of my machine (both memory usage and CPU usage)<hr></blockquote>Yes, I can see where getting to those quickly would be a nice, but they really are not necessary for the vast majority of users. In fact, a lot of people cringe at the thought of having to see the Terminal or Process Viewer. The one most common function that people would use is the ability to kill a slow or hung app -- but you can do that globally already. Simply press apple-option-escape (as Luca just explained). Mac OS X 10.2 improves the "force quit" window by highlighting apps that are hung with red text.
If you *really* think you need an Apple menu like the old Mac OS had, then you can try the shareware tool called <a href="http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/"; target="_blank">FruitMenu</a>. It should be noted, however, that this is a hack to the system and has on rare occasions caused some wild instabilities. Most users don't have any problems, though.
As for a global CPU monitor, I believe there are some shareware or freeware utilities you can download that will put a CPU load graph as an icon in the top right of the menubar. The advantage here is that it can run without taking up space for an icon in the Dock.
[quote]- window borders! the tiny little resize widget at the bottom right of each window is way too hard to target especially when you keep bumping into the dock instead.<hr></blockquote>Borders are another relic of the past, as far as Mac OS X is concerned. Sorry, no dice.
<strong>Shift-Command-H will trigger the Hide Others command, which will hide everything but the frontmost app. That's not quite minimize all, but if you click on your Desktop folder in the Dock and then press Shift-Command-H, you've just hidden everything except Finder.</strong><hr></blockquote>Bzzt!! Wrong!
That only works in OmniWeb because the OmniGroup chose to make that command. There is no key command for "hide others" in 10.1
However, in 10.2, Apple has assigned apple-option-h to hide others.
<strong>just hold click the icon in the dock and hit force quit in the popup menu. You can also quit and hide apps by simply pressing "Q" or "H" while the icon is highlighted (while command tabbing through the dock)</strong><hr></blockquote>Actually, this needs some clarification.
To get the force-quit option in the dock menu, you have to hold the option key.
And pressing Q as you tab through the Dock will only quit an app if it is responding normally. If it is hung, you will have to force-quit it.
[ 08-19-2002: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>
minimize all / showing the desktop:
option-clicking the minimize button will minimize all windows in an app. But, as I'm sure you've discovered by now, the secret to working well in OS X is the combination of minimizing and hiding.
The best way of hiding everything that I've discovered is command-option-clicking an icon in the Dock. This will hide *everything* except for the app you've clicked. The only downside to this as a way to show the desktop is that if you click on the Finder in the Dock you do get a new Finder window, which can be a bit annoying if you don't want or need one.
By the way, Jaguar has an keyboard shortcut (option-command-H) for "Hide Others" in the Apple Menu which can do much the same thing (click on desktop to switch to Finder, then hit option-command-H).
If you're looking for one-click solution, there's a free little app called "Show Desktop" on <a href="http://versiontracker.com"; target="_blank">http://versiontracker.com</a>; that will do just that.
Integrated system utilities:
I agree. Fortunately, there are lots of (usually free) third-party system menu extras out there.
Cee Pee You and Spy are two popular CPU monitor menulets.
There's a good thread <a href="http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=108826&highlight=menu+e xtras" target="_blank">here</a> that discusses a whole bunch of these.
Resizing a window by anything but the resize corner: Can't.
Killing a process:
- "Force Quit" (option-command-escape) in the Apple Menu
- control (or hold)-click icon in Dock to get Dock menu, hold down option to get "Force Quit" instead of Quit
- use Process Viewer, in Utilities
- "kill [process number]" in the Terminal. "top" will list all running processes; command-period or control-C will stop top.
Whew.
[Edit: Yikes. It is fast-moving. You just got advice in spades.]
[ 08-19-2002: Message edited by: Hobbes ]</p>
Thanks all for the advice: i'll try it out. One thing about the minimize is that all those shortcuts sound awfully complicated to a newbie.. nothing's bad with a little more discoverability, beside removing the geeky pleasure of exclusive knowledge out of it
today I alleviated one of my fears about iDisk/WebDAV in OS X: it's almost as easy to access any WebDAV server as it is to access iDisk volumes. All one has to do is enter the server's URL in the "Go to server..." prompt and get authenticated. I tried it on my iDisk volume and it worked perfectly. Hooray for comprehensive standard support!
...that is until I discovered this little app, called Escapepod.
<a href="http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/freebies/"; target="_blank">http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/freebies/</a>;
"escapepod is a little application that lets you terminate the frontmost application by hitting Control-Alt-Delete, or do a force-logout by hitting Command-Control-Alt-Delete.
There are times that Mac OS X appears to be hung (especially in some games) when it really isn't -- just the frontmost application's GUI is wedged. Additionally, when the entire GUI appears to be hung, it is safer to do a force-logout than to simply reboot your machine (and it is quicker, too)."
Since I installed it on my machine, it's come in handy several times. Now, if WC3 freezes, I hit control-alt-delete and save myself from rebooting. Even when "Force Quit" does work, Escapepod is faster since it immediately kills the frontmost app, and you don't have to wait for the "Force Quit" window to appear. You'll appreciate the ability to kill the frontmost app quickly if you use IE or other Microsoft products on a regular basis, although I have used it a lot in iMovie too
[ 08-20-2002: Message edited by: Son of Pismo ]</p>
<strong>Bzzt!! Wrong!
That only works in OmniWeb because the OmniGroup chose to make that command. There is no key command for "hide others" in 10.1
However, in 10.2, Apple has assigned apple-option-h to hide others.</strong><hr></blockquote>
So I'll be right shortly. Almost.
Good enough.
Great thread, all.
<strong>OS X really needs a running task/process list like OS 9 had. It's really a pain to hunt through the Dock item list for those apps that are running</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's time to relearn the old three finger salute: [Command]-[Option]-[Escape].
But I personally recommend LiteSwitch X. This wonderful utility, even better in X than 9, will let you command-tab to switch in load order, see running apps at a glance, and quit and hide with a keystroke (Q, H, etc.).
Drop your Utilities folder into the Dock. All your Utilities are now available from the pop-up menu.
<hr></blockquote>
Thanks, James. For some reason, I was too lazy to try this, and yet it's exactly what I was looking for.
[quote]Originally posted by Kickaha:
Not to engage in sadonecrobestiality here, ...
<hr></blockquote>
Two double-letters, and a triple-word score! Look like Kichaha is going to the bonus round!
Wait... judges can't find this word. Ohhh... too bad, but for playing, you get a home edition of AI, and leather chaps with stitched "Marquis de Sade" satin embroidery.
Thanks for coming by. Hope you all enjoyed the show!
Try Photoshop (OS 9 or OS X) for a great implementation of Contextual Menus. Very well done.
Somone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think if you hold down the Option key while clicking the Yellow minimize button, all windows for that application will go down into the dock. This should work in the Finder, too.
Hope this helps.
<strong>
Two double-letters, and a triple-word score! Look like Kichaha is going to the bonus round!
Wait... judges can't find this word. Ohhh... too bad, but for playing, you get a home edition of AI, and leather chaps with stitched "Marquis de Sade" satin embroidery.
Thanks for coming by. Hope you all enjoyed the show!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh quit beating a dead horse already.