Been using OS X for a few weeks now, but still a few questions:

[Lazyhound]

1. How can I get OS X to emulate Windows behaviour for the Home/End keys?

2. How get I get applications like TextEdit to use Canadian/UK orthography for the spellcheck?

3. Is there anyway to get downloaded files to be saved to the left side of the desktop, while leaving mounted volumes on the right?

4. Would someone care to recommend a simple, free MSPaint-like drawing program (other than GIMP)?

5. Is there any way to switch tabs in Safari using the keyboard, or preferably, to get it to switch tabs like Firefox (Ctrl+#)?

6. Is it possible to have the active window automatically come into focus when alt-tabbing to a program?

7. Is there any way to enable Smooth Scrolling in Safari?

8. Any way to reduce the space between icons in Finder?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[katie ta achoo]

5. Is there any way to switch tabs in Safari using the keyboard, or preferably, to get it to switch tabs like Firefox (Ctrl+#)?

not sure about your other ones, but Command+shift+] goes to the tab to the right and Command+shift+[ goes to the left.

 

[jsw]

5. Is there any way to switch tabs in Safari using the keyboard, or preferably, to get it to switch tabs like Firefox (Ctrl+#)?.

⌘-Shift-[ and ⌘-Shift-] (⌘-{ and ⌘-}).

6. Is it possible to have the active window automatically come into focus when alt-tabbing to a program?.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

7. Is there any way to enable Smooth Scrolling in Safari?.

Oddly, it's in System Preferences...->Appearance->Use smooth scrolling.

8. Any way to reduce the space between icons in Finder?

Thanks in advance for any help.

When Finder is on top, press ⌘-J to bring up view options; you can shrink things and reduce text size and placement, but not just reduce spacing.

 

[untamedhysteria]

there's a paint proggy in appleworks...so if you have that...you already got one

 

[jsw]

2. How get I get applications like TextEdit to use Canadian/UK orthography for the spellcheck?

One way I've found which I think does what you want is to go to anywhere you can type text (like a reply to this post). In the text entry area, right (or control) click and select "Spelling->Spelling...".

In the resulting dialog, pick the "Canadian English" or "British English" dictionaries.

 

[jsw]

3. Is there anyway to get downloaded files to be saved to the left side of the desktop, while leaving mounted volumes on the right?

Well, a trivial way to do this - not really what you want - is to create a folder named, say Downloads, put it wherever you want, and use Safari's preferences to select that folder for downloads.

 

[jim.]

2. How get I get applications like TextEdit to use Canadian/UK orthography for the spellcheck?

I think that spellcheck uses the dictionary specified by your language setting in OSX. Could be wrong, as I am guessing you are set to English/UK. Right? Edit: I guess not, jsw gave a good suggestion above.

4. Would someone care to recommend a simple, free MSPaint-like drawing program (other than GIMP)?

Seashore ! It is a little more advanced than MS Paint, but still good.

5. Is there any way to switch tabs in Safari using the keyboard, or preferably, to get it to switch tabs like Firefox (Ctrl+#)?

This has already been addressed, but under keyboard settings you can actually set what keys will change tabs in Safari if you want. I have mine set to CMD-OPT-<arrow keys>.

6. Is it possible to have the active window automatically come into focus when alt-tabbing to a program?

Wait, you mean like the old school CDE way of alt-tabbing? Not that I am aware of, but there may be an addon.

Hope this helps a little.

Jim

 

[slimflem]

This works on my PowerBook, not sure about a desktop with normal Apple keyboard.


⌘ + Left-Arrow = Home
⌘ + Right-Arrow = End

⌘ + Shift + Left-Arrow = select from cursor to home
⌘ + Shift + Right-Arrow = select from cursor to end

fn + Up-Arrow = Page Up
fn + Down-Arrow = Page Down


Maybe that helps some.

 

[slimflem]

Here are some more I just discovered and should be helpful as well. Some of these may just be Firefox...not sure.

⌘ + Up-Arrow = Take you all the way to the top
⌘ + Down-Arrow = Take you all the way to the bottom

fn + ctrl + Up-Arrow = Move backwards thru tabs
fn + ctrl + Down-Arrow = Move forwards thru tabs

Also, in Finder, if you are arrowing thru items in a folder, pressing ⌘ + Down-Arrow will "launch"/open the item. I found that one the other night and thought it was very useful.

 

[mduser63]

If you've got an iMac, iBook or Mac mini, you've got Appleworks, which has a basic paint program. If you've got a PowerBook or Power Mac, you've got GraphicConverter, which is a more advanced program, but still more simple than something like Photoshop or the Gimp.

 

[notjustjay]

6. Is it possible to have the active window automatically come into focus when alt-tabbing to a program?

I'm not sure exactly what you had in mind, but try this:

Hit F9 to activate Expose, and then hit TAB repeatedly to cycle between apps and see their active windows (at regular size).