OSX accounts question

[Fritz]

there is the option under accounts prefs to hide login items.
What exactly does that mean and do for you?

[Mike Sellers]

When the program starts, it then hides it, just like when you manually hide a running program. Say you have Word set to start up but don't want to look at all the palettes. Check that option and the program's running but you don't see it until you need it.

[Wild eep]

If you have chosen an app like mail.app to open on log in then mail will open on the screen.
If you choose hide option Mail will start up but be minimized in the dock on start up.

[Fritz]

thanks.
a big duh on my part

[john-o]

Sorry to pick nits, but Mike is right and eep is not. In eep's example, Mail's window would be minimized to the right end (or bottom, if you have your Dock on the side of the screen) of the Dock. Not sure if that's what he meant to say, but it's incorrect. As Mike said, it will simply be hidden from view, as if you'd hit cmd-h when the program was active.

Picky-picky, I know, but i believe that using the correct terminology will always help people learn more (and create less confusion down the road!).