Mac Mail query

[Dave2002]

I may have misunderstood - I thought it was referring to the black dot under the icon in the Dock to show the application was open?

Ah - you must have been reading the manuals again. I found this - http://osxdaily.com/2013/05/21/chang...olor-mac-os-x/ which shows me what the indicators are.

Personally I doubt that I'd find that very useful, but it's not a big hindrance either so I've turned the feature back on. Given that mostly I don't look at the dock, or even have it visible, it's only of marginal interest. I usually do Force Quit and look at the listing to find out which applications might be active.

I suppose part of the clue to what the indicators are might be in the fact that it's Dock Preferences which are being tweaked, though other behaviours are also involved.

Thanks for helping to clear that up, though.

[french frank]

Ah - you must have been reading the manuals again..

I put two and two together! The only time I fiddle with the Dock settings is when I drop a file into the Trash and it falls behind the Dock instead.You have to move the position of the Dock, retrieve the file and replace it on the deskstop, put the the Dock back. And be more careful when you try again to trash the file

[Dave2002]

I put two and two together! The only time I fiddle with the Dock settings is when I drop a file into the Trash and it falls behind the Dock instead.You have to move the position of the Dock, retrieve the file and replace it on the deskstop, put the the Dock back. And be more careful when you try again to trash the file

I can't replicate that behaviour you mention - perhaps because I have magnification turned on and things don't "fall behind the dock". Sounds like things falling behind our mantelpiece. Also the only way I can move the dock is by changing the settings to place it left, bottom or right.

Re Mail - there are curious interactions between it and the dock. Since I've started using smart folders a lot more, it can be handy to have open ones placed in the dock, but opening mail messages within those might cause one to lose them (the smart folders) in the dock. It would be good if they could be locked in there - as with some other applications, but I don't think that's possible. Even modifying the behaviour within Mail Preferences often doesn't give desired outcomes.

[french frank]

I can't replicate that behaviour you mention - perhaps because I have magnification turned on and things don't "fall behind the dock". Sounds like things falling behind our mantelpiece. Also the only way I can move the dock is by changing the settings to place it left, bottom or right.

It's happened a couple of times when I dropped a file slightly inaccurately and the Trash didn't detect it. Because the file is then too close to the Trash, when I click to move it, the Trash opens. Yes, the only way to move the Dock is to place it to left or right (or possibly top?).

I don't think I need to know about smart folders

Currently practising with Hot Corners which, having once set them, I hadn't fathomed out how to activate …

[Dave2002]

I don't think I need to know about smart folders

Currently practising with Hot Corners which, having once set them, I hadn't fathomed out how to activate …

I never really got on with Hot Corners. Always seemed to cause the wrong thing to happen. Similarly I found the multiple displays which most recent versions of Mac OS support far too confusing - usually managing to move whatever one really wanted to a different "screen" and trying to get two or three wanted applications on to the same "screen" is often a pain. That's why I have recommended Project Desktops previously - and I still have that working well on one of my machines.

Smart Folders and Smart Mailboxes do now seem to me to be very useful, but I can see that others don't find that, or find them too complex, or with too steep a learning curve. There's no point in forcing people to use things they find pointless or difficult, though sometimes a bit of encouragement may lead to very significant benefits in the way they use the tools they may have available.

Sometimes there are some very particular issues - for example your way of doing screenshots - which I now find useful - but one left hander I know finds some such tricks very difficult and it's only while watching/discussing things with such people that one can discover this. Also the kind of brain/memory processing which people do makes a big difference. Some people hate clutter, while others at least claim they can live with it, and spatial locations on a display are important for them.