In This Chapter
As the folks in Cupertino will tell you, "It's all about the graphics." They're right, of course — Mac OS X is a highly visual operating system, and using it without a trackpad or mouse is like building Hoover Dam with a pocketknife. (And not a particularly sharp pocketknife, either.) Therefore, most of this chapter requires you to exercise your trackpad finger — I introduce you to little graphical bits such as icons and menus, and you discover how to open windows that can display anything from the contents of a document to the contents of your hard drive.
On the other hand, any true MacBook power user will tell you that the keyboard is still a useful piece of hardware. Because I want you to be a bona fide, well-rounded Mac OS X power user, I also demonstrate those key combinations that can save you time, effort, and possible tennis elbow from all that pointer-wrangling.
Finally, I lead you through the basic training that you need to run your programs: how to start them, how to open and save documents, and how to quit an application as gracefully as Fred Astaire on his best day.
First things first. As the guy on the rocket sled probably yelled, "This is neat, but how do you stop it?" Call'em The Big Three — Sleep, Restart, and Shut Down are the Mac OS X commands that you use when you need to take care of business away from your computer. All three appear on the friendly Apple menu (
Each of these options produces a different reaction from your MacBook:
Sleep: You don't need a glass of water or a bedtime story when you put Mac OS X to Sleep, which is a power-saving mode that allows you to quickly return to your work later. (Waking your laptop up from Sleep mode is much faster than booting or restarting it, and Sleep mode can conserve battery power on your MacBook.) Depending on the settings that you choose in System Preferences — which I discuss in Book III, Chapter 3 — your MacBook can power-down the monitor and spin-down the hard drives to save wear and tear on your hardware. You can set Mac OS X to automatically enter Sleep mode after a certain amount of trackpad and keyboard inactivity. To awaken your slumbering supercomputer, just poke the trackpad or press any key on the keyboard. And talk about convenience: Savvy MacBook owners like you can put their laptops to sleep by simply closing the computer, and wake the beast by opening it back up again.
Restart: Use Restart if your MacBook has suddenly decided to work "outside the box" and begins acting strangely — for instance, if your Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports suddenly lock up or your FireWire drive no longer responds. Naturally, you first need to save any work that's open (unless your computer has locked up altogether). You also elect to restart Mac OS X when you switch start-up volumes, or switch a MacBook to a Windows XP or Vista partition using Boot Camp. (Many applications and Apple software updates require a restart after you install them.)
Shut Down: When you're ready to return to the humdrum, real world and you're done with your MacBook for the time being, use the Shut Down option. Well-behaved Mac applications automatically prompt you to save any changes that you've made to open documents before the computer actually turns itself off (or restarts itself). If you've configured your MacBook with multiple accounts — and you use the default login security settings in the Accounts pane in System Preferences — you can shut down Mac OS X from the login screen as well.
Besides the Apple menu command, all MacBooks have a Power key on the keyboard that you can press to display the dialog that you see in Figure 2-2. If you change your mind and decide to tie up loose ends before you leave, click the Cancel button to return to Mac OS X.
Tip
Your MacBook has a Drive Eject key that you can use to load and eject discs. You can hold down the Control key and press the Drive Eject key to display the same restart/sleep/shutdown options.
As a MacBook owner, the trackpad is your primary navigational tool. You move your finger over the surface of the trackpad, and the pointer follows like an obedient pup. The faster you move your finger, the farther the pointer goes. You click an item by tapping once on the trackpad — it opens, you do your thing, and life is good.
However, you can always customize how your trackpad operates! For example, click the System Preferences icon in the Dock, then click the Trackpad icon. From here you can:
Enable the Clicking check box. Now, when you tap the trackpad quickly, your Mac laptop counts that as a click, and two fast taps act as a double-click.
Enable the Tap Trackpad Using Two Fingers for Secondary Click check box. Suddenly a single tap with two fingers displays the right-click menu (which I cover in more detail in a paragraph or two).
Adjust your tracking speed. Click and drag the Tracking speed slider to speed up or slow down the rate at which your pointer moves.
"And in the beginning, there was the window." As with older Mac operating systems, most of what you'll do in Mac OS X occurs within these fancy frames. And, as you might imagine, a number of controls are at your disposal, which you can use to control the size, shape, and appearance of these potent portals. In this section, I — well, to be blunt, I do windows. (No squeegee jokes, if you please.)
Windows are generally opened automatically. Usually, a window gets opened by an application (when you first run it or it needs to display a document) or by Mac OS X itself (when the Finder opens a window to display the contents of your hard drive). The Finder, by the way, is the application that Mac OS X runs to display the operating system's menus and windows.
