New to Macs... couple of questions

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I bought an iBook a month ago, and liked it so much that i just bought an iMac G5 as well. This is my first experience with macs, so i'm learning the OS. I bought one of those self-guide books to the OS, but i still have a couple of questions that i can't find answers to.



1) Is there a shorter way to make a window fill up the entire screen than dragging the bottom right corner? In Windows, all you do is double click the top bar of the window (or click the maximize button), and the window automatically fills up the entire screen. How do i do that with OS tiger? It's really annoying having to draaaaaaaaag every time.



2) How do i lock the window at a certain size so that everytime i turn on the computer and open the window it will open up to the same place and size? Right now, each time i open (e.g. Safari), it seems to randomly pick a place on the screen to open, and only opens as wide as the home page that i've set. It's quite annoying having to resize it each time.



3) When i first boot up the computer, my RAM monitor tells me that i have about 85 wired, 100 active, 212 inactive, and 625 free. This is with nothing opened. Then, after using it all day, i quit all the programs, and check the RAM monitor and it's like 150 wired, 250 active, 500 inactive, and only 100 free! Wtf? Is there a memory leak?





Thanks for any help you can give me.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 33
    fahlmanfahlman Posts: 740member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Tidelwav

    I bought an iBook a month ago...



    I'll answer your first and part of your second question with a question to you. Why would you want your window to be bigger that it's contents? you need to be willing to adjust the way you interact with the computer and break some of the bad habits you've learned while using Windows.
  • Reply 2 of 33
    tidelwavtidelwav Posts: 118member
    Quote:

    Why would you want your window to be bigger that it's contents?



    When i first open Safari, for example, it sizes to my home page (yahoo). Then when i surf other websites that are bigger than yahoo, it doesn't automatically resize. I have to do that manually each time. That's annoying.



    When i open Excel, the same problem. My data might only take up a bit of space at first, but when i add columns and rows, then i have to manually resize it. That's annoying.



    Another issue is when i get all my windows organized the way i like them, with my browser on the left, mail at top right, ical bottom right, etc, etc. Then the next morning when i boot up, i have to do it all over again! Every day...



    I could go on, but you get the point.



    Quote:

    you need to be willing to adjust the way you interact with the computer and break some of the bad habits you've learned while using Windows.



    That's a terrible way of looking at it. The computer should adjust to ME, not the other way around. The computer is here to help ME, and should do what i want the easiest way possible. To say that i should just put up without convenient shortcuts is silly.



    So i take it there's no easy way to make the window fill up the entire screen and lock it that way permanently?
  • Reply 3 of 33
    Clicking the maximise button will toggle the window from your custom setting to fitting all content and back again as you've probably worked out. This is how OSX works, whch is a lot more effiecient in most people's book. Anyway's there is always expose which if you have a multi button mouse can assign a mouse button to a expose key. though if your persitent while your going through your switch headaches, whch all switches have then you need applescript like this one or javascript for safari
  • Reply 4 of 33
    tidelwavtidelwav Posts: 118member
    Thanks Cybermonkey. I'll try that.



    Apprecaite the help.





    This one seems to work very nicely.



    Quote:

    Auto-zoom new Safari windows to near full-screen

    Authored by: felium on Mon, May 19 '03 at 11:01AM

    i created a new bookmark named "FullScreen" and added this javascript as the URL:



    javascript:window.moveTo(0,0);window.resizeTo(scre en.availWidth,screen.availHeight);



    dragging the bookmark to the bookmark bar now gives me a selective one click > full screen browser window... unfortunately, clicking this as safari is loading a document stops the page from loading in the new beta (v74), the previous beta worked fine.



    Now if i could just find a way to lock other windows in place.
  • Reply 5 of 33
    tidelwavtidelwav Posts: 118member
    Quote:

    nyway's there is always expose which if you have a multi button mouse can assign a mouse button to a expose key.



