New to MAC. Minimize screen

obi604

Hi

I am relatively new to MAC and have a question.
I have a MacBook Pro running Mac OS high Sierra.
This MAC is testing my patience, I have to google simple stuff every bloody five minutes

Latest I googled and could not find the answer.

In Safari when screen is in normal size mode, I have the minimise, close, full screen/smaller screen toggle options.
However, when I put Safari to maximise/full screen........ the close, minimise and full screen/smaller screen toggle buttons disappear.

The only way to get them is to hover the mouse at top of screen and when you do that, the minimize button is greyed out.

So you then need to press 'esc' or full screen/smaller screen toggle............. this makes the window smaller and then gives the minimise option.
I also notice when you do the keyboard shortcut to minimise all windows at once, it does not minimise the window in full screen mode.

Is there any way around this?

To have it so that close, minimise and full screen/smaller screen toggle ALWAYS appear on a window whether in full screen mode or not.

mightyreds

cmd + ctrl + f to exit fullscreen then cmd + m to minimise is all i'm aware of to do the same job

obi604

mightyreds wrote: »

cmd + ctrl + f to exit fullscreen then cmd + m to minimise is all i'm aware of to do the same job

Ok. But essentially, as opposed to doing 1 command to minimise all screens, you have to do 2.

do you know of any way to keep the buttons always there and not hidden or grated out.

Sad Professor

Sounds like fullscreen mode isn't for you. Try maximising windows instead by option-clicking on the green button.

5uspect

Welcome to MacOS, it’s very different to Windows and it’ll take a few days to get it. The OS has a lot of powerful shortcuts that are logically thought out enabling good discoverability.

Firstly the ‘traffic light’ icons at the top left of application windows behave somewhat differently to Windows. The running app is typically tied to the menu bar and not the application window. So for example you can have as many Mail windows open as you like each showing various mailboxes.

The red traffic light then closes the current window but the app keeps running. You can verify this by looking at the app’s icon in the dock, there’ll be a little dot underneath it. CMD-w does the same thing and is much faster than reaching for a small click target. CMD-q or selection Quit from the App’s menu in the menu bar will quit the current app fully.

The yellow button minimises a window to the dock. I don’t like this behaviour so I just use CMD-h to instantly hide it. You can always Alt-tab back to it quickly and it’s much faster than poking about in the dock.

Finally The green button is the weird one. Only recently did they add the current behaviour to make apps enter full screen mode. I find this conflicting with the strength of MacOS as a very productivity driven multitasking OS where your screen is littered with overlapping apps. The old ‘zoom’ behaviour, which you can invoke by holding the Option (alt) key and clicking the green button makes a window as big as it needs to be. This will usually resize a safari window to match the content on the current page.

I almost never use these three buttons. CMD-w and CMD-h cover most of my needs and are faster. If you want Windows like maximisation just double click the top of the current window and it’ll fill the screen without entering full screen mode. (Pretty sure there is a terminal default write to switch these) Similarly double clicking on the edge of a window when the mouse pointer is a double resize arrow projects that edge to the edge of the screen.

Other useful tricks include using CMD-~ to cycle through the various windows of the current app (CMD-tab cycles through apps). Option click things for more options. Try and Option click the WiFi icon for example, same for Bluetooth etc. CMD-Option-h hides all other windows (see the logic?). Ctrl-CMD-Space opens the system character map so your can type symbols, emoji etc anywhere. I’ve customised mine with maths and Greek symbols. The screenshot shortcuts are great but Mojave adds a nice UI for a lot of this.

obi604

Sad Professor wrote: »

Sounds like fullscreen mode isn't for you. Try maximising windows instead by option-clicking on the green button.

Could be true.
What does ‘option-clicking’ mean?

Sad Professor

obi604 wrote: »

Could be true.
What does ‘option-clicking’ mean?

Hold the option key and click on the green button.

obi604

5uspect wrote: »

Welcome to MacOS, it’s very different to Windows and it’ll take a few days to get it. The OS has a lot of powerful shortcuts that are logically thought out enabling good discoverability.

Firstly the ‘traffic light’ icons at the top left of application windows behave somewhat differently to Windows. The running app is typically tied to the menu bar and not the application window. So for example you can have as many Mail windows open as you like each showing various mailboxes.

The red traffic light then closes the current window but the app keeps running. You can verify this by looking at the app’s icon in the dock, there’ll be a little dot underneath it. CMD-w does the same thing and is much faster than reaching for a small click target. CMD-q or selection Quit from the App’s menu in the menu bar will quit the current app fully.

The yellow button minimises a window to the dock. I don’t like this behaviour so I just use CMD-h to instantly hide it. You can always Alt-tab back to it quickly and it’s much faster than poking about in the dock.

