The waiter at the restaurant was so excited when he saw my Mac. "I just got one three days ago. Do you know about widgets yet?" There appears to be something in the air about Macs these days, and about people switching over--my waiter had been a lifelong PC user too. Or maybe it's like, when Robin and I were on our honeymoon (in 1993), everyone came up to us and told us their wedding stories. Maybe I'm emitting pheromones that make people express their gratitude that I'm in their club now.
I maintain my reluctance to drink the kool-aide nonetheless. I have a Mac Pro in my office now, a massive sleek silver thing that, for the first day, flummoxed me with how to open the CD tray. Googling the problem was no use--it appears to be one of those basic skills, like turning on a light switch, that needs no larger discussion. But if you've never encountered said light switch before, how would you know? Only when I visited the Mac store, and talked to Cody, my salesperson, did I get the secret handshake code. "It's the eject button," he told me. Oh, that button that has no effect on anything on my laptop? I thought it was the equivalent of the Print Screen key on a PC, a button that describes an unattainable desire, not an actual function.
I asked him about one of my bigger annoyances, that when I go to the Address or Search field in a browser, I have to double or triple click to get the damn field to highlight so I can type in what I want. In IE, the field is cleared the moment you click on it, ready for fresh input. "But why would you want it to do that? It would be inconsistent with how Macs operate in any other application." He whipped through the keyboard shortcut that highlighted the fields, and traveled from one to the next. I made him do it several times, with the faint hope I might remember it. "This is the way Macs work. It's the way things are supposed to work!" he said, in response to my dense inability to get with the program. I replied, equally frustrated, "You know, Macs remind me of American foreign policy. If the world would just do things like we want, everything would be OK."
I tried out that keyboard shortcut when I got home. For the life of me, I couldn't reproduce it. There was an arrow in it, that's as much as I remember.
Hi Doug,
you probably meant Command-L, which highlights the entire address field for you. Any typing will replace its contents.
From the address field, use the Tab key to switch to the search field, Shift-Tab to switch back. I use this in Firefox as well as Safari.
Works the same, BTW, in Firefox for Windows (with Control instead of Command) - that's where I learned it.
Cheers & have fun
Kaspar
Posted by: Kaspar | July 26, 2007 at 01:51 AM
Or maybe Windows (which came second remember) refuses to do it the right way ;)
The key to remember is that there isn't at "right way" but the nice thing about the mac is that it works the same in every application. In any text field anywhere, a single click places the cursor, a double click selects the word, and a triple click selects the entire paragraph. That way you don't have to remember that single clicking in an address bar selects the whole thing, while single clicking in Word only places the cursor. Consistency is key, and given some time you'll learn things quicker because they work the same everywhere.
Posted by: matt | July 26, 2007 at 08:34 AM
The Eject key on the MacBook Pro works the same way - there's just no tray to open. If a disc is in the drive, press and hold Eject for a few seconds to eject it. (Apple added the "and hold" behavior in a recent update because people were accidentally hitting the key instead of Delete and ejecting their discs.)
There are no "secret handshakes" that I'm aware of. I think you're confusing enthusiasm for "drinking the kool-aide".
Posted by: Jeff Carlson | July 26, 2007 at 09:42 AM
"I thought it was the equivalent of the Print Screen key on a PC, a button that describes an unattainable desire, not an actual function."
Excellent! (or "LOL" as my daughter would say/write/txt)
Posted by: Mike C. | July 26, 2007 at 10:06 AM
Regarding consistency: Then there's Adobe, which has another set of conventions that obey neither OS.
The consistency thing is overhyped, I think. I want different things to happen in a word processing program than I would in a browser address bar, and I want the response to be different. I will adapt though, as I have no choice, but I reserve the right to grumble.
Posted by: Doug Plummer | July 26, 2007 at 02:37 PM
Yea - command-L switches focus to the address bar and selects its contents.
When I want to google something in Safari, I usually do command-L then tab. This switches focus to the search field and selects its contents.
Posted by: Eric Hancock | August 04, 2007 at 08:21 AM