    How do i do that? The Help files say i have to have a mighty mouse for it. I'm using a Logitech mouse.
  • Reply 6 of 33
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Tidelwav

    How do i do that? The Help files say i have to have a mighty mouse for it. I'm using a Logitech mouse.



    The "Dashboard and Expose" panel in the System Preferences will let you assign keys, screen corners, or mouse buttons to the various Expose functions.



    I am confused about your not getting the windows of Safari, iCal and Mail to be in the same place they were on shutdown. I just tried making Mail's window smaller and in the upper right. Then I quit and relaunched Mail. It remembered the new size and position. Same thing for iCal. I didn't shut down, but I can't see where that could do anything different than quitting the apps.



    I always have Safari's window as big as will fit up against my right-sided Dock, and just above the bottom where I have QuicKeys Toolbars. It always comes up the same size when I launch it. If I manually change the window size, then the green button will toggle between my custom size and the fit-to-contents size. So set your custom size to be fullscreen and you should be able to toggle to that size with the green button.



    New windows in Safari are offset down and to the right, which is a pain in the ass for a lot of people. You can get a hack on VersionTracker that will stop this behavior.
  • Reply 7 of 33
    tidelwavtidelwav Posts: 118member
    Quote:

    The "Dashboard and Expose" panel in the System Preferences will let you assign keys, screen corners, or mouse buttons to the various Expose functions.



    Thank you!!







    Regarding the windows... sometimes it does come back to the size and place i left it at, but i'd say about 75% of the time, it seems to randomly pick a place to open it and the size seems to automatically adjust to the size of the material inside. It's quite frustrating. I think i'll call Mac Help on monday to see if they know what to do, because the book i'm reading says the same thing you're saying... that it should remember it.
  • Reply 8 of 33
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Tidelwav: silly silly question here, but you are making sure to Shut Down and not just hitting the power button until it goes off, right? I've seen prior WIndows users do this, and then not understand why the apps don't remember their positions and such... similar symptoms to what you're stating.



    Also, you can leave your Mac on for, well, months without any issues. I reboot my PowerBook only for OS updates, every couple of months or so. Sleep is your friend. Leave it on, put it to Sleep, doesn't matter, it'll mean it's ready to do in about a second, instead of waiting for booting.



    As for your RAM, that's normal, and that's not a leak. Unix-derived systems like OS X figure that if you're not using all your RAM, it's being wasted. Things are *aggressively* cached to RAM so that the whole system is faster. Then, it's cached out to disk as you no longer are actively using it. I have 512MB in my PowerBook, and am frequently using anywhere between 4 and 7GB of RAM... without slowdowns, stutters, or pausing. This ain't Windows.



    Speaking of 'not Windows', the Zoom button on the title bar (green +), as explained above, resizes to the 'optimal' size for any window - just enough to show everything possible, and no larger. (In theory. Many apps have to be coded to calculate the 'optimal' bounding size, and some don't do it well.) The idea is that pixels that aren't showing you useful information are, you guessed it, wasted. So if they're not showing you the current window, what are they showing you? Other windows. Why is this not considered wasted space? Because those windows are now available for targets for drag and drop. DnD is *EVERYWHERE* on MacOS X... much more thoroughly integrated than under Windows. Keeping a lot of viable sources and targets available makes for a much more efficient workflow once you get the hang of just grabbing text, images, links, addresses, files, and pretty much anything else, and tossing it at a target and having it *work*.



    Maximize makes drag and drop basically useless... so it isn't implemented.



    Make sense?
  • Reply 9 of 33
    Yes, that does make sense. Thanks for the explanation.



    Quote:

    Tidelwav: silly silly question here, but you are making sure to Shut Down and not just hitting the power button until it goes off, right? I've seen prior WIndows users do this, and then not understand why the apps don't remember their positions and such... similar symptoms to what you're stating.



    Yeah, i've just been putting it to sleep. But what i'm talking about is not when i put it to sleep and fire it up. I'm just talking about quitting the program. For example, i can open up Safari, set the size and place, quit it, then reopen it right away, and it's in a different place/size.



