OS X for dummies - guide to OS X 10.10 Yosemite (part 1)
This post updates the previous post iMac first steps for dummies - guide to MacOsX Maveric ks (part 1), published on 28th of December 2013.
In
the meantime a new operating system has been released, i.e. OS X 10.10,
commonly known as Yosemite.
Though
some of the features explained in the previous post have remained unaltered, I think it's best to review the above post regardless.
A
Mac keyboard has two special keys:
1. Command (CMD ⌘)
- in older keyboards it was the Apple key.
2. ALT (⌥), sometimes also called
Option key.
CMD (⌘) key in OS X replaces
Windows CTRL key in several key combinations. For example, if you want to select
all the files belonging to a folder, you have to press the keys CMD and A
simultaneously, whereas in Windows you'd use CTRL/A. So, to copy a file you
need to select it and press CMD and the letter C (instead of CTRL/C) and to
paste it CMD and the letter V (instead of CTRL/V).
ALT (⌥) key is used for numerous
key combinations in OS X (see a complete list of MacOsX keyboard shortcuts).
When
you first boot your Mac you might feel totally disoriented, as you’ll
find yourself with a desktop, that at a first
look has nothing in common with the familiar Windows environment (see figure below).
It’s
like being on an alien planet but it gets easier if we break it down into its
components.
On
the upper part of your screen there’s the Menu bar. Its left
part displays the menu of the application that is currently active (in
this case, Evernote).
Its
right part shows (from left to right) the icons related to Sound, Bluetooth
options, Wi-Fi, date and time, Spotlight and Notification Center. The menu bar
can feature as well other program icons, which vary depending on
the specific system configuration (in the below figure, this is the case
for the icons highlighted in red).
At
the bottom of your screen you’ll find the Dock, split up into
two parts, separated by a dividing line. The left part includes the icons of
the programs used more frequently and system applications, i.e. the Finder (the
leftmost face-shaped icon, the OS X equivalent of Windows
Explorer), Launchpad and System Preferences.
The
right part displays the Trash and shortcuts to some important folders, such as Documents
or Downloads.
Both
the left and the right part of the Dock are highly customizable. In fact
you can add program icons to the left part by dragging them to the Dock or
by right-clicking the icon of an open program and choosing “Keep in Dock”.
You can conversely remove programs from your Dock by right-clicking their
correspondent icons and choosing "Remove from Dock” or by dragging
them to the Trash.
It's possible to add shortcuts to the right part of the Dock by dragging a folder from the Finder to the Dock; you can as well remove shortcuts by dragging them to the Trash.
The
Dock is found both in OS X and in Linux systems and it roughly corresponds to the
taskbar for Windows. In fact, from Windows 7 on, it is possible to pin programs
to the taskbar, the same way you do with OS X by adding icons to the left part
of the Dock.
Hands-on tip
The
first thing you want to do, after first booting up Yosemite, is to enable the
mouse right-click, if your Mac supports it. For this purpose, you have to
open System Preferences/Mouse, select Secondary click and,
from the drop-down menu, choose Click on right side.
If
you can do this, you’ll save yourself numerous headaches and frustrations.
Major differences with Windows
1. With OS X, when you close a file, you don’t close its corresponding
program as well, which remains active. Any active applications are highlighted by
a dot below their icons in the Dock. To close a program, you’ll need
to choose File/Quit from the program menu, or right-click the program
icon in the Dock and choose Quit. A faster way to do this is to
use the key combination CMD/TAB to cycle through the open applications,
select the application(s) you want closed and then press down Q on
your keyboard to quit each one of them.
2.
It’s possible to open new tabs in the Finder through the key combination
CMD/T.
3.
For you to install anything, you’ll have to enter
your administrative password that you’ll have to create. In other
words, you’ll need administrator privileges for you to make changes to the
system.
4.
To install an application in OS X, in most cases, you’ll have to drag
the installer icon to the Applications folder.
5.
To uninstall an application, it’s generally enough to drag its icon to
the Trash and empty it.
Stick around for the next part of this tutorial.
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