Hello and Welcome to the Beginner's Guide to Macs! In here, I'll go over some of the more fundamental differences between Macs and Windows PCs. I'll admit, a lot of this is a direct copy and paste of a guide I originally wrote for PC users switching to Mac over on Blizzard's World of Warcraft Mac forums. So I'll try to tweak it to fit ED instead of Warcraft.
Table of Contents:
-Introduction-
-Section 1: The Beginner's Guide To Elite: Dangerous On Your Mac-
-S1-1. General Differences. ("Closing a Window Vs. Quitting A Program.")
-S1-2. The Finder, The Dock, System Preferences, and Quick Look.
-S1-3. Application Bundles. ("Why doesn't Elite.exe work?")
-Section 2: The Intermediate's Guide To OS X: How It Works-
-S2-1. Keyboard Shortcuts. ("The Command Key.")
-S2-2. OpenGL vs. Direct X. ("The misconception.")
-S2-3. System Stability. ("What is this UNIX I keep hearing about?")
-S2-4. The OS Architecture. ("So how is all this different from Windows?")
-Section 3: The Advanced User's Guide: The Philosophies Behind The Design-
-S3-1. Logic vs. The Human Mind. ("Wouldn't 'this' method make more sense?")
-S3-2. Letting OS X Do It's Thing. ("Escaping the idea that the computer needs you more than you need it.")
-S3-3. All In The Context. ("Why should I even care about any of this?")
Introduction
So you've finally caved into peer pressure, switched to a Mac, and want to bring Elite: Dangerous with you eh? Well you're in good hands my friend. Don't worry, you can download the Mac client here:
https://store.elitedangerous.com/dow...omer/products/
This thread will help you make the transition swift, relatively painless, and maybe we'll even have fun along the way. If you've just bought a Mac and you want to learn exactly how to use it, read this guide. It may just be of some use. This guide was written with switchers in mind. It's designed to teach you what's different, why it's different, and how to wrap your mind around the new way of thinking. This guide will cover mostly just how to use the software. For performance issues and actual error messages, there is a bug report forum here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=112
This guide will be split into three separate sections to help ease you into the process of learning how to use your Mac:
Section 1: The Beginner's Guide will cover basic use and the immediate fundamental differences between OS X and your old Windows computer. Including popular alternative programs downloads.
Section 2: The Intermediate's Guide will expand upon Section 1. It will also introduce new concepts to your daily routine, including integrating keyboard shortcuts into your workflow. We'll go into the deeper underpinnings of the OS, as well as delve into the differences between Direct X & Open GL, the 3D rendering engines in Windows and OS X respectively.
Section 3: The Advanced Users Guide will delve right into the philosophies behind the design choices made in OS X. Such as 'why' a menu or program acts a certain way instead of the way you might be used to. We'll go over why it does 'that', why something else does the same job in a different manner, and the pros and cons of each method.
Section 1: The Beginner's Guide:
S1-1. General Differences:
The first major difference you'll notice when you start up your Mac and begin using your programs is that the red X on the upper left hand corner of the program window does NOT quit the entire program. It closes the window. OS X runs 1 single program with however many windows you open all contained in that one running copy. Microsoft Windows opens multiple copies of the same program for every new window. To see which programs are currently open, look for the glowing orb under each icon in the Dock at the bottom of the screen. Those without orbs are closed programs.
The Dock at the bottom of your screen is your taskbar. This serves as both the program monitor and launcher. The program icons on here are just shortcuts. Clicking on them will open their respective programs, but the icon can safely be dragged off the dock to remove the program from the bar. To add more, drag a program from the Applications folder in the Finder to the Dock. But be careful when doing this. I'll explain why in Section 1: Part 3.
The Finder is the equivalent to Windows Explorer (not "Internet Explorer"). It's the general file browser. This is what you use to generally navigate around your programs, documents, music, and movies folders, among other things. It's always running. You cannot quit it. But you don't want to anyway.