Some programs even let you open new windows on the fly; for example, Figure 2-3 illustrates a window in its purest form: a new Finder window. To display this window on your own MacBook, choose File
Tip
The Command key usually has both an Apple (
When you're finished with a document or you no longer need a window open, you can close it to free that space on your Desktop. To close a window in Mac OS X, move your pointer over the Close button; it's the red circular button at the top-left corner of the window (see Figure 2-3). An X appears on the button when you're in the zone. When the X appears, just tap the trackpad.
Note
If you've been living the life of a hermit in a cave for the last decade or so, pressing the button on a mouse or trackpad is called clicking. In fact, today's MacBooks don't have any buttons at all! (You tap the trackpad with one finger to click.) If you're using an external pointing device (like an Apple Mighty Mouse, a trackball, or any pointing device with a right button), a right-click usually acts the same as holding down the Control key while you click with an older one-button Apple mouse or trackpad.
Warning
Never use any object other than your finger on the trackpad! That means no pencils (no, not even the eraser end), pens, or chopsticks; they can damage your trackpad in no time at all.
Most Mac applications don't want you closing a window willy-nilly if you've changed the contents without saving them. For example, try to close a document window in Word or Pages without saving the file first. The program asks you for confirmation before it closes the window containing your Great American Novel. Most programs also have a Close command on their File menu. (Here's another indicator: Most programs display a black dot in the center of the program's Close button to indicate that there are unsaved changes.)
Tip
To close all windows that are displayed by a particular program, hold down the Option key while you click the Close button on one of the windows. Whoosh! They're all gone.
Often, more stuff is in a document or more files are on your hard drive than you can see in the space available for a window. Guess that means it's time to delete stuff. No, no, just joking! You don't have to take such drastic measures to see more in a window.
Just use the scroll bars that you see in Figure 2-4 to move through the contents of the window. You can click the scroll bar and drag it — for the uninitiated, that means clicking the bar and holding down your finger on the trackpad while you move your finger in the desired direction. Alternatively, you can click in the empty area above or below the bar to scroll pages one at a time. If you've enabled two-finger scrolling in the Trackpad pane within System Preferences, you can scroll by dragging two fingers across the trackpad.
Depending on the type of application that you're using, you might be able to scroll a window with your arrow keys as well — or perhaps use the Page Up and Page Down keys to move through a window.
The multitalented Figure 2-4 also displays another control that you can use with a window: the Minimize button. When you minimize a window, you eliminate it from your Desktop and store it safely in the Dock — that strip of icons that appears along the bottom (or the side) of your Mac OS X Desktop. In fact, a minimized window appears as a miniature icon in the Dock, so you can actually keep an eye on it (so to speak). Figure 2-5 illustrates a minimized window from Safari, which is actually displaying my Web site at www.mlcbooks.com. To minimize a window, move your pointer over the yellow Minimize button at the top-left corner of the window — a minus sign appears on the button — and then click.
Tip
You're gonna love this "Easter egg" hidden in Mac OS X — if you hold down the Shift key whilst you minimize, the window shrinks in cool slow motion. (Who says operating systems have to be totally serious, anyway?)
When you're ready to display the window again on your Desktop — a process called restoring the window — simply click the thumbnail icon representing the window in the Dock, and Mac OS X automagically returns it to its former size and location.
By the way, some — note that I said some — applications continue to run when minimized, whereas others simply stop or pause until you return them to the Desktop. Such is the crazy world we live in.
Zooming windows has a kind of Flash Gordon sound to it, don't you think? It's nothing quite that exciting — no red tights or laser guns — still, when you're trying to view a larger portion of a document, zooming is a good thing because it expands the window to the maximum practical size for the application that you're using (and the content being displayed). In some cases, zooming a window fills the entire screen; in others, the extra space would be wasted, so the application zooms the window to the maximum size that shows as much content as possible (without any unnecessary white space). In fact, the Zoom button can even be disabled by an application that doesn't want you to muck about with the window; for example, I own some games that don't allow zooming.
To zoom a window, move your pointer over the green Zoom button at the top-left corner of the window. Again, Figure 2-4 (a couple of sections back) struts its stuff and illustrates the position. (Man, that is one versatile figure.) A plus sign appears on the Zoom button. Click to expand your horizons.
Tip
After you've finished with a zoomed window, you can return it to its previous dimensions by clicking the Zoom button again.
