Mac questions/gripes

[lendaddy]

I get my new laptop tomorrow, but I've been using my wifes MacBookpro this weekend.

Question the first, why can't I just tap the track pad for a click? What's worse is I can't double tap the scroll bar for control of it either.

Why a single tactile button and no "right click"? Yea I know the control click works but why make people work for it? It's such a useful/common feature.

Also, I swear the Caps Lock button is bigger, is it? I keep hitting it when going for the "A".

The most annoying is the lack of a track pad click, is that programmable?

[berettafan]

you're supposed to be high when using a Mac. supposedly it all makes sense then.

doesn't hurt to take a nice nature walk and eat some granola bars afterwards as well.

[lendaddy]

I will say it is well built, great feel.

[jeffgrant]

Because you don't know how.

Go look at the preferences. You CAN use the trackpad as a click and a scroll. Ensure that the appropriate setting is checked so that it works.

Single finger tap is "left click", 2-finger tap is "right click". (Note I said 2-finger single tap, as in tap the pad with 2 fingers at the same time)

Also, drag 2 fingers up/down/left/right and it will scroll in that direction.

[sketchers356]

Who ever said that Macs are easier...

[stomachmonkey]

Depends on the particular box.

Apple continually add functionality to the trackpad so older machines have less.

If it's a Macbook Pro then it should do what you want.

As said before, go to preferences and set it up the way you want it.

[JavaBrewer]

I recently defected to Mac, well for home use, and I'm still scratching my head on a couple items.

Granted I'm not using a Mac keyboard but I can't get the ALT-Select to work. I'll have to google it.

iPhoto. Supposedly the *intuitive* picture tool. Hummm. I have all pictures organized into folders by type (family pictures, cars, work, etc...) and then deeper by date or event on the hard drive. So...I import the directory and get a Library organized by event and photos thats completely haphazard. Now I have car pictures and kids pictures mixed under a 2005 October event...??? WTF? I spend 2 hours (4K pictures) manually putting stuff into iPhoto albums. My next issue is getting pictures ready for internet posting. In Windows XP I had a nifty right click "Resize pictures" tweak UI tool installed. Made resizing single/multiple 5 MP pictures a one step process. How is this done in iPhoto?

Admittedly I like the cover flow option for browsing pictures. I'm sure this is mostly a *drink more coolaid* sort of situation but for someone reasonably comfortable with modern technology this Mac stuff is not all the intuitive.

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by lendaddy

I get my new laptop tomorrow, but I've been using my wifes MacBookpro this weekend.

Question the first, why can't I just tap the track pad for a click? What's worse is I can't double tap the scroll bar for control of it either.

Why a single tactile button and no "right click"? Yea I know the control click works but why make people work for it? It's such a useful/common feature.

Also, I swear the Caps Lock button is bigger, is it? I keep hitting it when going for the "A".

The most annoying is the lack of a track pad click, is that programmable?

The Mac mouse takes getting used to. It's the only thing about Apple that I hate. I just use a left click / right click Logitech mouse on my PowerBook.

[87coupe]

Originally Posted by dmoolenaar

I recently defected to Mac, well for home use, and I'm still scratching my head on a couple items.

Granted I'm not using a Mac keyboard but I can't get the ALT-Select to work. I'll have to google it.

iPhoto. Supposedly the *intuitive* picture tool. Hummm. I have all pictures organized into folders by type (family pictures, cars, work, etc...) and then deeper by date or event on the hard drive. So...I import the directory and get a Library organized by event and photos thats completely haphazard. Now I have car pictures and kids pictures mixed under a 2005 October event...??? WTF? I spend 2 hours (4K pictures) manually putting stuff into iPhoto albums. My next issue is getting pictures ready for internet posting. In Windows XP I had a nifty right click "Resize pictures" tweak UI tool installed. Made resizing single/multiple 5 MP pictures a one step process. How is this done in iPhoto?

