Q: I'm new to iMac, many questions.

The black dot means that the program indicated by the icon is running

The bar at the top is the menu bar

If you have enabled the iCloud Photo Library you can import your pictures to Photos on the iMac and they will be loaded onto iCloud, be aware that 18,000 pictures may take a very long time to load (days or weeks)

Any other devices using the iCloud Photo Library will get the entire thing, a per device option is not available.

You can't turn the monitor off

Recent items can be seen under the little Apple (top left of menu bar)

Pages etc can be purchased from the Mac App store.

I don't see a video app or reference  to video anywhere on the iMac.

New Macs come with iMovie installed; you can purchase it at the app store for older Macs (check your applications folder - you may have it). That is a video editing app; there are others available (Final Cut is excellent, but NOT a basic app and there are third party apps). If you just want to play the video, you have built in default apps: DVD player and/or Quicktime Player (Applications folder). Having said that, I have no clue what format yours would be in - if they are homemade (no commercial movies or copyright issues) there are third party softwares to make them viewable on a Mac (MPEG Streamclip is one of them) - but they only work on material that does not have the DRM protection.

As for the black dot: you don't want to have every app running in the background consuming resources unless you need it - unlike Windows, clicking the little red dot in an app window only closes that window - it does not "quit" the app. To quit, you can use Command + Q or  Quit in the app menu bar. The black dot will disappear.

There are many commands/processes accessible in the menu bar - the offerings change with whatever app you have running and it has available. Check them out.

You can't "turn off" the monitor, but you can sleep the display: System Preferences > Energy Saver > Display sleep. Check out all the System Preferences Panes and set each one up the way you prefer.

dunnjm wrote:

 

The bar across the bottom, the dock I believe it's called, has icons (apps?) and under a few there is a black dot. What does this dot mean?

 

 

Years, its called the dock, because you dock your most used apps there.  The Dot means that particular App is running.

dunnjm wrote:

 

I was very surprised to see the word "Windows" in the menu across the bar at the top of the screen. What is that bar across the top of the screen called?

 

 

It's called the menu bar.

dunnjm wrote:

 

There are 18,000+ pictures on my Windows PC, if I move all of these pictures over to the iMac will the iCloud populate them to my other devices? Do I have a choice as to what pictures I want to be on each device?

 

You can select which ones you want to move to iCloud if you import them into the Photos App, if you keep them in folders, then none will be automatically moved to the iCloud Photo Library.

dunnjm wrote:

 

I don't see a video app or reference  to video anywhere on the iMac. I have videos on an external hard drive that I'd like to import onto the iMac or do I have to keep them on the external drive? It's a Western Digital and I'm not even sure its format will work with Apple.

 

 

To play Videos, Quicktime is the default video player in OS X. you can find it in the Applications Folder in Finder.

If your hard drive is formatted NTFS for Windows, Mac can read it, but cannot write to it.

You could copy the videos over to the Mac, and the format it for Mac use, or download an NTFS driver for your MAc so it can read and write to Windows formatted drives.  Search for PAragon NTFS or Tuxera.

dunnjm wrote:

 

How do I turn off the monitor with the (2009) keyboard? Does it have an Alt+F4 function to close a window? The F4 key, I figured out what it does is called the Launchpad. However, the F3 key that spreads the windows out across the screen, what is that function called?

 

Where can I find my "recent items" like on the Windows start menu?

 

How do I get Numbers, Pages and Keynote onto the iMac as they are on my iPhone and iPad?

 

Well, that's it for a start but I know there will be a lot more questions so please be patient with me. Thank you for the help in advance!

You cannot turn off the screen. It will go to sleep on its own after a while.  You can control this in System Preferences->Displays.

There really no equivalent ot recents in windows.  You can use Spotlight to search for things, and you can have your most used Apps on the Dock.  Once opened any app will remain on the dock until you actually quit it. If you did not select the option to keep it on the dock it will be removed from the dock once its closed. 

If you purchased a qualifying Mac that did not include Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, you can apply for these apps through the Up-To-Date Program by following the steps below.

http://www.apple.com/creativity-apps/mac/up-to-date/

You May want to read through the Mac Guide to familiarize yourself with it.

http://help.apple.com/machelp/mac/10.11/#/mh40612

You can also put the monitor (screen) to sleep by hitting <control>, <shift> and <eject> (hold down control and shift, then hit eject. Hitting any key or clicking on the mouse will bring the screen back up). A few other suggestions...

You can find other Mac keyboard short cuts at the following link on the Apple Support site. Mac keyboard shortcuts - Apple Support

Also, you may want to go to the Finder and click on the help menu, you will see an option at the bottom of the drop-down menu for "Getting to know your Mac" as shown below. There is a whole Mac tutorial there.

There is an equivalent to Recent Items, cunningly named Recent Items on a Mac

It's under the Apple Menu.

Csound1 wrote:

 

There is an equivalent to Recent Items, cunningly named Recent Items on a Mac

It's under the Apple Menu.

I stand corrected.

Well, it's not in the most obvious place

Some software like MS Word for Mac also has "Open Recent" as in it's own menu set.

You could put iMovie in the dock, just like Photos (if you have it)

It will leave the thread open.