If you're wondering what that little lozenge-shaped button is at the right corner of many Mac OS X application windows, I won't leave you in suspense: This button toggles the display of the window's toolbar on and off. A toolbar is a strip of icons that appears across the top of a window that you can click to perform common commands, such as changing the display format or printing the current document. (The toolbar in Figure 2-4, for example, features icons to move Back and Forward, among others.) You'll encounter more toolbar technology throughout the book.
In contrast to the rather permanent windows in your home, you can pick a window and cart it to another portion of the Desktop. Typically, you do this when you're using more than one application at a time and you need to see the contents of multiple windows. To grab a window and make off with it, click the window's title bar — the strip at the top of the window that usually bears a document or application name — and drag your finger (and the window) to the new location. (Don't click the icon in the title bar, however — you want to click the title bar itself.) Then release your finger to plant the window firmly in the new location.
Tip
By the way, some applications allow you to arrange multiple windows in a graceful swoop with a single click of a menu. Click the Window menu and choose Arrange All to perform this magic.
I talk about Exposé and Spaces later, in the section "Switching 'Twixt Programs with Aplomb." Exposé helps you organize a large number of open windows on your Desktop. You can use it to display all open application windows so that you can pick the one you want ...or even display all the windows opened by a specific application. Spaces allows you to create entire custom virtual desktops. (Truly cool.) Each of your Spaces desktops can contain a different set of application windows that you use for different tasks!
Next, consider how to change the width or height of your window. To change the dimensions of a window to your exact specifications, move your pointer over the lower-right corner of the window (which is usually marked with a number of slashed lines to indicate its status as a control), click, and drag until the window is the size that you prefer.
Before I move on to other graphical wonders of Mac OS X, it's important that you master how to switch between windows on your Desktop. First, remember this old Norwegian saying (or is it one of Mark's Maxims?):
Note
Only one can be active at one time.
What our Oslo friends are communicating is that only one window can be active at any time. The active window appears on top of other windows, and it's the one that you can edit by typing or by moving your pointer. (It also sports Close, Minimize, and Zoom buttons in color.) Other windows that you have opened might be minimized, as I describe earlier, in the section "Minimizing and restoring windows," or they can be inactive (mere ghosts of themselves) and remain on your Desktop. Mac OS X dims the controls for inactive windows so that you can tell they're hanging around ...but you can't use them at the moment. Figure 2-6 illustrates a number of open windows, with the iTunes window active.
I know you're going to get tired of hearing me say this, but here I go again: Certain applications continue to run while their windows are inactive, such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP) clients and others. Most programs, however, stop or pause until you make their window active.
And how do you switch to — activate — a different window in Mac OS X? Again, Exposé allows you to activate another window, but if the window is currently visible, you can simply click any part of that window. I generally click the window's title bar if it's visible, but any part of the inactive window will do. (You can also right-click the application's icon in the Dock and choose the desired window from the menu.) The window that you click leaps like a proud stallion to the fore, and the previously active window now skulks in the background.
Note
You can still use a window's Close, Minimize, and Zoom buttons even when the window is inactive.
Next, I move on to menu control in Mac OS X. Menus are handy drop-down controls that allow you to select commands that are grouped together logically. For example, an application's File menu usually allows you to create or open a document, save a document to disk, or print a document. To pull down a menu, click the desired menu group name on the bar at the top of the screen and then click the desired menu option from the extended menu.
Figure 2-7 illustrates the Safari menu: Note the submenus designated by right-arrow icons. When you move your pointer over a submenu command, you get another set of even more specific menu commands — in this case, the Services submenu command displays commands, such as Mail and Grab.
Tip
Some applications allow you to create your own custom menus; naturally, configuring a new menu system takes some time to figure out, but imagine the productivity gains that you'll enjoy! For example, my menus in Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac feature only the commands that I use often — they're sleeker and easier to navigate. (However, you have to stop short of claiming that you wrote the application. And yes, I already checked with Microsoft, which got downright snippy about it.)
Mac OS X also provides another type of menu: contextual. A contextual menu appears when you hold down the Control key and click certain items on the screen, revealing commands that relate specifically to that item. (Unfortunately, the items that sport contextual menus vary from application to application, so it's best to check the documentation for a program before you spend countless hours Control-clicking everything on-screen.) The same items in the Control-click menu appear when you select an item and then click the Action pop-up menu, which looks like a mechanical gear.
