05-13-2007, 02:39 AM

So Ive had my iMac for about 10 days now and I really like it, but there are some small things that are a bit irritating. If anyone could help me out with these things I would appreciate it.

For starters: Cut and paste. On windows you can cut and paste just about anything. On OS X the option is there but it seems you can never do it. If I just want to move a file using cut and paste to a different folder why cant I ? Why do I have to switch views and drag and drop or make a copy, move it, then delete the original? When you right-click the file or click on the edit menu up top its always greyed out or not there.

And Firefox: I have different categories on my bookmarks toolbar, like a drop down menu for "news" which has all the sites I visit to read news. Well why cant I goto "news" right click "cnn.com" and select "Open in new tab"? On OS X if I right click on it there is no option, it just starts loading the page. I have to open a new tab then select the site. You can do this for links on web pages but not on the toolbar?

Digital Cameras: Well I hate iPhoto, I dont like the way it organizes pictures ( I use picture arena instead). So what if I dont want to use any program to import pictures from my camera. Why cant the camera be mounted as a USB mass storage device, like on windows. I would like to connect my camera to my mac and have it show up as a mounted drive. But I havent figured out a way to do that. It seems OS X wants you to use a program instead.

-Is there anyway to keep folders synced between windows and mac?

05-13-2007, 06:01 AM

Originally Posted by LokariX

Cut and paste. On windows you can cut and paste just about anything. On OS X the option is there but it seems you can never do it. If I just want to move a file using cut and paste to a different folder why cant I ? Why do I have to switch views and drag and drop or make a copy, move it, then delete the original? When you right-click the file or click on the edit menu up top its always greyed out or not there.

Yeah, the Finder doesn't have a Cut and Paste.

There are a few ways to add it though using third-party apps.
I myself used OnMyCommand to add Cut and Paste to the context menu (right-click menu).
OnMyCommand: http://free.abracode.com/cmworkshop/on_my_command.html
(Use OMCEdit, which comes with it, to add more commands.)





By the way,
when you want to force a file to be moved instead of being copied (e.g. when dragging a file from one drive to another), hold Command (the Apple key) while dragging.

Originally Posted by LokariX

And Firefox: I have different categories on my bookmarks toolbar, like a drop down menu for "news" which has all the sites I visit to read news. Well why cant I goto "news" right click "cnn.com" and select "Open in new tab"? On OS X if I right click on it there is no option, it just starts loading the page. I have to open a new tab then select the site. You can do this for links on web pages but not on the toolbar?

You can middle-click a bookmark to open it in a new page. (Command-clicking it also works)

This works for bookmarks anywhere (and for links too)
except in the menu bar because the Mac menu bar does not differentiate different types of clicks.

Originally Posted by LokariX

Digital Cameras: Well I hate iPhoto, I dont like the way it organizes pictures ( I use picture arena instead). So what if I dont want to use any program to import pictures from my camera. Why cant the camera be mounted as a USB mass storage device, like on windows. I would like to connect my camera to my mac and have it show up as a mounted drive. But I havent figured out a way to do that. It seems OS X wants you to use a program instead.

Hmm, are you sure there isn't a mounted drive that appears on the Desktop?

By the way, if you don't like iPhoto, give Xee a try:

http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/xee.html

05-13-2007, 08:51 AM

Originally Posted by LokariX

For starters: Cut and paste.

Here's an article on the subject, along with a $5 solution. There is this, as well, in the article's readers' comments:

In OS X just drag the file while holding down the command key and you get the same result - the file is moved to the new location and removed from the old.

I have no idea how Windows uses file copy/paste, but Apple's doesn't use the clipboard. If you copy a file then change its location or delete it, the pathway changes or no longer exists, and the file cannot be "pasted." That's why there is no cut first, paste second.

But it can be dangerous. If you copy a document, then replace the file you copied with another having the identical name but different contents, the second file with the identical name is pasted.

So the machine doesn't copy into RAM then paste. In effect, it drags and copies, with the added peril that if the orginal file's contents change in the meantime — files in a watch folder, for instance — you could be in trouble.

And Firefox: . . . Well why cant I goto "news" right click "cnn.com" and select "Open in new tab"? On OS X if I right click on it there is no option, it just starts loading the page.

This is Firefox's fault, not Apple's.