    Quote:

    As for your RAM, that's normal, and that's not a leak. Unix-derived systems like OS X figure that if you're not using all your RAM, it's being wasted. Things are *aggressively* cached to RAM so that the whole system is faster. Then, it's cached out to disk as you no longer are actively using it. I have 512MB in my PowerBook, and am frequently using anywhere between 4 and 7GB of RAM... without slowdowns, stutters, or pausing. This ain't Windows.



    Ok, that makes sense too. I've been restarting it to clear the RAM. Habit from Windows.
  • Reply 10 of 33
    The best way to get an application to remember its window size and position is to do these things, in this order:



    1. Place the Window where you want it

    2. Resize the Window to the size you want it

    3. and last, before doing anthing else, quit the application



    This will work for Excel. It will work for Safari for a while, but some websites (like this one) occasionally have pop-up windows that make it through. That will make Safari forget its window position next time you open it.
  • Reply 11 of 33
    tidelwavtidelwav Posts: 118member
    Thanks. I'll try that.
  • Reply 12 of 33
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JDraden

    It will work for Safari for a while, but some websites (like this one) occasionally have pop-up windows that make it through. That will make Safari forget its window position next time you open it.



    Ah that makes sense. Safari always remembers my window size, but I have pop-up windows blocked.
  • Reply 13 of 33
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BRussell

    Ah that makes sense. Safari always remembers my window size, but I have pop-up windows blocked.



    But so do i.
  • Reply 14 of 33
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BRussell ...but I have pop-up windows blocked. [/B]



    Yeah, I meant that even if you have the "Block Pop-Up Windows" option checked, there are some websites that have pop-up advertisements that still make it through, and that will make Safari forget its position.
  • Reply 15 of 33
    toweltowel Posts: 1,479member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Tidelwav

    Yeah, i've just been putting it to sleep. But what i'm talking about is not when i put it to sleep and fire it up. I'm just talking about quitting the program. For example, i can open up Safari, set the size and place, quit it, then reopen it right away, and it's in a different place/size.



    There's as little reason to quit-and-restart apps as there is to shutdown-and-reboot the computer. My iBook goes weeks between reboots, and I usually never have occasion to relaunch Safari in that time. Just close all windows or Hide to get it out of the way. Like Kickaha was saying, OSX has a very active and efficient VM system, so if an app hasn't been used for a bit, it will be transparently swapped to disk, and swapped back the next time you activate it. You don't gain anything in terms of stability or "free memory" by quitting apps. Just another unnecessary habit that you can feel free to unlearn.



    (I know WinXP is *supposed* be able to cope with lots of apps open, but IME that's never the case - things bog down very quickly. My iBook, OTOH, is just as responsive and stable with a dozen apps open as one.)
  • Reply 16 of 33
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    I'll add to that - one time when I noticed that it seemed I had a lot of things going on, I counted, and I had 58 windows open in 19 applications.



    No slowdowns except for a slight pause on swapping in apps that hadn't been used in a while, and all this on only 512MB of RAM.



    The XP machines at work have 1GB, and they start bogging down with a dozen windows in just a couple of apps.
  • Reply 17 of 33
    Wow, i didn't realize that. Thanks for the info. I can stop wasting time quitting stuff. LOL.
  • Reply 18 of 33
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JDraden

    Yeah, I meant that even if you have the "Block Pop-Up Windows" option checked, there are some websites that have pop-up advertisements that still make it through, and that will make Safari forget its position.



    Hmm, I also have pith helmet installed, so maybe that's the difference.
  • Reply 19 of 33
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BRussell

    Hmm, I also have pith helmet installed, so maybe that's the difference.



    Where do you find that?
  • Reply 20 of 33
    flounderflounder Posts: 2,674member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Tidelwav

    Where do you find that?



    MacUpdate is your friend:



    http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10752
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