Note
As I mention earlier, Apple's current crop of desktop and laptop pointing devices all have methods (such as a right-click) of activating a contextual menu. Many manufacturers sell mice, trackballs, and other pointing things that include a secondary button. Generally, if you have a pointing device with multiple buttons, the device displays contextual menus when you click the secondary button. Then again, you might launch Aunt Harriet into a geosynchronous orbit, so double-check the manual for your pointing thing on the default button assignment (and how to change it, if necessary).
You'll note that many commands in menus have keyboard shortcuts. Because I hold forth on this subject in the upcoming section, "Keyboard Shortcuts for the True Power User," I hold off describing those shortcuts here.
Icons are more than little pictures. They're ...well ...actually, I guess they're little pictures. However, these graphical WUDs (that's short for Wonderful User Devices) are really representations of the components of your Mac OS X system, and therefore they deserve a section of their own.
Tip
For complete details on what any icon is, what it represents, and what it does, click the icon once to highlight it and then press
Mac OS X uses icons to represent the various hardware devices of your MacBook, including your
Hard drive or solid-state drive
DVD drive (if a disc is loaded)
iPod
You get the idea. Just double-click a hardware icon to display the folders and files that it contains, as you do with your hard drive and a disc loaded in your DVD drive.
Generally, you'll encounter hardware icons only on your Desktop or in Finder windows, or within a device or source list in applications such as iTunes and iPhoto. Figure 2-9 illustrates some of the hardware icons that live in my system.
These are the fancy icons, folks. Most applications have their own custom icons, and double-clicking one typically whisks you on your way. Mac OS X also includes a generic icon or two for applications that don't include their own custom icon. Figure 2-10 illustrates a number of my favorite program icons from all sorts of Mac OS X applications.
Running a program in Mac OS X can be as simple as double-clicking the application icon — more on this later, in the section "Houston, We're Go to Launch Programs."
Your hard drive will contain many thousands of individual files, and the Big X tries to make it as easy as possible to identify visually which application owns which file. Therefore, most applications use a special icon to indicate their data files. For example, Figure 2-11 illustrates several documents and data files created by a range of applications: Microsoft Word, Pages, QuickTime, Safari, and Adobe Acrobat. Some cheeky applications even use more than one icon to differentiate among different file types, such as documents and templates in Microsoft Word.
A number of generic file icons indicate text files, including RTF (short for rich text format) documents and PDF (Portable Document Format) documents, which use the Adobe Acrobat format.
Note
You can open most documents and data files by double-clicking them, which automatically launches the proper application and loads the document.
Tip
I also recommend Quick Look (the toolbar button is visible in the middle of the toolbar in Figure 2-11) for a lightning-fast peek at the contents of a file. Click the file once to select it; then click the Quick Look button to view the document — all without opening any applications!
Folders have a 3-D look in Mac OS X — and, as you can see in Figure 2-12, some applications even customize their folder icon!
Major system folders — including Applications, Library, System, Users, Downloads, and Utilities — sport distinctive folder icons in Snow Leopard that help identify their contents.
To open a folder within Mac OS X, just double-click it. (Alternatively, you can click it once to select it and then press
An alias is a strange beast. Although it might look like a standard icon, upon closer examination, you'll notice that an alias icon sports a tiny curved arrow at the base, and the tag alias often appears at the end of the icon name. Figure 2-13 has roped in a variety of aliases for your enjoyment, along with one or two actual icons for comparison.
Essentially, an alias is a link to something else on your system. For example, a Photoshop alias can run Photoshop just as the actual program icon can, but it takes up only a scant few bytes on your hard drive. (If you're a Switcher who's just crossed over from the Windows Wilderness, think shortcut — Windows shortcuts work in a similar manner.) The alias file is just big enough to hold the location of the actual file or folder, allowing it to yell at Mac OS X: "Hey, the Human actually wants you to run this or open that thing over there!"
Aliases come in handy for a number of reasons:
They allow you to launch applications and open files and folders from anywhere in your system. For example, you might want an alias icon in your MP3 folder that runs the DVD-burning application Toast Titanium. With an alias icon, you can launch the application and burn a data DVD without laboriously navigating to the Toast Titanium folder, which could be nested in goodness-knows-how-many layers of subfolders.
They can be easily deleted when no longer needed without wreaking havoc on the original application, file, or folder. If you decide that you'd rather use iTunes to burn audio CDs, you can simply delete the Toast Titanium alias without trashing the application itself.
Their tiny size allows you to add multiple aliases (and mucho convenience) for a single application without gulping down hard drive space.