The Menu Bar, which contains the usual "File, Edit, Tools", etc, is now at the top of the screen instead of inside each open window. And there's only one. Not only does this end up saving a lot of screen space for each individual window, but also acts as a static location for all of your editing needs. It will dynamically change depending on what program or file you have selected up front on top the others. Clicking the desktop background brings up the Finder's Menu Bar.
The icon with the gears on it in the Dock, and in your Applications folder, is the System Preferences. This is OS X's version of the Control Panel. This is where you set all the major settings for your Mac. Everything from your network's IP address to the mouse button settings to the desktop background picture. You'll find it all in here.
Quick Look, which was added several years ago in OS X 10.5 Leopard, is a very handy tool. While it's not a "major" feature, it does offer a new and easier way of browsing your files. So much so in fact that I feel it's worth mentioning here. To use it, simply highlight ANY file, movie, document or what have you in the Finder, and hit the spacebar. A preview window will instantaneously pop up showing you the full contents of the highlighted item. To get rid of it, simply hit the spacebar again. It's a huge time saver over opening a program again and again when trying to find that one document you wanted in a folder full of similar looking files.
-Mouse Settings-
On to mouse settings. Generally, OS X assumes a "one button mouse" approach to the design of it's interface. This is so developers don't take the "easy way out" and limit certain program options in the right click contextual menu. They're forced to add it to the proper menu in the program's menubar. For now, just know that OS X does indeed support right-clicking. To enable it, go to the System Preferences, click on "Keyboard and Mouse" click on the "Mouse" tab, and set the buttons accordingly as "primary" and "secondary". Alternatively, most any existing USB mouse will work on your new Mac.
S1-2. Disk Images:
Disk Images, or .dmg files on OS X, are commonly used in just about every major operating system out there. Windows is pretty much the only exception to this. But a big exception nonetheless. So a lot of people are unfamiliar with disk images. There's a bit of confusion going around as to what these are. A common misconception is that these are like .zip files. Compressed packages of programs which are downloaded, expanded and then trashed once the program is installed.
Disk images do technically fit that description, and can be treated as such for the most part. But they are not compressed packages. Disk Images are seen by the computer as a completely separate drive on the system. You open the image which is then "mounted" to the desktop as a new drive. It's like adding another CD drive but completely in-software. You mount it, drag the files or program from inside the new image to wherever you want that file to be, like the desktop or the Applications folder, and then "eject" the disk image as if you ejecting a CD. This can be done by dragging the image to the Trash, which changes to a big "eject" symbol upon mouse-over. Then after that's done, you can trash the .dmg file.
You "can" run programs from directly within the disk image without ever dragging the program to your computer, but be warned that since most of these downloaded images cannot be written to, any settings you mess with will NOT be saved after closing the program. And ejecting the image deletes the program. In most cases in OS X however, the program simply won't function properly at all using this method because it's closed off from the other programs that it might need to call out for to preform a selected function. Opening a program inside the disk image is NOT recommended.
S1-3. Application Bundles:
On to the actual install process. OS X generally doesn't use installer wizards to install things for you. In most cases, downloaded installs contain just the programs inside a disk image that you simply drag to your Applications folder. Programs, or Applications, as they're called in the Mac world, are all completely self-contained. Meaning that if you click on the "Applications" folder and drag one of those applications to the Trash on the Dock, you've just deleted the entire application. These are NOT shortcuts in a Start Menu. These are the full blown program applications themselves.
OS X doesn't use random files strewn all around the computer's hard drive to run a program. Absolutely everything the application needs to run and function is contained entirely within it's own application package. No mess, no fuss. Downloaded an application and decided you didn't like it? No problem. Just drag it to the trash and it's gone. No messy uninstaller wizard. No leftover files in the "Program Files folder".