Finally The green button is the weird one. Only recently did they add the current behaviour to make apps enter full screen mode. I find this conflicting with the strength of MacOS as a very productivity driven multitasking OS where your screen is littered with overlapping apps. The old ‘zoom’ behaviour, which you can invoke by holding the Option (alt) key and clicking the green button makes a window as big as it needs to be. This will usually resize a safari window to match the content on the current page.

I almost never use these three buttons. CMD-w and CMD-h cover most of my needs and are faster. If you want Windows like maximisation just double click the top of the current window and it’ll fill the screen without entering full screen mode. (Pretty sure there is a terminal default write to switch these) Similarly double clicking on the edge of a window when the mouse pointer is a double resize arrow projects that edge to the edge of the screen.

Other useful tricks include using CMD-~ to cycle through the various windows of the current app (CMD-tab cycles through apps). Option click things for more options. Try and Option click the WiFi icon for example, same for Bluetooth etc. CMD-Option-h hides all other windows (see the logic?). Ctrl-CMD-Space opens the system character map so your can type symbols, emoji etc anywhere. I’ve customised mine with maths and Greek symbols. The screenshot shortcuts are great but Mojave adds a nice UI for a lot of this.

Thank you. Will try them out tomorrow.

Not entirely sure how all of them work, but practice makes perfect.

What are equivalent ‘home’ and ‘End’ buttons on Mac keyboard. I.e. to get the cursor to very start or end of a line of text.

Sad Professor

obi604 wrote: »

What are equivalent ‘home’ and ‘End’ buttons on Mac keyboard. I.e. to get the cursor to very start or end of a line of text.

Command-left/right is what I use.

Nonoperational

Once you get used to it it's really great. Option click to maximise as suggested and just leave it like that and use tabs. I hate fullscreen too.

obi604

When I do command and tab, and it circles through whats open and I land on one and select , it does not open it , any ideas?

Looks like double clicking to maximise only works on certain apps

Whats the command to minimise all windows at once i.e to also minimise the current window? (I know this may not work fully if some apps are in ‘full screen’)

Sad Professor

obi604 wrote: »

When I do command and tab, and it circles through whats open and I land on one and select , it does not open it , any ideas?

Probably because you closed or minimised the window in the app. Unlike Windows, in MacOS an app can be open without any windows open. If it says the app name in the menubar then you are in that app.

Looks like double clicking to maximise only works on certain apps

You don't have to double click. But yeah, this won't work with some apps. Mainly ones that operate out of a small window. Just expand the window manually (by clicking and dragging at the corners) and it should stay that way.

Whats the command to minimise all windows at once i.e to also minimise the current window? (I know this may not work fully if some apps are in ‘full screen’)

Cmd-Opt-H-M, I think. But I never use it. If you want to see desktop enable "show desktop" in Preferences > Trackpad > More gestures, then just spread out with your thumb and fingers on the trackpad.

I suspect you are misusing the minimise function. Learn how to use other features, such as trackpad gestures, Exposé, Spaces, etc. Or just switch between apps without minimising windows all the time.

holystungun9

I’m a big fan of all apps being full screen and just swiping left and right through them like a book.

5uspect

obi604 wrote: »

When I do command and tab, and it circles through whats open and I land on one and select , it does not open it , any ideas?

Looks like double clicking to maximise only works on certain apps

Whats the command to minimise all windows at once i.e to also minimise the current window? (I know this may not work fully if some apps are in ‘full screen’)

CMD-tab doesn’t open a particular window but it brings the an open app into focus. Look at the left of the menu bar and see the app name update. As I mentioned the app isn’t generally tied to a particular window. CMD-~ switches between an apps windows. Similarity there are gestures for this such as App exposé. I use four fingers up to show all apps and four fingers down to show all windows of the current app.

Learn to use gestures and spaces (virtual desktops). You can click and drag a file and while holding the file by depressing the trackpad you can still use all of these gestures to move about the OS. So for example you can use the splay four fingers outwards gesture to show the desktop, grab a file, CMD-tab to another app, or gesture to a new desktop space all at the same time without dropping the file. Like I said I never minimise anything, it’s a pointless operation on MacOS IMHO.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Something I learned just recently and Apple should emphasise more :

Cmd Tab and the down arrow key will show a list of Windows (minimised or not) at the bottom of the screen.

obi604

5uspect wrote: »

CMD-tab doesn’t open a particular window but it brings the an open app into focus. Look at the left of the menu bar and see the app name update. As I mentioned the app isn’t generally tied to a particular window. CMD-~ switches between an apps windows. Similarity there are gestures for this such as App exposé. I use four fingers up to show all apps and four fingers down to show all windows of the current app.

