annoyances i hope are easy to workaround!

[purk155]

Hello people. I guess this is an increasingly common statement but here goes.. 'I am a recent switcher, totally new to macs, and I'll never go back...duh'

However I do have a handful of annoyances which I am sure there are ways around hence my bothering you nice folks.

So here is a list of things that I'd like to do differently.

I'm a researcher by day so I would be happy to just be pointed in the direction of answers/clues.

I'd like to :

1) add an automator plugin/workflow thingy to the apple menu.

2) make the home & end buttons move to the end/start of a line.

3) prevent the 'are you sure you want to shutdown' from being shown.

4) go up a level (not necessarily back) in the finder.

5) make double clicking the app title bar expand not minimize the window.

6) make clicking the red (close) button quit the app not minimize it.

7) make an automator finder action to 'move finder item' to a tba location at the time of moving. i don't know where i want to move a file prior to wanting to move it. also a 'copy file to...' option would be very useful especially whilst I am still transferring stuff from my PC.

8) make the 'show dock' trigger more sensitive. when the dock is set to 'auto hide' it sometimes takes a few attempts at moving to the very bottom of the screen before it opens. can it allow open apps (in full screen mode) occupy the screen area behind the dock? if i have it behave like the windows task bar (always on top) when i maximize a window/app it will leave the bottom corners of my screen with noting but a nice view of some trees in france (my desktop wallpaper) because the dock is not 100% of the screen width.
^---- minor annoyance which I can live with unless there is a simple fix.

9) have key combos bound to a given key. i.e command+W (close window) bound to the escape key?

10) have an automator/workflow bound to a given key

11) find out which processes are not required? and how to prevent them from starting at startup. fyi. there is nothing in the 'startupitems' directory (in system/library) that i put there myself, just the 16 i think i had when i opened the box.

12) sometime when i click the red close button apps go back to the dock (in the 'running apps section', not the 'open windows section' of the dock) so when i relaunch the app it remains hidden forever, or at least until i quit and reload the app. This is very annoyting as I can easily lose my work.

************************************************

Now I appreciate that some of these requests are making a truely incredible OS function slightly more like a truely terrible one, but these are my requirements.

Thanks for any feedback.

James

[DeltaMac]

I'll take a stab at a few:
2. home & end keys are for documents, not individual lines
3. press Option when choosing to shut down.
4. Apple-click on the title bar of a finder window, and you can move up one level, or up to any level on that drop-down.
5. The Green button is the one to click for window zoom (not usually an expand or maximize, Apple calls this function zoom, and it operates somewhat differently from Windows. The zoom does not usually go to full screen, but goes to some size set by that particular window, or set by you!
6. the Red button simply closes that window. The app normally stays open unless you choose to quit the app. The Mac can work just fine with large numbers of apps open, and no windows open. Most apps return most memory when the apps windows are not open. Many Mac users press Apple-Q when leaving an app, and the whole app simply quits with all its windows. If there is an open unsaved document, you will have the opportunity to save the document. The app will warn you about that.
7. Doesn't drag-n-drop do this? Your question here is a little 'fuzzy' Why would you move a file when you don't know where you are moving the file? Or, am I reading too much in your request?
11. Many processes that are started by the system may not be in use for that particular session, but may be needed for some service or app that are launched later on. Unused services generally do not hold on to resources unless the service is needed. This is not Windows, you know! So, the Mac OS X has a laundry list of startup items, and any could be called into use, otherwise, they mostly don't load unless called. (not the technical term, but an accurate description, I think) That being said, there may be some services that you can safely disable if you know what you are doing, but most here would say "don't mess with anything in the System". The System Preferences/Accounts pane shows Login items that are part of your user account. You can sometimes find items for software that you used for a while, then deleted. You might find some left-over items there that you can delete.
12. ? The dock does not show open documents unless you minimize a document. Again, your app is still running, and closing the app will tell you that you need to save a document. It's unlikely that you would lose a document (unsaved), unless you are not paying attention, or you shut your system off improperly (pulling the plug, shutting off the power strip, or otherwise forcing a shutdown). The system interface won't help you with that!
I hope this helps you with some of your questions (kind-of long for me!)

[purk155]

DelatMac: firstly, thank you for a quick and concise response. I'll elaborate a little on some of the more unclear items I listed.

2. home & end keys - is there no key combo (alt+end etc) to just goto the end of a line?

3. quick shutdown - brilliant, just what i needed.

4. finder navigation - yep, exactly what i meant, but no key to do the same ala backspace in windows?

5. expand/zoom window - fair enough., good to know.

6. red button - i understand, but it would be nice to be able to quit an app with the mouse (menu notwithstanding).

7. moving files - this one was a little vague. if i have a 'downloads' folder and i want to move, sya, photoshop plugins to folder X or mp3s to folder Y then, as far as I can tell, I would need two automator actions one to move stuff to folder X and another to folder Y. I want to just right-click on a file and select 'move...' and then be asked where I want to put the file. Saves me from opening more finder windows and dragging files all over.

11. startup items - makes sense. I've had no performance problems, just wanted to have it running efficiently as possible. There seems to be a LOT of processes running and I have only 15mb free ram and am using 7gb of VM.

12. dock items - I wasn't too clear here so here goes... Example: Listening to an mp3 in VLC, I click the red button and the window drops to the dock (I have VLC 'always' docked, so the little black arrow below the icon appears).
Now if I want to skip to the next track I'd expect to click the dock icon (or apple-tab) to show the app window, but it NEVER returns. All I get is the menu change to the regular VLC menu. I tried the 'hide' & 'show' menu items with no joy. BTW, VLC was just an example, this happens a lot and is VERY annoying.

Again, thanks for taking the time to help a lost newbie.

James

[bobw]

1-Use FruitMenu to add anything to the Apple Menu.

[purk155]

bobw: I'm a little reluctant to overload my system with plugins and apps which hace to run all the time. I know it's like cryptonite to windows so I was trying my best to keep my mac healthy.

Is it a resource hog in any way?

Any tips on keeping my mac healthy?

Thanks for the advice bobw.

James

[jbarley]

for #2
CMD+right arrow = end of line

#4
CMD+ left or right square brackets, moves back-forward in finder, same in Safari.

#6
to close app with mouse, click app name in top menu bar, click "Quit".

[purk155]

jbarely: awesome, that should save me a lot of time. i hate text wrap in code editors so i have some looong lines to traverse.

many thanks

james

[bobw]

FruitMenu uses very little, not noticeable. I've been using it almost since OS X came out.

You can also use this script;

tell application "Finder"
shut down
end tell

Save it as an application and put it in your Dock, or if you decide to use Fruit Menu you can add it to the Apple Menu. It will shut down the machine with any warning.

These are some apps to keep the machine in good condition;

Cocktail

Onyx

Yasu

For Backups, I'd recommend Chronosync


You can also quit an app by right clicking on it's Dock icon.