But this can also be (elite) dangerous if you're not entirely sure what you're doing. If you drag one of Apple's own applications to the trash, such as "Address Book" or "Quicktime Player", you just deleted something that OS X may need just to run properly. You can usually reinstall these apps from the DVD that came with your Mac, but just be on the safe side and leave Apple's applications alone.
Applications in OS X will always end in .app instead of .exe. Like "Address Book.app". However, OS X usually chooses against showing you it's 3-letter extensions at the end of a filename. So instead of reading as "Elite: Dangerous Trailer.mp4" or "Elite: Dangerous Launcher.app", it'll simply say "Elite: Dangerous Trailer" and "Elite Dangerous Launcher" with their respective thumbnail icons depicting what kind of files they are. The extensions are there, OS X just usually hides them and handles the "managing" of files on it's own without needing your help to sort through them.
You can however choose to make OS X show all file extensions by going to the Finder, clicking "Preferences" from the Finder's menu bar, clicking "Advanced" on the Preferences Menu, and ticking the "Show all file extensions" box. But there really isn't a need to do this. We'll get into this more in Section 3.
OS X does not use the same kinds of files as Windows does. So copying the WoW folder from a Windows computer to a Mac will not work. OS X doesn't read .exe's. However pictures, movies, and documents will work on both with only a few minor exceptions, like .wmv movie files.
Section 1 Synopsis:
That concludes Section 1. Now you have all the basic differences down. I hope you learned a few things, but if this was way under what you already know, don't worry, Sections 2 & 3 are coming your way. It's just a good idea to always go over the basics before moving on.
Section 2: The Intermediate's Guide: How It Works:
S2-1. Keyboard Shortcuts:
OS X takes quite a different approach to the mindset behind keyboard inputted commands & shortcuts. Instead of using the F1-F12 keys for relatively untold cryptic commands, like print, shut down, and closing of the program, OS X generally uses the command key, located directly on either side of the spacebar, plus the first letter that describes the action you're doing. So if you wanted to print out the document you have up front, you'd simply hit Cmd + P. To minimize a window to the Dock, you'd hit Cmd + M. To save a document, hit Cmd + S. To close a window, hit Cmd + W. To quit an application, you hit Cmd + Q. To open a new window, type Cmd + N. Simple right?
There are a few exceptions to these in certain applications, but for the most part these are universally adhered to throughout the OS. Cmd + C, Cmd + V, and Cmd + Z remain largely unchanged from the Windows world as Copy, Paste, and Undo respectively. If you are unsure what the shortcut is for a given command, check and see what it is in the Menu Bar. The keyboard shortcut is given directly to the right for most commands and options. The front most application's preferences are almost always Cmd + , (comma) on the keyboard.
S2-2. OpenGL vs. Direct X:
Now for a drastic change in the flow of this guide. So go get a drink, a snack, and get ready to think. It "ain't" summer in here no more folks. It's learnin' time!
First of all, it's not Direct X. Direct X is the entire collection of development API's. An API, or Application Programing Interface, is just the tool developers use to write their software. Direct X is a collection of API tools for multimedia software in general on Windows. "Direct3D" is the part of it that's used for 3D graphics in games.
Microsoft developers spent a lot of time developing their own tools specifically for their OS. And it paid off. Direct X not only supplied a revised API catered specifically for it's own Windows OS, but did so very well. Direct X, and in turn Direct3D, were out performing most other OS's in 3D games for a very long time. But this is slowly changing.
Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia, which describes the Direct3D/OpenGL comparison much better than I could:
"In general, Direct3D is designed to be a 3D hardware interface. The feature set of Direct3D is derived from the feature set of what hardware provides. OpenGL, on the other hand, is designed to be a 2D & 3D rendering system that may be hardware accelerated. These two APIs are fundamentally designed under two separate modes of thought. The fact that the two APIs have become so similar in functionality shows how well hardware is converging into user functionality.
