Coming From Win7...GUI Question

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Howdie, I love the Mac! But I have a question regarding navigation in the GUI. In windows, if you are say in MS-Word or perhaps any other app, and you minimize that app and work in a different app, you can jump back to the original app (say MS-Word) and your file is there no worries. But on the Mac, when I do this jumping around, I get to MS-Word but my doc is hiding in the docking station. It does not pop up for me to easily get to. In writing this, I repeated this issue with the Mac app Mail...minimized it, got into Safari, then toggled back to Mail, but my emails are not visible, but I do see it hiding in the dock...I hate this! What am I doing wrong?
 

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Well, I don't know exactly what it is you're doing, but I can minimize an app - mail as an example - go to Safari, and then go back to mail and my message appears just as before. I can do the same with MS Word documents. I frequently have to keep two or three apps active while working in Word and am always able to go back to my document immediately when maximizing Word again. However, I prefer using the "command + tab" key combo to switch back and forth between apps. That works the same as Alt - Tab does in Windows.
 
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When you "minimize that app", you are just minimizing the app's window. Clicking on the app's icon in the dock will not restore that window. Minimized windows become resident in the far right hand side of the dock. Clicking on the minimized window will restore it to view.

I seldom use minimize but instead prefer to hide (Command-H) an app that I want to leave for a while and not have its windows hanging out on the screen. Then clicking on the app's icon in the dock when I want to bring it back displays its window(s) again. I always do that with mail. But I'm mostly just used to multiple windows from multiple apps hanging out on my screen at the same time.
 
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Thanks for responding everyone. I know it is me and not the Mac OS. Perhaps I should stop minimizing so much and instead just toggle over to the other open apps or launch new apps....that way if I toggle back to the first app, my document will be there up front and facing me.
 

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Thanks for responding everyone. I know it is me and not the Mac OS. Perhaps I should stop minimizing so much and instead just toggle over to the other open apps or launch new apps....that way if I toggle back to the first app, my document will be there up front and facing me.

Remember. There will be GUI differences between Windows and the Mac OS (I'm sure you know this).:) It's these differences that make the two OS's different.:)

One habit if someone is coming from Windows…is trying to look for the way to do a "Windows Thing" in the Mac environment. Many times there are similarities…and sometimes not.

- Nick
 
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I found that same difference slightly a pain until I got used to it. I just open another program over the active window without minimizing it and it is always there using Command + Tab. It also is nice because where you can use F3 you can get your choice of progs except then they are minimized in the doc.
 
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What the MAC OS FINALLY provides that is window-ish is that when you double-click on the green + at the top of every window, it expands that window to the full size of the display. That is a huge wonderful thing, at least for me. Windows GUI mostly copied MAC, but sometimes MAC copies Windows and that is not a bad thing.
 
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What the MAC OS FINALLY provides that is window-ish is that when you double-click on the green + at the top of every window, it expands that window to the full size of the display. That is a huge wonderful thing, at least for me. Windows GUI mostly copied MAC, but sometimes MAC copies Windows and that is not a bad thing.
No, actually, it does not do that. The green button maximizes the window, but no to the full size of the display, necessarily. It maximizes to show as much as it can of the material in that window. In the beta for Yosemite, that function seems to be changing to maximize to full-screen, but it's NOT that in any current active release of OSX.
 
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One thing Mac OS could really benefit from, which Windows has, is to double-click anywhere on the title bar of a window to toggle between maximized and minimized.
 

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You can double click on the title bar of a Mac app and it will minimize. Clicking once on the minimized icon on the dock restores it. What's the difference then between OS X and Windows?
 
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You can double click on the title bar of a Mac app and it will minimize. Clicking once on the minimized icon on the dock restores it. What's the difference then between OS X and Windows?


Sorry, I realize my explanation was bad. Say you have a window at half size. If you double-click on the title bar, it is maximized. Then if you double-click on the title bar again in the maximized window, it returns to its previous size and position (not a minimized state as I previously stated).
 
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No, actually, it does not do that. The green button maximizes the window, but no to the full size of the display, necessarily. It maximizes to show as much as it can of the material in that window. In the beta for Yosemite, that function seems to be changing to maximize to full-screen, but it's NOT that in any current active release of OSX.

True, but he didn't say he wasn't running it. It's available as a public beta. (I don't recommend just anyone get it, it's still quite a bit rough around the edges, but coming together nicely.)

PS. I personally find the green-button-to-fullscreen thing annoying. I preferred it the other way, the "intelligent maximizing."
 
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If you want full screen look on the other side of the window. The double-sided arrow will do that for ya.
 
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know exactly what you mean, in windows you get used to restoring a minimised window with alt+tab. In OS X you can minimise the window with cmd+m but there's no way to restore it with the keyboard, quite annoying.

Instead use cmd+h to hide the window, as mentioned by ron4mac, and then cmd+tab to restore. Alternatively you could cmd+m to minimise then go to mission control by either using the F3 shortcut or a 4 finger upwards swipe on the trackpad (starting from outside the trackpad area).


Going from one OS to the other inevitably means adapting habits, just one of them things. What I personally miss from windows is the ability to maximise a window or snap it to half the screen or full height. And the total lack of keyboard mnemonics is a slight inconvenience as I liked using them. Still, nothing too major.
 
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True, but he didn't say he wasn't running it. It's available as a public beta. (I don't recommend just anyone get it, it's still quite a bit rough around the edges, but coming together nicely.)

PS. I personally find the green-button-to-fullscreen thing annoying. I preferred it the other way, the "intelligent maximizing."
I agree. I'm not running the beta, but I don't like the idea that they are changing the way the green button works. In the beta, what does do what the green button does now?
 
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If the green button is now full screen, what do you use to get intelligent maximized, the way the green works in Mavericks?
 
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Minimizing Windows

There is actually a way to control the way to minimize and reopen a window. If you go into System Preferences > Dock there is an item stating,

"Minimize windows into application icon"

If that is checked, when you minimize a window, it is "placed in a buffer" behind the icon, i.e., a Word document would be behind the Word icon. To reopen it, simply right click on that icon and choose it from the list.

If that item is not checked, each window that is minimized is placed on the far right of the docking bar as an icon. In this instance, if you had three documents minimized, there would be three Word icons on the right. To reopen a window, scroll over the icons to identify which you want to reopen and click on it.

Hope this helps.
 
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If you want full screen look on the other side of the window. The double-sided arrow will do that for ya.

As a followup, you get the menu bar back (with the double-arrow to get you out of full-screen mode) by running your cursor into the top of the screen (and it may need to be pulled back down a bit.)
 

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