Learn to use gestures and spaces (virtual desktops). You can click and drag a file and while holding the file by depressing the trackpad you can still use all of these gestures to move about the OS. So for example you can use the splay four fingers outwards gesture to show the desktop, grab a file, CMD-tab to another app, or gesture to a new desktop space all at the same time without dropping the file. Like I said I never minimise anything, it’s a pointless operation on MacOS IMHO.

Thanks.
to be honest, I hate the trackpad , prefer just the mouse........track pads in general wreck my head.

I tend to use 2 monitors and a mouse and apple keyboard setup via thunderbolt docking station, so Mac laptop lid is closed.

anyone know how to make the mouse tracking faster, I have it at the max speed and just find it too slow.

5uspect

https://www.defaults-write.com/change-your-mouse-tracking-speed-in-mac-os-x/

Mac trackpads are incredible, they’re light years ahead of everyone else.

The funny thing is that there are so many intuitive shortcuts that you can fly around the OS with just the keyboard. In any app select help in the menubar and enter a keyword in the search box and it’ll literally point out where a matching item is in the menu and that menu entry will show the corresponding shortcut.

Sad Professor

If you are using a mouse rather than a trackpad, consider setting up hot corners in Preferences > Mission Control for Exposé functions. It would allow you push all windows out of the way and the make the desktop visible by flicking the cursor into the top right corner, or show all windows by flicking into the top left corner. You can set it up however you like.

obi604

how do I check the storage capacity on my Mac

size of hard drive, whats used and free etc?

whiterebel

Go to the Apple top left corner, and about this Mac

obi604

me again.

where is the windows explorer in MAC

i.e. to look through files etc, see what files are on the MAC

Seems I can use finder, but that dose not seem to show much of the individual files etc

for example, I backed up my iPhone to the MAC, on windows its in c > users > username > app data > roaming etc

where would I find this in MAC

Sad Professor

Finder is the equivalent of Windows Explorer. Use the sidebar to get to the root of the hard drive or your home folder. You can customise what's in the sidebar in Finder preferences (Finder menu > Preferences). Your user's library folder (where most app data is stored) is hidden by default, though you can still get to it by holding option while in the Go menu.

For more on using the Finder, see below:

https://support.apple.com/en-ie/HT201732

You can also search for files using Spotlight (command-space or click on the search icon in the top right corner).

Btw, Mac is not an acronym. It's an abbreviation for Macintosh. So just call it Mac not "MAC" else people will think you are talking about a women's lipstick brand.

5uspect

obi604 wrote: »

me again.

where is the windows explorer in MAC

i.e. to look through files etc, see what files are on the MAC

Seems I can use finder, but that dose not seem to show much of the individual files etc

for example, I backed up my iPhone to the MAC, on windows its in c > users > username > app data > roaming etc

where would I find this in MAC

Ah now, have made any effort here?
Finder is the file browser. *nix systems like MacOS don’t use lettered drives. If you want to see the root directory simply click Go from the menu bar and go to /.

You back up your iPhone to iCloud or iTunes. You can sync files on all devices across iCloud Drive and even sync your clipboard.

obi604

5uspect wrote: »

Ah now, have made any effort here?
Finder is the file browser. *nix systems like MacOS don’t use lettered drives. If you want to see the root directory simply click Go from the menu bar and go to /.

You back up your iPhone to iCloud or iTunes. You can sync files on all devices across iCloud Drive and even sync your clipboard.

him where is the 'menu' bar and 'go' ??
can't find this

Sad Professor

The menu bar runs along the top of the screen. It changes depending on what app you are in.

5uspect

obi604 wrote: »

him where is the 'menu' bar and 'go' ??
can't find this

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?t=i&q=finder+menubar+go

obi604

5uspect wrote: »

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?t=i&q=finder+menubar+go

still can't find it even with that just don't see a 'go' button

edit, found it now, was unaware I had to be in finder

obi604

googled this, but cannot find answer.

I have a standard windows keyboard (Microsoft) and use this with my Mac when its in the thunderbolt dock.

Most buttons work fine, except for HOME and END.

When I press them they don't work, tried it with: window button + home, ctrl + home etc and no luck.

any ideas?

obi604

obi604 wrote: »

googled this, but cannot find answer.

I have a standard windows keyboard (Microsoft) and use this with my Mac when its in the thunderbolt dock.

Most buttons work fine, except for HOME and END.

When I press them they don't work, tried it with: window button + home, ctrl + home etc and no luck.

any ideas?

Gentle bump

paulmcn81

I too have that issue and I am an experienced mac user, but don't worry once you get the hang of a mac you will never buy anything else everyt again as they are so much easier to work with than windows.