Admittedly I like the cover flow option for browsing pictures. I'm sure this is mostly a *drink more coolaid* sort of situation but for someone reasonably comfortable with modern technology this Mac stuff is not all the intuitive.

Open Script Editor and paste this code in

on open some_items
	repeat with this_item in some_items
		try
			rescale_and_save(this_item)
		end try
	end repeat
end open


to rescale_and_save(this_item)
	tell application "Image Events"
		launch
		set the target_width to 1280
		-- open the image file
		set this_image to open this_item
		
		set typ to this_image's file type
		
		copy dimensions of this_image to {current_width, current_height}
		if current_width is greater than current_height then
			scale this_image to size target_width
		else
			-- figure out new height
			-- y2 = (y1 * x2) / x1
			set the new_height to (current_height * target_width) / current_width
			scale this_image to size new_height
		end if
		
		tell application "Finder" to set new_item to ¬
			(container of this_item as string) & "scaled." & (name of this_item)
		save this_image in new_item as typ
		
	end tell
end rescale_and_save

Save as -> select File format "application"

Now when you drag a image on this icon it will resize the width of the image to 1280 and maintain original proportions. The file will be named scaled.inputfilename. You can make one for a different size by changing "1280" to something else.

Cheers,

[jyl]

I think - not positive - that iPhoto organizes imported photos by date, not by whatever file or tagging system the previous software had. I think you could have imported a folder at a time, and made things a bit easier. But too late now.

You can simply select all the pics you want to downsize (click + Apple key), then click menu Share | Export and specify "no larger than" X size. Send them to whatever folder you use to upload.

Originally Posted by dmoolenaar

I recently defected to Mac, well for home use, and I'm still scratching my head on a couple items.

Granted I'm not using a Mac keyboard but I can't get the ALT-Select to work. I'll have to google it.

iPhoto. Supposedly the *intuitive* picture tool. Hummm. I have all pictures organized into folders by type (family pictures, cars, work, etc...) and then deeper by date or event on the hard drive. So...I import the directory and get a Library organized by event and photos thats completely haphazard. Now I have car pictures and kids pictures mixed under a 2005 October event...??? WTF? I spend 2 hours (4K pictures) manually putting stuff into iPhoto albums. My next issue is getting pictures ready for internet posting. In Windows XP I had a nifty right click "Resize pictures" tweak UI tool installed. Made resizing single/multiple 5 MP pictures a one step process. How is this done in iPhoto?

Admittedly I like the cover flow option for browsing pictures. I'm sure this is mostly a *drink more coolaid* sort of situation but for someone reasonably comfortable with modern technology this Mac stuff is not all the intuitive.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by dmoolenaar

I recently defected to Mac, well for home use, and I'm still scratching my head on a couple items.

Granted I'm not using a Mac keyboard but I can't get the ALT-Select to work. I'll have to google it.

iPhoto. Supposedly the *intuitive* picture tool. Hummm. I have all pictures organized into folders by type (family pictures, cars, work, etc...) and then deeper by date or event on the hard drive. So...I import the directory and get a Library organized by event and photos thats completely haphazard. Now I have car pictures and kids pictures mixed under a 2005 October event...??? WTF? I spend 2 hours (4K pictures) manually putting stuff into iPhoto albums. My next issue is getting pictures ready for internet posting. In Windows XP I had a nifty right click "Resize pictures" tweak UI tool installed. Made resizing single/multiple 5 MP pictures a one step process. How is this done in iPhoto?

Admittedly I like the cover flow option for browsing pictures. I'm sure this is mostly a *drink more coolaid* sort of situation but for someone reasonably comfortable with modern technology this Mac stuff is not all the intuitive.

Alt Select. A PC keyboard is from left to right CTRL/FN/Windows Key/ALT

A Mac keyboard is FN/CTRL/ALT/Apple (COMMAND)

The OS does not remap keys so regardless of the keyboard ALT is the second key on either side of the spacebar, not the first.

