iMovie: A Guided Tour
Even though iMovie enables you to do really cool things, it is so well designed that you don't have to take a lot of time figuring out how it works (especially with the handy-dandy guide you are reading now, right?). Because iMovie looks quite a bit different from other applications you are used to; this guided tour helps you get the lay of the iMovie land.
Look Ma, No Window Controls!
If you look even somewhat carefully, you will see that there are no overall window controls in iMovie like those you see in most other applications. Missing are the Close, Zoom, and Collapse boxes, as well as any scrollbars or Resize boxes. These items are missing because iMovie works with projects rather than with documents. One result of this is that you can't change the size of the iMovie window—it always fills your desktop. There are only two ways to not see iMovie when it is running: quit the application or use the Application menu to hide it. Don't worry though, scrollbars aren't totally lacking; for example, you use them in the Clip Viewer to move along your movie and on the Shelf to move among the clips.
In Figure 3.1, you see iMovie in action. Following the figure, you learn about each of the major interface elements with which you work.
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Figure 3.1 The iMovie window might seem a bit complicated at first, but after you make your paradigm shift, it all makes perfect sense.
When you take each element one at a time, learning how they work won't be painful (I promise!).