Mac window effects

shikamaru85 · Jan 6, 2007

Hi all,

I'm very sorry if this has been answered before, but after much googling and searching the forum I still couldn't find an answer. Bear in mind I've never used OS X since I'm still pondering a switch. I love almost everything I see about Mac OS X, except one thing. I've seen some screencasts where a window when minimized gets "vacuumed" into the dock, is there any way to remove this effect or any other undesired window effects I might stumble upon (leaving the ones I like active) without eliminating the functionality with it associated?

Thanks in advance

baggss · Jan 6, 2007

You meant the genie effect of the window shrinking into the dock. There is another option that simply shrinks the Window into the dock but the effect is more or less the same and can't be turned off that I know of.

You can get something like WindowShade X and simply double click the to of the window to hide it. There are options in Window shade as to how you can set it up.

shikamaru85 · Jan 6, 2007

Thanks, after googling with the term "genie effect" results were drastically better

Seems that there exists freeware that change options like these if by any chance it is not already supported in the System Preferences in the Dock section.

Thanks once again for making my choice even more obvious

yogi · Jan 6, 2007

Let me tell you one thing. I personally never use the dock to minimize things. I don't know why I never do, but I don't. I usually just hit Ctrl + H and hide everything. So chances are this feature won't even bother you. But of course you can deactivate it, meaning you can use a scale effect instead.

cwa107 · Jan 6, 2007

Just out of curiousity, what is it about the eye-candy that bothers you? I personally like the effect, but I don't understand the problem. Is it just the small amount of system overhead that is discouraging? If that's the case, be aware that there are a LOT of visual effects like this in OS X, this is just a drop in the bucket.

NanoBite · Jan 6, 2007

Hi all,

I'm very sorry if this has been answered before, but after much googling and searching the forum I still couldn't find an answer. Bear in mind I've never used OS X since I'm still pondering a switch. I love almost everything I see about Mac OS X, except one thing. I've seen some screencasts where a window when minimized gets "vacuumed" into the dock, is there any way to remove this effect or any other undesired window effects I might stumble upon (leaving the ones I like active) without eliminating the functionality with it associated?

Thanks in advance

Regarding the Dock, if you prefer not to use it at all why not give Todos a spin:

shikamaru85 · Jan 7, 2007

First of all thanks for all your replies.

I love eye-candy, dock especially but honestly that effect really bothers me. I love how Exposé swooshes back and forth, I've loved a lot of other effects I've seen in screencasts but some I'm not that crazy about. It seems that normally there are alternatives, making the experience very personalizable

Ctrl + H seems to be the way I'd normally hide the windows then.

NanoBite · Jan 7, 2007

command+h hides windows from view.

shikamaru85 · Jan 7, 2007

Sorry...bad habit

yogi · Jan 7, 2007

Yes it does, but I usually know what windows I have, whether minimized or hidden.

I don't see the problem...

zyepod · Jan 7, 2007

I have a quick question... When I use FireFox I click on it from the Dock it first opens a small window then opens up to the internet. I have it in my applications folder.

cwa107 · Jan 7, 2007

zyepod said:
I have a quick question... When I use FireFox I click on it from the Dock it first opens a small window then opens up to the internet. I have it in my applications folder.

What is the question?

nukemm · Jan 7, 2007

zyepod said:
I have a quick question... When I use FireFox I click on it from the Dock it first opens a small window then opens up to the internet. I have it in my applications folder.

When it opens up that small window, you then have to click on FireFox again, right? If that's the case, then drag the FireFox icon to your applications folder. After that, drag the icon from your Applications folder to the dock, and remove the old one. Now it will open FireFox directly.

zyepod · Jan 7, 2007

That was it nukemm... I appreciate the help.

nukemm · Jan 7, 2007

No problem, man. I had the same problem a couple of weeks back.