Even so, there are functional differences in how the two APIs work. Direct3D expects the application to manage hardware resources; OpenGL makes the implementation do it. This tradeoff for OpenGL decreases difficulty in developing for the API, while at the same time increasing the complexity of creating an implementation (or driver) that performs well. With Direct3D, the developer must manage hardware resources independently - however, the implementation is simpler, and developers have the flexibility to allocate resources in the most efficient way possible for their application."
As of OS X 10.9, OS X uses OpenGL 4+, which is the equivalent of Direct3D 11.1. So contrary to popular belief, Macs are NOT behind Windows in gaming anymore when run on similar hardware.
S2-3. System Stability:
This is where we get into the fun stuff. If you haven't completely tuned out yet and skipped to the end, you'll enjoy this.
As you may or may not know, Microsoft Windows started off as, and is built on MS-DOS. Which is a type of command line. All operating systems are built on command lines. A command line is a fully capable full fledged OS that will literally do anything you ask. The problem is, you have to learn how to ask it. That's all Windows and OS X does, gives you a pretty picture to click on which runs that command in the command line running in the background. But because of this, you're limited to the commands that other developers made a button for. In the command line, you can do anything if you know how.
Microsoft's DOS was programed with all sorts of fail-safes. If you were to type in the instruction to completely erase your hard drive, DOS will come back and warn you. Asking if you're sure you want to do this. DOS is filled with these kinds of warnings. Also, it won't let you even do some of the more powerful commands if and when Windows is running. This is great... Unless you already know what you're doing... Developers don't want to be warned about every little thing they do. It's tedious, annoying, and gets really old, really fast.
Enter UNIX. UNIX is pretty much the grandfather of every modern OS in the world. Even Windows. UNIX is very powerful. It lets you do anything and everything without warning you first. You can do your work uninhibited. It's also MUCH more secure than MS-DOS. It doesn't have any of the security holes that DOS has. MS-DOS, and Windows, have quite a bit of "patch work" built into them. There are a millions reasons for this. From being worked on by too many different people to compatibility with 20 year old systems. Windows uses patching and hook-ins to get one part of it's OS to work with another. This is where all the viruses, trojans, and spyware come in. They attack the OS through these holes.
Windows XP, Windows Vista, And Windows 7 & 8 run off the newer NT platform rather than MS-DOS. The NT architecture boasts significantly improved portability to all kinds of different processors, higher security, a full-fledged system-wide API, and significant enhancements to memory addressing. However, it still follows the same basic fundamental laws that MS-DOS does. With the same general flaws.
UNIX doesn't suffer from any such security holes. The last hole found in the general spec UNIX OS was in the 1990's. And was fixed the same day it was found. UNIX is bar none the most secure and the most stable OS in computing history. And OS X is built on it. That gives OS X a healthy lead over Windows in that respect alone. But wait! There's more!
S2-4. OS Architecture:
OS X's design can be described as something of a beehive. Each major software component runs in it's own isolated cove or "sandbox", as the term is used. Functions in OS X are separated and somewhat closed off from the rest of the software with carefully monitored calls to the rest of the system. This design choice is taken directly from UNIX itself. This design is perfect for system stability. This means that if perchance something does go wrong, like an application crashes, it doesn't bring the whole computer down with it. OS X cuts all ties to the malfunctioning "cove" and lets it crash without affecting the rest of the system. Once the application crashes, it can be reopened without any further inconvenience.
The idea behind this is simple. "Don't waste your time trying to avoid the inevitable. Prepare yourself to be able to handle it when it happens." It's not the "fastest" design in terms system performance, but which would you rather have, the tortoise or the hare?
Microsoft Windows does not take this approach. It went with the direction of the hare. Many parts of it's software have direct tie-ins with the very core of the OS, called the kernel. This allows it to make system calls very quickly. However it's also largely responsible for just about every complaint the OS is known for. Complete system crashes from one single program error, viruses spreading to all parts of the system, etc.
