Resizing windows on the Mac

Resizing windows on the Mac

Activity 1: How do I close a window?

On a Windows PC you close a window by clicking on the X in the upper right-hand corner of the title bar. On a Mac you click the close box in the upper left-hand corner of the title bar. To learn more about windows, click here.

There are two major ways to close a window

1) Double-click on the icon of the hard drive to open a directory window.

2) (Method 1:) Click the close box in the upper left corner of the top title bar of the window. (This screen shot is of a window with Balloon Help turned on.)

3) (Method 2:) Open another window so you can call up the Close menu command under the File menu.

Open and close several windows a couple of times for practice.

Activity 2: Why no minimize?

In Windows you have a button in the upper right of all windows you can click on to minimize the window (which means it appears only as a tab on the Task Bar along the lower border of the screen).

Follow this Activity to learn how this works on the land of Mac:

1) Open any window on your Mac.

2) Click on the part of the window called the Collapse Box as seen in this screen shot.

When you collapse a Mac window it shows just the title bar, no other information.

3) Click the Collapse Box again and the window will reappear. This is how you minimize windows on the Mac. (This works with all types of windows on the Mac.)

Activity 3: Moving and Resizing

Mac and Windows windows move and resize the same ways with two exceptions:

In the land of Mac you move a window by dragging the title bar (same as Windows) or by dragging any of the four borders. In Windows dragging any of the four borders will resize rather than move the window.

In the land of Mac you can resize a window only by dragging in the lower right hand corner of the window. In the land of Windows you can resize a window by dragging any of the four corners or four sides.

1) Create a Macintosh directory window by opening the hard drive icon.

2) Press and drag the lower right hand corner of the window (the Resize box) to resize the window. (This works the same way as in Windows.)

3) Press and drag any of the four sides and any of the three corners except the lower right and you'll move the window in its current size and shape. (Window would resize them rather than move them.)

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