Some usability questions switching from windows

[gagaliya]

I have been using mountain lion full time for over a week now, and overall found it to be very intuitive and easy to use, it just works. However there are some quirks i hope the pros can help me out, as i cant find a solution to them over the inter web.

1) Mail - When you open the write new mail screen, it freezes everything behind it making them unusable, this is very annoying as I always need to copy/paste text/photos/addresses from other emails to the new email i am writing, but now there is no way to do that. Especially when you are half way though writing the email and realized need to get something from another email, but cant.

Any workaround to make the write new mail screen NOT freeze everything behind it but just a regular window?

2) Is there a way to make the little time/weekday display on the upper right corner show the entire date time? Right now for example it has "Sat 11:100AM" i want something like "2012/12/29 Sat 11:110:AM" Cant figure out how to change it for this specific case.

3) When you maximize to full screen for an app by clicking the <- -> icon, what is the keyboard shortcut to restore to original unmax size? It's annoying trying to find the icon on top right corner to click to restore to original, and some apps i found dont have that. So i have to close the app then reopen it just to unmax it.

4) What does ^ up_arrow map to exactly for keyboard shortcuts for switch between different language inputs

Thanks!

 

[Yester5]

As far as the date/time thing, just right click on the time...open date time preferences, then choose show day of week. etc...

 

[PurrBall]

1) Don't use Mail in full-screen mode. Sucks, I agree.
2) Date & Time Prefs - Clock tab - Show date. Not exactly what you wanted, but it's more than the default.
3) It changes depending on the app you use. Another "sucks, I agree" case. You can find the keyboard shortcut by looking in the menus for "Exit full screen" (Mail is ctrl-cmd-F, for example).

 

[ergdegdeg]

^ is the Ctrl key

 

[hallux]

I have been using mountain lion full time for over a week now, and overall found it to be very intuitive and easy to use, it just works. However there are some quirks i hope the pros can help me out, as i cant find a solution to them over the inter web.

1) Mail - When you open the write new mail screen, it freezes everything behind it making them unusable, this is very annoying as I always need to copy/paste text/photos/addresses from other emails to the new email i am writing, but now there is no way to do that. Especially when you are half way though writing the email and realized need to get something from another email, but cant.

Any workaround to make the write new mail screen NOT freeze everything behind it but just a regular window?

2) Is there a way to make the little time/weekday display on the upper right corner show the entire date time? Right now for example it has "Sat 11:100AM" i want something like "2012/12/29 Sat 11:110:AM" Cant figure out how to change it for this specific case.

3) When you maximize to full screen for an app by clicking the <- -> icon, what is the keyboard shortcut to restore to original unmax size? It's annoying trying to find the icon on top right corner to click to restore to original, and some apps i found dont have that. So i have to close the app then reopen it just to unmax it.

4) What does ^ up_arrow map to exactly for keyboard shortcuts for switch between different language inputs

Thanks!

1, 2, 4 were answered.

For 3, hit the esc key, it'll take that app out of fullscreen mode.

Have you played with "Spaces" at all? Each fullscreen app becomes it's own "space", and you can go back to what was "behind" that app by swiping with 4 fingers (2 with a Magic Mouse). You can also swipe up with 3 fingers on the trackpad to get an overview of your open apps and available spaces, this is called Mission Control.

Here's an Apple article on Mission Control: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4689