Another architectural design choice by Apple is that OS X doesn't really carry a lot of baggage. When that new revolutionary way of doing something comes out, Apple gives developers a few years to adapt, then completely drops the old obsolete code from it's OS. Microsoft's 64-bit Windows still carries compatibility code from the 16-bit version, which is over 15 years old. Neither way is right or wrong. But it makes a large contribution to how much space is alloted for other things.
Section 2 Synopsis:
It's a simple equation, Apple chose stability over performance. Microsoft has a lot going for it with Direct X, but it's up to the user to decide which they'd prefer. In terms of workflow usability with the keyboard shortcuts, it's all personal preference. What you can wrap your head around. Pure mathematical logic vs the human mind. A perfect lead-in to the next section...
Section 3: The Philosophies Behind The Design
S3-1. Logic vs. The Human Mind:
Have you ever gotten tired of constantly clicking on the "ok" and "cancel" pop-ups? Have you ever found yourself just clicking "ok" without 'really' reading what the computer was asking you? It's a simple yes or no response as far as the computer is concerned. But it just keeps nagging us and nagging us with it. So it's okay. Everyone does it... Right?
Wrong. The whole idea behind a "Human Interface Design" is to design something that 'you' would see and react accordingly to. If you're constantly clicking "ok" all the time, you're much more likely to make a mistake and cause serious problems.
OS X makes an attempt to address this. When you try to close an open document that you're working on in OS X. The pop-up has 2 buttons, like you'd expect it to. But it doesn't say "ok" or "cancel". Nope. It says "Save" and "Don't Save". This makes it immediately clear to you, the user, what is going to happen when you click either option. Likewise when you have unread messages in your instant messenger, the options are "Quit" and "Don't Quit". Again, OS X makes sure you know what you're clicking on. This is just a tiny little change, but it makes a world of difference. And to think here you probably never even noticed it.
As you may have noticed from Apple's advertisements, OS X heavily pushes the idea of "drag & drop". But... Why? You could do this in Windows. So what's so special about it? You could always drag a movie from the desktop into the "My Movies" folder. But I'll bet you never thought of highlighting a piece of text and dragging that over to a date on the calender. In OS X, doing this turns that text into an event for that specific day.
This kind of design flows with tactile representations our minds can relate to. Physically lifting something up and placing it somewhere else. This kind of thinking can be found all over OS X. Use your imagination and see what you can find. It's intuitive, functional, and just plain simple. Why didn't we think of it before?
S3- 2. Letting OS X Do It's Thing:
There's a fundamental flaw in most operating systems today. They aren't smart enough to make their own choices. Over and over again they will ask you to update the software, defragment the hard drive, etc, etc. And they will screech to a halt until it gets the go-ahead from you saying whether or not it's okay to do so. In a sense we're forced into a babysitting role. If you have to leave the computer for a while, you can't trust it to keep going and not have a few "accept" or "okay" dialogs accompanied by a hanging progress bar waiting for you when you return.
For the most part, OS X doesn't do this. The user is never once asked to defrag the hard drive on OS X. The OS is smart enough to handle that on it's own. You're never told when you plug in a flash drive. And why should you be? You know it's plugged in, you just did that yourself. You don't have to babysit anymore. To take a line from Steve Jobs, "it just works".
S3-3. All In The Context:
So lets assume you actually read this whole thing here. Or even if you didn't, you're probably asking "how does any of this affect 'me'? Why would I care about any of this?"
Well. That's up to you. If you didn't want to learn the ins and outs of the Mac platform, why did you buy it? Ease of use? Because all your friends did? Whatever the reason. It never hurts to learn a thing or two about the multi-thousand dollar toy you just bought. But if you still don't care. Why did you read this?
Conclusion
Well, there you have it. the all-in-one guide for Switchers. I hope at least one person finds this information useful. If so, my time and effort in writing this was not spent in vain. I could've given a much more detailed description in just about every section, but let's face it. You didn't bother to read half of what I wrote anyway. Anything more would've been pointless. So here's to a long safe and productive life with your new Mac.
Happy surfing.