05-13-2007, 07:57 PM

And Firefox: . . . Well why cant I goto "news" right click "cnn.com" and select "Open in new tab"? On OS X if I right click on it there is no option, it just starts loading the page.

Originally Posted by Brown Study

This is Firefox's fault, not Apple's.

Well.......... I wouldn't use the term "fault" but technically speaking, it's because of Apple and how Mac OS X's menus work.

Mac OS X's Menu Bar's menus' items have the same effect to any type of click (left-click, right-click, and middle-click).
Furthermore, they never allow a context menu of an item in a menu, i.e., the menu of a menu, so to speak.

Other than the menu bar, all menus in Firefox are non-native menus, meaning Firefox can make menus that have a slightly different behavior. (You might notice that clicking on a menu separator or an inactive menu item in a Firefox context menu does not make the menu disappear, as it would with a Menu Bar menu.)

That's why you can middle-click Firefox menu items for a different effect.

As for why right-clicking menu items doesn't bring up a context menu, it's probably because the Firefox developers chose to respect how menus work in Mac OS X, i.e., no context menus for menu items. (even though they already 'bended' the rules with the different effect of the middle-click)

But once again, it's really nobody's "fault." It's just the way Mac OS X was made, which in a manner determines how Firefox for Mac behaves.

05-14-2007, 12:32 AM

Originally Posted by remain

Mac OS X's Menu Bar's menus' items have the same effect to any type of click (left-click, right-click, and middle-click).
Furthermore, they never allow a context menu of an item in a menu, i.e., the menu of a menu, so to speak.

As for why right-clicking menu items doesn't bring up a context menu, it's probably because the Firefox developers chose to respect how menus work in Mac OS X, i.e., no context menus for menu items.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but there are many submenus in the Finder menu bar. (Apple has had them at least since System 7, most notably in the Apple Menu itself, though they appear elsewhere, too.

(OS 9 has a plethora of them in the menu bar, with three or four being in the desktop left- or right-click contextual menu.)

There is at least one in the desktop left- or right-click contextual menu in OS X, for Automator. My machine has two more as well, but they are from third-party apps. Apple's dock has them, too.

It's true that these function the same whether they are accessed with the left or right buttons, but Firefox would not break any such hypothetical Apple guidelines if its bookmarks-bar tab choices followed the same click pattern Apple's do and as Firefox's do in the menu bar across the top.

Though Apple sometimes doesn't follow its own guidelines, the number of submenus and mouse contextual menus Apple itself includes suggests this isn't the case in this instance, and that Mozilla made the decision to exclude them in the bookmarks-toolbar tabs button for some other reason.

05-14-2007, 01:11 AM

No no no, I'm not talking about sub-menus (sub-sub-menus, etc.), which of course allowed in Mac OS X.


What I was talking about, and what the LokariX was talking about, is this:


A context menu of a menu item. (Hover the mouse over a menu item, and right-click on it to bring up a context menu.)

I'm pretty sure such a thing does not exist in Mac OS X.
Right-clicking a menu item will have the same effect as left-clicking it.

[[edit: changed picture]]

05-14-2007, 06:43 AM

I was afraid I was missing something obvious. It's been three years since I had to use a Windows machine at work, and the apps didn't use drop-downs like that, nor had a need for them. Thanks for posting the pic.

I'm left wondering, though, why Mozilla can't employ the Apple submenu convention when, I assume, other cross-platform app coders can. Whether a triangle in a drop-down offers the choices or a drop-down context menu does, the result is the same.

05-14-2007, 06:55 AM

Actually, that would be bad, if you think about it.

I mean, that would imply that every single Bookmark would have its own sub-menu.

I think I must have 500+ Bookmarks. Can you imagine opening a Bookmarks menu with 500+ sub-menus? x_X

[[edit: I changed the picture above; the old one was a bit misleading; made the context menu look like a dropdown.]]

05-14-2007, 07:40 AM

Originally Posted by remain

Can you imagine opening a Bookmarks menu with 500+ sub-menus?

Great idea! LOL. But if Firefox can restrict the context idea to the Windows bookmarks toolbar (or does it?), why not the Mac? Each bookmark has a single right-click drop-down, anyway.

Perhaps close to this — but it might be a poor analogy — is nested bookmarks folders in the main drop-down. I have folders within folders within folders, and when they're all displayed, they can fill the monitor from top to bottom and from side to side. If each bookmark could do this on its own, there would be no need for folders.