Note
You might be wondering, "Why use aliases when I can just copy the actual application, file, or folder to the desired spot?" Well, indeed you can do that. However, the application might not work in its new location because you didn't copy any of the supporting files that most applications need to run. (An alias actually runs the original application or opens the original file or folder, so things should work just as if you'd double-clicked the original icon.) Additionally, remember that copying applications willy-nilly throughout your hard drive eats up territory like a horde of angry Vikings.
Tip
If you dislike the alias hanging off the end of the icon name, feel free to rename it (as I show you in Chapter 3 of this minibook). The alias continues to function nicely no matter what moniker you give it. (If you create an alias by holding down
If the original file no longer exists, an alias naturally no longer works, either. However, Mac OS X is sharp enough to automatically "fix" an alias if you rename or move the original file, pointing it to the new location (as long as it remains on the same volume). Slick!
You'll often find yourself performing different actions on one icon — or a number of icons at one time. For example, you can copy or move files from one location on your hard drive to another, or delete a group of files that you no longer need. (The idea of drag-and-drop file management using icons originated on the Macintosh, and in Chapter 3 of this minibook, I describe these operations in detail.) In this section, I focus on the basics of selecting one or more icons to specify the files and folders you want to use for whatever you're going to do next.
First, here are the various ways that you can select a single icon for an impending action:
Place your pointer over the file and click once. Mac OS X darkens the icon to indicate that it's selected — a mysterious process called highlighting.
Type the first few letter of the icon's name. After you type a letter, Mac OS X highlights the first icon that matches that character.
If an icon in a window is already highlighted, you can move the highlight to the next icon across by pressing the right-arrow key. Likewise, the other three directional arrow keys move the highlight in the other directions. To move through the icons alphabetically, press Tab to go forward and Shift+Tab to go backward.
To select a gaggle of icons for an action, use one of these methods:
If the icons are next to each other, click and drag within the window (and not directly on a specific item) to highlight them all. While you drag, Mac OS X displays a selection box, and any icons you touch with that box are highlighted when you lift your finger (as shown in Figure 2-14). Think "lasso" and you'll get the picture.
You can also select multiple adjacent icons by clicking the first item to highlight it and then holding down the Shift key while clicking the last icon in the series that you want to select.
Tip
If the icons are not next to each other, you can hold down the
Just selecting an icon doesn't launch or do anything ...you're just marking your territory.
Virtually all Mac OS X applications have their own keyboard shortcuts — a ten-cent term for a key combination that performs the same operation as a menu command or a toolbar button. Although the trackpad might seem the easier path when controlling your MacBook, it's not always the fastest. Those hardy souls who venture to learn common keyboard shortcuts can zip through a spreadsheet or warp through a complex outline at speeds that no mere trackpad-wrangler could ever hope to attain.
With that in mind — and with the goal of "pumping you up" into a power user — I hereby present the most common keyboard shortcuts for the Big X in Table 2-1. I've also sprinkled other keyboard shortcuts liberally through the book when I discuss other applications, but these combinations are the classics that appear virtually everywhere.
Table 2.1. Common Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts
Combination Key | Location | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Edit menu | Selects all (works in the Finder, too) |
| Edit menu | Copies the highlighted item to the Clipboard |
| Application menu | Hides the application |
| Window menu | Minimizes the active window to the Dock (works in the Finder, too) |
| File menu | Opens an existing document, file, or folder (works in the Finder, too) |
| File menu | Prints the current document |
| Application menu | Exits the application |
| Edit menu | Pastes the contents of the Clipboard at the current cursor position |
| Edit menu | Cuts the highlighted item to the Clipboard |
| Edit menu | Reverses the effect of the last action you took |
| Help menu | Displays the Help system (works in the Finder, too) |
| Finder | Switches between open applications |
| Finder | Minimizes all Finder windows to the Dock |
| Finder | Closes all Finder windows |
By the way, I should mention that many keyboard combinations use three different keys instead of just two (and a few even use four). When these shortcuts appear in a menu, they look something akin to Egyptian hieroglyphics, but you need only hold down the first two keys simultaneously and press the third key. Common "strange" key symbols that you'll see in both the Finder and most applications are shown in Table 2-2.
The next stop on your introductory tour of Mac OS X is the launch pad for your applications. Although the Finder is useful, you'll likely want to actually do something with your Mac as well.
You can launch an application from your hard drive by
Navigating to the corresponding application folder — by either clicking or double-clicking drive and folder icons — and double-clicking (tapping twice) on the application icon.
