Skip to Content
Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition
book

Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition

by David Pogue
December 2003
Beginner to intermediate
776 pages
45h 2m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition

Hiding Programs the Old-Fashioned Way

When it comes to getting windows out of your way, nothing can touch Exposé for speed, efficiency, and entertainment value. Once you’ve mastered it, the traditional rituals of hiding windows will surely seem charmingly quaint. “When I was your age,” you’ll tell your grandchildren, “we used to have to hold down the Option key to hide windows!”

But you know the drill at software companies: They addeth, but they never taketh away. All of the old techniques are still around for the benefit of Mac fans who use them by force of habit.

Hiding the Program You’re Using

When a program is hidden, all of its windows, tool palettes, and button bars disappear. You can bring them back only by bringing the program to the front again (by clicking its Dock icon again, for example).

If your aim is to hide only the program you’re currently using, Mac OS X offers a whole raft of approaches to the same problem. Many of them involve the Option key, as listed here:

  • Option-click any visible portion of the desktop. The program you were in vanishes, along with all of its windows.

  • Option-click any other program’s icon on the Dock. You open that program (or bring all of its windows to the front) and hide all the windows of the one you were using.

  • Option-click any visible portion of another program’s windows. Once again, you switch programs, hiding the one you were using at the time.

  • From the Application menu—the boldfaced menu that bears the program’s name—choose Hide iPhoto (or ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition

Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition

David Pogue

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596006152Catalog PageErrata