MacMost Now 142: Common Mistakes Windows Users Make on Mac
Monday, October 6th, 2008 by rosenz Gary Rosenzweig looks at the seven most common user interface mistakes that Windows users make when first switching to Mac.
Hi, this is Gary with Mac Most now. Today lets take a look at the seven most common user interface mistakes that Windows users make when switching to Mac.
Understanding the major differences between Windows Mac is actually usually pretty easy. It’s the tiny little things that give people trouble. Like, for instance, number one on the list is Windows users always end up accidentally renaming files in the finder. This is because that in Windows, you can select a file and then hit the enter key which then launches the program, but it doesn’t work that way on Mac. So on Mac, if you select an application then hit enter, you’re in a mode to rename that application. A confused Windows user may accidentally do that and change the name of the app.
So, number two is the maximize button. In Windows, this will expand the window to the full size of the screen, but on Mac it only expands the maximum ammount of size needed to view all of the content. So here, in Safari, we’ve got the Apple homepage. If we hit the green maximize button, we typically get a window that’s large enough to contain all the content inside of the webpage. We don’t expand to full screen. In order to expand to full screen you have to grab the bottom right hand corner and expand it manually.
Which brings us to number three, resizing windows. In Windows, you grab the edge of a window, and drag them to resize. On Mac, you grab the lower right-hand corner and use that to resize.
Another common mistake used is minimizing a window rather than hiding it. Minimizing a window actually minimizes just that one window the application. The application is still running and it puts that document in the dock. It’s still using a lot of processing power to update what’s shown in the dock and the app is actually still there. Other windows may be open. Hiding it is probably what most people want to do in this case, which actually takes the entire application and moves it away. It’s still running in the background but it’s not using as much system resources as minimizing does.
So to minimize, you press the yellow button and that would simply hide that single window and put it down here in the dock. Other windows are still there and you can minimize those as well, having several minimized windows from a single application. But hiding, which can be done by going up here to the main menu for the application or by pressing command h in which the applications will instantly and quickly remove the applications completely and it’s easy to bring it back by using command tab for intance or just clicking on the application again in the dock.
So related to all this is the fact that Windows users are used to clicking on the top of a window to quickly maximize it. Well, in the Mac, it doesn’t work that way. Instead, when you go to the top of an application and double click on the window it simply minimizes that window. It wont actually maximize it like the maximize button.
Windows user will often also close a window for an application thinking the application is closed. That’s cause that’s true on windows. If you’ve got one document application open and you close it, the application quits. But not so on Mac. You close the last document window or say word processor or your browser, the application’s actually still running and ready for you to open a new window to begin something new.
And last, but certainly not least, is the difference in the keyboards between Mac and Windows. The main difference is the command key, or the Apple key as it is sometimes called on the Mac. This is used just like the control key on Windows, but, to confuse things further, there is a control, a ctrl key, on Mac. This is used like the right mouse button on Windows. So when you want to do something like issue a menu shortcut command, you, on Mac, would press the command or the Apple key and type the key for that command. The control key you use, you press control and you click somewhere to bring up a right menu. Of course, different programs will use both these keys in lots of different ways but for the most part, command is used to do keyboard shortcuts and control is used as a way to bring up a contextual menu.
Now, these are by all means no the only mistakes Windows users make when switching to Mac, and if you’ve got one you would like to list, please leave it as a comment to this post at Mac Most dot com. Thanks and until next time, this is Gary Rosenzweig with Mac Most Now
