OS X Basics

Mac OS X Basics

It is the letter O and the letter S with a Roman numeral at the end, and should be pronounced — O S ten!

What you get with OS X is a very stable operating system, the core of which is UNIX. There are new Finder features, a new Dock, the translucent look which Apple calls Aqua, more polished and advanced networking features, and a broad array of accessory applications.

Where Did It Go? or What the heck is this?

Mac OS X is new, written from scratch, and bears only a slight resemblance to previous versions of the Mac operating system. Many features have been removed, replaced, or relocated. With that in mind, here is a list of some differences you will experience using OS X:

The Appearance Control Panel is gone; however, the features are available elsewhere.
No more Apple Extras folder either.
The Apple menu is different, and unfortunately, there are no Apple menu 'options'.
The Application menu's function has been replaced with the Dock. However, there is a new 'application menu' located immediately to the right of the Apple menu and displays the name of the currently active application. Show and Hide have been moved to this new location.
The Chooser has been replaced with the Print Center and the Go menu, Connect to Server command
Balloon Help no longer exists.
The various Control Panels have been replaced with a program called System Preferences, with 'panes' that handle hardware and software configurations.
The Control Strip is gone but some of its features are available in the form of menulets - icon pop-up menus which appear in the menu bar. The menulets can be turned on using the associated pane of the System Preferences and the Internet Connect program.
No more Desktop Printers. Now there is a Print Center utility application.
Disk First Aid and Drive Setup have been combined into one Disk Utility application.
The Eject command is now located in the Finder's File menu.
The Empty Trash command has also been moved - to the new Finder menu.
Erase Disk is now part of the Disk Utility program.
Since there are no extensions in OS X, there is no Extensions Manager.
Finder Preferences have been moved from the Edit menu to the Finder menu. Some of the earlier OS Finder preferences have gone by the wayside. No more spring-loaded folders, or grid-spacing control and labels for icons.
The General Controls control panel and its options are no longer offered.
Get Info is now called Show Info, and offers a few changes. You can no longer manually adjust the memory allotment for an application because you do not need to – OS X handles this automatically. Sharing is now called Privileges. New features of Show Info include a Name & Extensions panel and an Open with Application panel.
The New Folder command is still in the Finder menu, however the key command shortcut is now Shift/Command/N.
Pop-up windows are gone, but an equivalent does exist. Place a folder on the Dock, then click and hold down the mouse button on the docked icon – a pop-up menu with the folder contents appears.
Application preferences are now stored for each user in their own Library Preferences folder.
The Quit command is now located in the Application menu - to the right of the Apple menu.
Remote Access has been replaced with Internet Connect.
Restart has been moved to the Apple menu.
Shut Down has been moved to the Apple menu.
SimpleText has been replaced with TextEdit.
No more Special menu. Most of its commands have been moved to either the Apple menu or the File menu.
StartUp Items are now controlled via the Login panel of System Preferences.
Stickies are still here but in a new and improved version as well as a new location.
TCP/IP and AppleTalk control panels are now managed with the Network pane of OS X System Preferences.
The View menu has a new 'as Columns' view which replaces the 'as Buttons' view.
The Zoom Box on windows is now a green Zoom Button. When you click it, the desktop window becomes as large as needed to display all icons.

Three in One - Classic, X, UNIX

Essentially, while OS X is more stable than earlier versions of the Mac operating system and many individual features have been redesigned for simplicity, it is fundamentally more complex. OS X is really three operating systems in one. Luckily, you are already familiar with one of them — OS 9!

UNIX is the core of OS X, and luckily, most of us will never have to even see it and can safely ignore it.
OS 9 or CLASSIC is included for all the applications which have not been written or adapted to take advantage of the new features of OS X.
And then of course there is X, the Aqua interface.

What's with all this Cocoa, Carbon, and Classic stuff? and Do I really need to worry about it?

Simply put, these are all just naming conventions and commonly refer to the three different kinds of programs you use in OS X.

Classic refers to older applications which run only in OS 9. When you launch one of these applications in OS X, the Classic environment launches first and then the application appears.

Carbon applications are classic OS 9 applications which have been modified to work in OS X.

On the other hand, Cocoa applications have been rewritten from scratch to take full advantage of, and used exclusively in, OS X.

And no, this is not something to worry about. What is important is that as an OS X user you realize which environment you are currently working with. If you have a blue or gray Apple in your Apple menu, you are in OS X. If the Apple is multicolored, you are in the Classic environment.

Written by Teresa Hagan

Here are links to more OS X tutorials:

Windows & How They Work.
The Folder Structure & Moving Things Around
The Dock
The Finder Toolbar
OS X System Preferences