Display Properties
In Windows there is the Control Panel. On the Mac you use System Preferences (under the Apple Menu on the far left of the menu bar).
We’ll start with Display Properties (Display in the Control Panel or click right on the desktop and choose Properties). On the Mac these settings are spread over several Preference panes.
Going across the tabs in the Display Properties window:
- Themes: I haven’t seen a equivalent for this on the Mac
- Desktop: this selects the background picture or color for the desktop. On the Mac this is in the Desktop and Screen Saver panel. In my opinion they offer prettier built-in background pictures. If you want to use your own photo it has to be in iPhoto (not anywhere on the machine like in Windows) but it is pretty easy to import into iPhoto.
If you click on the Customize Desktop button (in Windows) you can select which icons appear on the desktop. Something similar is available on the Mac under the Finder Preferences (in the General Section).
Windows also allows you to display a webpage on the desktop. Again I don’t see (or have any interest in) this on the Mac. - Screen Saver: is in the Desktop and Screen Saver panel on the Mac
- Appearance: there is an Appearance pane in the Mac System Preferences also but it doesn’t allow many of the same controls as in Windows. Frankly, I prefer the simpler, more consistent Mac look to Windows but if you want to twiddle the details I think Windows offers more control.
- Settings: resolution is found in the Displays panel in the Mac System Preferences. color is also found on that panel but in the form of profiles which I haven’t played with but I expect they give more control over color than just selecting the number of bits of color depth as in Windows. I don’t have more than one monitor but I expect that if you do have 2 (or more) that controls will appear in this same panel (as they do in the Windows setting panel even if you just have one monitor).