Recently I’ve had a talk with guys who are new in OS X. They told me that OS X is kind of outdated with window management and control elements living their own lives and always doing not what the user wants. “I don’t know how the window will maximise if I click the yellow button. Why on earth it doesn’t fill full screen?” etc. Everybody have to change their working habits when you change OS, especially when you are moving from Windows.

OS X has always had a different point of view on window management and it became even worse (better?) when full screen option was introduced. When you want to size a window to the full screen (with the menu bar) the window will resize to the size of content in this window, not to the full screen. And when you want to make full screen, it will make actual full screen - virtual desktop with only this app. And it’s only one aspect of OS X window management. And so on and so forth.

Here are my 3 tips for the newcomers to OS X.

Keyboard shortcuts

Besides the regular shortcuts represented by Apps, you can assign any menu bar action to a keyboard shortcut.
For example: menu “View - Zoom” is not under shortcut by default, but you can assign one on Keyboard Settings and it will be available for any app when “Zoom” is present (and it is 99% apps for OS X): atom.io, neovim, regular apps etc.

ctrl n / p in dropdown menu

If you were using emacs or sublime text you probably know the shortcut for text navigation ctrl n / p - down / up.
It’s a great shortcut for navigation without moving hands to a mouse or a touchpad. So here is great news: almost every OS X app where dropdown menu is present support this shortcut. Chrome, Safari, Spotlight, atom.io or in any other - ctrl n / p are great for choosing options from the menu.

Spotlight

In early times Spotlight was a tool for searching files, mails, contacts and other stuff on your Mac. Now in Yosemite and El Capitan spotlight’s become smarter and now it can do almost everything: search files, search content from OS X, do exchange rates, calculator, run Apps etc. For example - tips.

OS X is all about productive work whether it’s special Apps or unified shortcuts, so spend a little time and read about features which OS X gives you as a user: it’ll increased your productivity considerably.

(MacBooks has the best touchpad on the market, gestures change your way of working, don’t hesitate to learn them).