In other words forget what the key is labeled, it's position is what the OS reads.

FOr exporting from iPhoto simply select your photos, go to FILE/EXPORT. Will be self explanatory after that.


Iphoto uses the meta data/time of the photo to organize.

Iphoto does its initial import based on meta data of the file, at it's basic the timestamp of the picture. Which makes sense as the pics on your camera are shot in chronological order.

[jyl]

I don't know if a one-click way to maximize a window.

The Mac idea seems to be, you set the application's window however large you usually like it, including full screen if you want. Then you use Expose to quickly go from one app to another app. There's no, or anyway less, need to max and min application windows.

Originally Posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts

How do you get a window to go full-screen? Will someone please tell me how to do that? Why don't Macs do that? It's the most annoying thing to me. I want to go full screen, so I have to move the window to the upper left, and then drag the size open on the lower right. *grrrr*

-Wayne

[Moses]

Originally Posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts

How do you get a window to go full-screen? Will someone please tell me how to do that? Why don't Macs do that? It's the most annoying thing to me. I want to go full screen, so I have to move the window to the upper left, and then drag the size open on the lower right. *grrrr*

-Wayne

The green button at the top left of the window.

[jeffgrant]

Originally Posted by Moses

The green button at the top left of the window.

That won't make a window full-screen size. Mac's tend to try and make windows only as large as they have to be, so you can see everything else.

Some applications provide resizing to full-screen windows with a menu or key command, once you're in the app (photoshop, firefox, etc)., but the OS generally doesn't.

You can add third party apps that will do this though.

[Mule]

Ask me if I'm laughing? Any time you make a device as complicated as a computer, there will be issues, yes, even with the almighty & infallible MAC. Who'd a guessed Dottore uses a Mac. You know Limbaugh does too!.

[lendaddy]

Thanks on the track pad settings, I'll tell my wife. Also as a note, I am now on my PC at work and the Cap Lock button is indeed spaced further from the A. Odd.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by jeffgrant

That won't make a window full-screen size. Mac's tend to try and make windows only as large as they have to be, so you can see everything else.

Some applications provide resizing to full-screen windows with a menu or key command, once you're in the app (photoshop, firefox, etc)., but the OS generally doesn't.

You can add third party apps that will do this though.

When you are sitting at your desk do you stack all of your papers in one pile and then shuffle them when you need one other than the top one?

Most people arrange papers in relevant groups or spread them around their desks.

Hence the Desktop concept translated to your screen.

Also Macs have a high penetration in the graphics industry. Sharing/moving content among open docs and apps is a regular task. Most apps support drag n drop between windows and apps so if you can see a part of a destination window you just drag content from one window to another.

As others have noted correctly, the green button will maximize the window to show the full width and if possible the height.

Try it with an excell sheet and you'll see it goes full screen.

The full screen thing in windows is one of the things I personally can't stand. Seems inefficient to me but to each his own.

[JavaBrewer]

Thanks for the info!

Luckily before I spent the time *fixing* the iPhoto imports I realized I would only want to do it once so I created a single shared library for the family user accounts. I used the info from macosxhints.com

[nostatic]

metadata is a pita - platform doesn't matter. iPhoto tries to be smart but it is what it is.

As indicated above, the trackpad issues are rtfm. It will click, click-drag, etc. Also note that one of the best features on the newer trackpads is that dragging two fingers scrolls the window. Anywhere on the trackpad.

Of course Adobe (almost as evil as Microsoft) now has code in their websites to create a different scrollbar behavior and it no longer works (when you're on their store site). Nor does the mighty mouse roll ball. Idiots...

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by dmoolenaar

Thanks for the info!

Luckily before I spent the time *fixing* the iPhoto imports I realized I would only want to do it once so I created a single shared library for the family user accounts. I used the info from macosxhints.com

Whenever I eval a new to me piece of SW that will involve lots of time/effort to get setup I always do a small test run to see what it will do.