My First 10 Magic Tricks on my Mac

Being a lifelong Windows lover, my first challenge was figuring out what the Mac equivalent of the Windows shortcuts / menus were. Here’s the first 10 things I’ve had to figure out:

1. Right-click on Trackpad
2. Search
3. Scroll on Trackpad
4. Open Launchpad
5. Backspace vs Delete
6. Copy, paste & cut
7. Screenshots
8. Close, minimize, maximize windows
9. Toggle between Apps
10. Force Quit

I haven’t used my Mac for a week. I was a bit mad at Microsoft for breaking stuff after an update, and I was worried if I stayed on the Mac, I wouldn’t go back. But here I am, on my sleek and sexy Mac, writing you this blog.

I consider myself a power user when it comes to shortcuts on my keyboard. Lucky for me the WWW has all the answers and I immediately started searching for the shortcuts I would need to navigate and get things done. I do apologize for matching each function on Windows — but that’s how I’ll have to learn. First let’s replace what we’re used to — then we’ll start learning new stuff.

No right-click on the Trackpad — what?!?! Yes, I did buy the Magic Mouse — but I needed to figure this out as well. We all know that a mouse slows us down, so what you can do on your keyboard — keeps you fast.

Configure Trackpad for right-click

Click on the Apple menu (top left corner of screen) and open System preferences.

Select Trackpad, under the Point & Click Tab, click on the Secondary Click dropdown. I selected “Click in bottom right corner” — because I’m used to the right-click on the mouse.

No Windows Button for search — what now?

As you know, on Windows you can use the Windows button on your keyboard to pretty much search for anything — Apps, Files & Settings. On the Mac there’s no Windows button (who would have guessed), so to open search, click the Command (cmd) button + Spacebar. It opens a Spotlight Search bar. You can also click on the magnifying glass in the menu bar, top right of your screen. “Use Spotlight to search for things like apps, documents, images and other files. In OS X Yosemite, Spotlight suggestions offer additional results like Wikipedia, news sites, Maps, iTunes, movie listings, and more.”

How to scroll on the Trackpad

The multi-touch gestures on the Trackpads are pretty impressive. To scroll up or down, simply slide two fingers up or down on the Trackpad. I’ll definitely allocate a full blog to these amazing gestures you can use.

Open Launchpad

The Launchpad is a central location where you can see and open Apps on your Mac. Similar to the Start menu on Windows or having shortcuts on your Desktop I suppose. To open the Launchpad, drag thumb + 3 fingers towards each other (Pinch). To close press Esc on keyboard or repeat same gesture, but outwards:

Backspace vs Delete — where’s the delete button at??

The backspace button on the keyboard — does exactly that — deletes one character back. If you want to forward delete (what the delete button on Windows Does), then keep the fn (Function) key in and press backspace.

Copy, paste, cut, undo, redo

Thank goodness these are very similar — on windows we’d use CTRL — on Mac you use cmd. So cmd + C for copy, cmd + V for paste, cmd + X for cut, cmd + Z for undo and cmd + Y for redo. Same goes for cmd + B for bold, cmd + U for underline and cmd + i for Italic.

Screenshots

Now I’m a Greenshot fan, and I’ll still have to purchase that from the App store — but for now — lets use the normal screenshot functionality (Snipping Tool on Windows).

Cmd + Shift + 4 will open the crosshair (cursor) which allows you to click and drag to make a screenshot. You will hear the sound of a photo being taken. Your Mac is gonna dump it on your desktop — I changed that immediately — see this blog. I’m WAY to OCD to have 100’s of files on my desktop.

Close, minimize, maximize windows

Most probably the biggest difference to ex-Windows users, would be the Menu Bar at the top of their screen, and the App Specific Menu. For example, in Office you’ll be looking for your File Menu — which isn’t there anymore.

When moving the mouse to the top of the screen, the ‘global’ application menu bar opens. This will show menu items relevant to the app you’re working in.

1. Here you’ll find the Apple menu which provides generic items always available and are system defined.
2. The App specific menus will also appear to the right of the apple.
3. And on the right you have the Menu Bar Extras (Time, Date, Search, Wifi etc)
4. Here’s a really cool article explaining all these.

Below the global application menu it also opens the Title Bar (yup I’m sure I’m making up these names as I go).

In this Title Bar you’ll see the

1. Red Close Window Button
2. Yellow Minimize Window Button
3. Green Maximize Window Button
4. It also shows Save, Print etc. menus

Toggle between Apps — no problem

On my Windows machine I use Alt + Tab to toggle between two apps I’m working with. On my Mac that is CMD + Tab — easy.

Force Quit

So where do you go to close and app that… well… won’t close on its own. On Windows we use the Task Manager. Sad to say I haven’t really needed this on my Mac — but here goes anyway:

1. Click on the Apple
2. Force Quit
3. Select the App you would like to close
4. Click on Force Quit

See you soon for the next 10 cool things to use on your Mac.

Previous posts related to my Mac:

• Me, my Mac and I. The epic start of it all.
• Using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC on my Mac

Disclaimer: I learn new things every day. I change my opinion every day. I am far from an expert on any of the topics I blog on. I invite your comments, additions, corrections and greater insights. If you get value from my musings, please tell me & give me feedback. Like and share my posts if you feel more people can obtain value from this. After all — the WWW has supplied us with a free education system that should be used.