Break down the dock for me?

Need someones help breaking down the dock for me. I worked on windows machines for years now and I have a mac for only two days so bare with me.

1) Is there a difference between having a shortcut/alias on the desktop and dragging that same alias in to the dock?

2) Does the little arrow under the icon in the dock mean that app is loaded in memory? What exactly is that telling me?

3) Is there a way to TOTALLY close an app from an open window? When I hit the X it closes but the app still have the mysterious arrow under it.

Now some misc stupid questions:

4) How do I get the icon for the main hd and my mapped drives off the desktop and onto the dock without ejecting them?

5) if I bought a 2 button mouse would right click show the same menu and holding down ctrl shows? Would the scroll feature work on a scrolling mouse???

Thanks in advance

1) it's basically the same thing. you can actually bypass making the alias if you want it in the dock, just by going into the applications folder and dragging the app onto the dock. this will make an alias on the dock without having to go that extra step of making an alias and then dragging it onto the dock.

2) the little arrow means that the application is currently open.

3) you can hit command(apple key) + q to close the app completely. some apps can actually be running even with no windows. that is why the little arrow stays under some apps in the dock after you close the window. (some apps can be closed just by clicking on the x -- system preferences, for example, as well as the calculator and a few others)

4) Drag your drive icons to the Dock, at the left of the Trash. Then, in Finder -> Preferences -> General uncheck "hard disks" under "Show these drives on your desktop". Actually, you can drag any file or folder to that space left to the Trash, which creates an alias. I have my home, appplications and utilities folders there, which makes accessing them much faster.

5) Yes, a scrolling mouse will work. It's pretty easy, unplug the original mouse, plug in the scroll mouse and instantly, the right button works as ctrl+click and the scroll wheel will work too. Even the middle button, when you push the scroll wheel down, will work. In Safari for example, clicking a link with the middle button will open that link in a new tab, which is VERY conveniant...

That's what makes OS X so easy to live with, it has REAL plug&play, and REAL drag&drop...

Avalon said:

4) Drag your drive icons to the Dock, at the left of the Trash. Then, in Finder -> Preferences -> General uncheck "hard disks" under "Show these drives on your desktop". Actually, you can drag any file or folder to that space left to the Trash, which creates an alias. I have my home, appplications and utilities folders there, which makes accessing them much faster.

5) Yes, a scrolling mouse will work. It's pretty easy, unplug the original mouse, plug in the scroll mouse and instantly, the right button works as ctrl+click and the scroll wheel will work too. Even the middle button, when you push the scroll wheel down, will work. In Safari for example, clicking a link with the middle button will open that link in a new tab, which is VERY conveniant...

That's what makes OS X so easy to live with, it has REAL plug&play, and REAL drag&drop...

Click to expand...

I'm assuming you can re-assign the buttons to do what you want?
I think it would be handy to have the middle button (wheel click) assigned to expose.

Thud said:

I'm assuming you can re-assign the buttons to do what you want?
I think it would be handy to have the middle button (wheel click) assigned to expose.

Click to expand...

Yes, you can. You find that setting in the Exposé preference pane in the System Preferences. You can even assign button 4 and five if you have a five-buutton-mouse, or use the modifier keys (shift, option, ctrl and command) to add all three Exposé functions to the middle button.

option = alt
command = Apple-key

Completely Closing Apps:

The menu bar at the very top changes to correspond to the current app that you are using. If you click on the name of the app (next to the apple icon in the top left of the desktop) a drop down menu will appear with quit option somewhere at the bottom.

You can also click and hold down on, or (ctrl)right click, the icon of the open app in the dock, a menu will appear with the option to quit at the bottom.

Another way is to hold the apple key whilst pressing tab a window will appear showing you all the apps you have running. With your finger still on the apple key, pressing tab will scroll through the apps. Pressing Q will close down the selected app.