I got me my Mac mini

Hi ,

I bought it a few weeks ago. I love the little thing. It doesn't take up too much space on my cramped desk-space and is easy to move around as stuff inevitably shifts on my desk ^_^;;

I do have some things that either rub me wrong or I don't understand.
* For starters, I'd like to be able to use my Home and End keys (using a USB keyboard and mouse from another PC) to be able to go to either the beginning or the end of the line that I'm typing on.
* When I first installed applications such as Opera, OpenOffice, Firefox, XCode, etc. in the Applications folder on my Dock, they appeared to have a white circle and line through them. Why? Is the application not fully trusted or something?
* Also, being the geek that I am, I decided to do some easy (read: Hello world) development on XCode. The Interface Builder seemed at times counter-intuitive, especially when I went through the tutorial on how to make a small project. The other problem was that the interface for XCode seems to change quite a bit (even slight changes can seem like radical alterations to the manner in which you're used to setting up projects and such).

Hopefully most of this is just me being new to this and will become easier .

I do have one question:
* What is the command to have all of your windows show up on the same screen and you click on them to view it? I think there is one for applications and one for the windows related to the application.

Don't get the wrong idea, I love the machine and the money was well worth it, but this is just what I'm used to from my Windows and Ubuntu times .

I will get back to you on the keyboard later. All I know is the large Wired Apple keyboard had home and end keys and they work on my iMac in 10.5.8 anyway. Will do some testing on my mini with a Windows keyboard and get back to you.

Rammstein said:

I do have one question:
* What is the command to have all of your windows show up on the same screen and you click on them to view it?

Click to expand...

If I understand your question correctly..the "F10" key is what you want.

HTH,

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

If I understand your question correctly..the "F10" key is what you want.

HTH,

- Nick

Click to expand...

Or, you could also go into System Preferences>Expose&Spaces and set hot corners to show all current windows, instead of using a key command.

I'm beginning to think that since I'm not using an Apple keyboard, my machine might not work very well with others (or rather, is not guaranteed to displayed undefined behavior).

todd51 said:

Or, you could also go into System Preferences>Expose&Spaces and set hot corners to show all current windows, instead of using a key command.

Click to expand...

Hmm... I just did that. It seems to work pretty well. I'll try it out for now.

Hmm... ok. In OpenOffice, End and Home work the same as in Ubuntu and Windows. Command + End and Command + Home work same as Ctrl + End and Ctrl + Home.

Are you using OS X 10.6.x "Snow Leopard?" The white circles around the app and the X through it indicates that you haven't installed an icon in your dock. If you don't use those prgrams often, you can continue to access thm by clicking on the app in the Applications folder in the dock area.

chipz said:

Are you using OS X 10.6.x "Snow Leopard?" The white circles around the app and the X through it indicates that you haven't installed an icon in your dock. If you don't use those prgrams often, you can continue to access thm by clicking on the app in the Applications folder in the dock area.

Click to expand...

Yeh, I thought that I did something wrong during the install process as well. However, after a few days (or a reboot), the application icon appears in place of that white circle.

Also, back to my earlier question, how can I get Home and End to work like it does on other operating systems? ^_^ I find this particularly aggravating.

I was wondering the same thing but didnt really think to much about it until you brought it up.

After playing around a minute ago trying to figure it out, I did.

I hit the COMMAND key and the LEFT or RIGHT arrow keys and the cursor goes from one end of the text line to the other.

If your using a "PC" keyboard there is no COMMAND key (if I recall) so maybe it is some other key combination.

I would like it to be the HOME and END keys like we are use to and I will try and figure out how to do it.

One thing I've figured out about macs is that they like keyboard input (the more key pressing the merrier) and the mouse seems to be just an afterthought.

Well, I went into the SYSTEM PREFERENCES area and messed with the keyboard shortcuts but it wont allow me to to set HOME and END to what were use to on a PC so I guess that we are stuck with a two-finger COMMAND LEFT or RIGHT unless someone else chimes in with a better solution.

After a little research I found this program that allows key-remapping for OSX:

http://www.manytricks.com/butler/

I'm sure there are other programs too.

todd51 said:

Or, you could also go into System Preferences>Expose&Spaces and set hot corners to show all current windows, instead of using a key command.

Click to expand...

Hot corners... I'll never understand them. As someone who watches a lot of stuff in full screen, moving my mouse to get it out of the way (if the player is a crappier codec or plugin) i usually drop it in a corner. Plus, I'd really hate moving my mouse and accidentally invoking Exposé. I don't use it anyway, since I know how to navigate through my spaces and stuff, but yea... hot corners... weird. Power to you, if you like them, but I'll stick with hot key combos.

droflex said:

I was wondering the same thing but didnt really think to much about it until you brought it up.

After playing around a minute ago trying to figure it out, I did.

I hit the COMMAND key and the LEFT or RIGHT arrow keys and the cursor goes from one end of the text line to the other.

If your using a "PC" keyboard there is no COMMAND key (if I recall) so maybe it is some other key combination.

I would like it to be the HOME and END keys like we are use to and I will try and figure out how to do it.

One thing I've figured out about macs is that they like keyboard input (the more key pressing the merrier) and the mouse seems to be just an afterthought.

Click to expand...

On a windows keyboard, the control key acts as the command key (while in OS X).

Rammstein said:

* Also, being the geek that I am, I decided to do some easy (read: Hello world) development on XCode. The Interface Builder seemed at times counter-intuitive, especially when I went through the tutorial on how to make a small project. The other problem was that the interface for XCode seems to change quite a bit (even slight changes can seem like radical alterations to the manner in which you're used to setting up projects and such).

Click to expand...

Congrats on the purchase. No one else responded to this point, so I figured I'd chime in.

XCode and (mainly) Interface Builder are likely quite different from any IDE you have used in the past, and the key to learning them is that you have to essentially start at square one again and discard any preconceptions of how things will work. The concepts are certainly different, but once you understand them, you'll appreciate them. One concept that many seem to stumble on when first using Interface Builder is that it doesn't generate any interface code (though it can generate class files); that's by design, and it's just something you'll come to understand as you work with it and read the documentation.

For any development (whether simple or advanced), Apple provides great documentation on its developer site, and you can also access the docs through the Help > Developer Documentation menu command in XCode. Lastly, if you'd like to get deeper into development I recommend learning Objective-C (here's a great book for it) and then diving full-force into Cocoa and XCode with this book.

I was looking at the Mini before I eventually bought my imac, to replace my family computer (older Dell that was having continuous problems).

I might still buy a mini because my office Dell is now running really really slow. I can't afford another imac, so the mini will do what I need it to do. I don't use that computer for much more than doing data entry, light bookkeeping and occasional web surfing.

I just won't waste anymore money on a cheaper PC, now that I have tasted an apple.