Aqua For Mac

Subscribe to this site's feed ››
Add to Google Toolbar ››
Submit News ››

Help, Guides, and News on making the Switch To Apple Macintosh Computers

Featured Guides

Macintosh Explorer Aqua gives Macintosh Explorer a cool new Aqua look and feel. It changes the buttons in the Explorer Window to Aqua style buttons. Aquamacs is an Emacs for Mac OS X that will feel mostly like an Aqua program - while still being a real GNU Emacs with all the ergonomy and extensibility you've come to expect from this world-class editor. Aqua Data Studio is a database developer's complete Integrated Development Environment (IDE). There aren't as many for Mac OS X, unfortunately, but that definitely does not justify the price tag.

Macintosh Guides

How to Switch

What is Aqua?

guides

In simple terms, Aqua is what a user experiences when he or she uses Mac OS X. Aqua governs the appearance and behavior of Mac OS X. Aqua is the intuitive, elegant, and gorgeous graphical user interface (GUI) that Mac users interact with on thier Mac use to accomplish tasks.

In simple words, Aqua is the interface the end user uses and it's what gives Mac OS X its look and feel. Aqua is all about user experience because it determines how things are presented to the end user, it makes it easy to manage one's work, and it helps one use various applications.

Aqua gives Mac OS X a sleek smooth look, vibrant colors, translucent buttons, clean high-resolution icons, menus, and drop shadows. Aqua also gives Mac OS X stunning visual effects such as transparency, reflections, and animations.
Those new to the Mac will immediately notice the brushed metal look and the bright droplet like buttons on the upper left hand corner of each window. An alternative Aqua theme is called Graphite, a grayscale look and feel.
Aqua's interface controls are more sophisticated than any other operating system thanks to the Quartz Compositor, the advanced graphics processing technology. Quartz Compositor was extended in Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar to what was termed Quartz Extreme. In OS X 10.4 Tiger, Apple released Quartz Extreme 2D, a more advanced graphics engine. Both Quartz Extreme 2D and Quartz Extreme use OpenGL in conjunction with graphics cards to render windows as textures through the Aqua interface. This allows graphics to be processed faster and takes processing load off of the CPU (processor). The CPU can then concentrate on processing tasks associated with applications and the operating system. Overall, it's a much better way to offload work so your Mac will run faster and more efficiently.
Mac OS X Leopard has brought improvements to Aqua including Coverflow and more refined/consistent window themes. Additionally, running applications are now indicated on the Dock by either a glowing blue ball or a white dot. Note that the Aqua theme has also been included in Microsoft Windows versions of Apple applications such as iTunes, Quicktime, and Safari.
Thanks to Aqua the OS X environment will be relatively familiar to new Mac users because it provides users with features such as a desktop, windows, folders, menus, and keyboard shortcuts. Navigating through Mac OS X is easy and straight forward. Aqua includes the following 'major' components that all inter operate with each other to allow a user to work on a Mac:

Other Aqua features tied to the end user experience include:

Automator
Dashboard
Exposé
Fast User Switching
Inkwell
Speech
Spotlight
System Preferences
VoiceOver

All of these features and technologies have a key role in how your interact and use a Mac. Each release of Mac OS X has not only ushered in advancements to existing Aqua components and features but news ones as well. Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) for example added features such as Dashboard and a new search feature called Spotlight. Mac OS X Panther (10.3) added several features one of them was Exposé.
Aqua also implements consistency. All keyboard shortcuts are the same across applications thanks to the 'command' key shown to the left. Mac keyboard shortcuts use the command key in conjuction with other keys to invoke an action. For example when the Apple key and the P key are pressed at the same time, it tells OS X to perform a Print. Just try it. Open a document, a web page, and an email. Perform the action in each application to see that print is always invoked with that combination.
More advanced users will often bypass Aqua and use the Mac OS X Terminal to do more advanced work within Mac OS X via the command line.
Updates

February 26, 2009 - content modification
July 13, 2008 - content modification, updated image with new command key

Created: 8:50 PM on Nov 27, 2006
By: switchtoamac

Recent Guides

What is Lion?
What is Disk Utility?
What is Boot Camp Assistant?
What is Snow Leopard?
What is Airport Utility?
What is Activity Monitor?
Quickly navigate to the Utilities folder
What are Utilities?
Forward delete on a Mac keyboard
Show or Hide Sidebar items via Preferences
Determine which updates have been installed by Software Update
Disable automatic updates in Software Update
Manually run Software Update on Mac OS X Leopard
Different ways to launch a Mac OS X Application
Expose for Apple keyboards that have volume controls on F9, F10, and F11
What is MobileMe Gallery?
What is iWeb?

Visit the Guides List

Aqua For Men

WWDC 2011 begins today - Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud unveiling sets the stage for a Unified Apple Platform
Apple CEO Steve Jobs to introduce Apple's next generation software Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud during WWDC Keynote Address on Monday, June 6
Amazon launches a Mac Download Store - software and games for your Mac
AllThingsD - The Mac is kicking ass
Where in the world are Mac sales growing? Everywhere.
Corporate Mac sales surge 66 percent as Apple makes significant enterprise headway
Parallels Transporter an app that makes it easier to switch from a Windows PC to a Mac

RSS Feed · Guides RSS Feed · About · Shop · Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Best viewed in Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer 7 or higher
Copyright © 2011 Switch To A Mac · All rights reserved. · All trademarks and copyrights remain the property of their respective owners.

About the App

App name: Aqua Data Studio
App description: aqua-data-studio (App: Aqua Data Studio.app)
App website: http://www.aquafold.com/aquadatastudio.html

Install the App

Press Command+Space and type Terminal and press enter/return key.
Run in Terminal app:
ruby -e '$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)' < /dev/null 2> /dev/null ; brew install caskroom/cask/brew-cask 2> /dev/null
and press enter/return key.
If the screen prompts you to enter a password, please enter your Mac's user password to continue. When you type the password, it won't be displayed on screen, but the system would accept it. So just type your password and press ENTER/RETURN key. Then wait for the command to finish.
Run:
brew cask install aqua-data-studio

Aqua Mail For Mac

Done! You can now use Aqua Data Studio.

Aqua Mac Os

Similar Software for Mac

Comments are closed.