Double-clicking a document or data file that's owned by the application. For example, double-clicking an MP3 audio file runs iTunes.
Double-clicking an alias that you've created for the application. (Get the skinny on aliases in the earlier section, "Aliases." I'll wait.)
Double-clicking an Automator workflow or compiled AppleScript. (More on Automator and AppleScript in Book IX, Chapter 2.)
Clicking the application's icon in the Dock. (More on adding items to the Dock in Book III, Chapter 2.)
Selecting the application icon and pressing the
Clicking the Menu button on an Apple Remote to display the Front Row menu. From here, you can choose to watch a DVD movie (using Apple's DVD Player), peruse your collection of digital images (using iPhoto), watch a video you've created (using iMovie), or listen to music (using iTunes). The applications are launched automatically when you select the media you want to play. (You can find more on Front Row in Chapter 5 of this minibook.)
Adding the application to your Login Items list. (I cover the Login Items list in more detail in Book III, Chapter 3.)
After you load a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, you can display its contents by double-clicking the disc icon that appears on your Desktop. A Finder window opens and shows the files that reside on the disc. (See Figure 2-15.)
After you locate the application you want to run on the disc, you can launch it by double-clicking it or selecting it and pressing
You might think that juggling multiple applications will lead to confusion, fatigue, and dry mouth, but luckily Mac OS X makes it easy to jump between programs that are running on your MacBook. Use any of these methods to jump from open application to application:
Click anywhere in the desired window to make it the active window.
Click the application icon in the Dock. All applications that are running have an icon in the Dock, and the icon has a shiny dot beneath it to indicate that the application is open.
Press
Press F9 (or F3, depending on your keyboard) to show all open application windows using Exposé; then click the one you want. Figure 2-16 illustrates the tiled window display on my Mac after I press F3. The cursor changes into the traditional (and highly elegant) gloved hand. Move the cursor on top of the window you want to activate — the window turns blue when it's selected — and click once to switch to that window. You can specify which keys you want to use to control Exposé within System Preferences.
Press F10 (or Control+F3, depending on your keyboard) to show all open windows from the application that you're currently using; then click the one that you want to activate. This Exposé function is great for choosing from all the images that you've opened in Photoshop or all the Safari Web pages littering your Desktop!
Along with the window switch, an astute observer will notice that the application menu bar also changes to match the now-active application.
Tip
Besides the F9/F3 and F10/Control+F3 hot keys that I just discussed, Exposé provides one more nifty function: Press F11 (or
Ah, but what if you want to switch to an entirely different set of applications? For example, let's suppose that you're slaving away at your pixel-pushing job — designing a magazine cover with Pages. Your page design desktop also includes Photoshop and Aperture, which you switch between often using one of the techniques I just described. Suddenly, however, you realize you need to schedule a meeting with others in your office using iCal, and you want to check your e-mail in Apple Mail. What to do?
Well, you could certainly launch those two applications on top of your graphics applications, and then minimize or close them ...but with Snow Leopard's Spaces feature, you can press the Control+Left Arrow or Control+Right Arrow sequences to switch to a completely different "communications" desktop, with iCal and Apple Mail windows already open and in your favorite positions! (Figure 2-17 illustrates the Spaces screen, showing two available desktops.)
After you're done setting up your meeting and answering any important e-mail, simply press Control+Left Arrow or Control+Right Arrow again to switch back to your "graphics" desktop, where all your work is exactly as you left it!
Now imagine that you've also created a custom "music" desktop for GarageBand and iTunes ...or perhaps you paired iWeb, MobileMe, and iPhoto together as a "Webmaster" desktop. See why everyone's so excited? (Let's see Windows Vista do that out of the box.)
In contrast to Exposé, Spaces has to be enabled and configured before you can use it. You can create new desktops, customize your desktops, and even choose a different set of key sequences to activate Spaces from within System Preferences. For the complete story on configuring Spaces, see Book III, Chapter 3.
Almost all Mac OS X applications open and save documents in the same way, whether you're creating a presentation with Keynote or expressing your cinematic side with iMovie. Therefore, I take a moment to outline the common procedures for opening and saving documents. Believe me, you'll perform these two rituals dozens of times a week, so no nodding off.
First, the simple way to load a document: Double-click that document in a Finder window, and ...well, that's it. (This is my preferred method because I'm an ALT — short for Admitted Lazy Techno-wizard — who would rather use complex hand movements to pour myself another Diet Coke.)
To open a document the hard way — from inside an application — here's the plan:
Choose File
Your Mac OS X program is likely to display the attractive Open dialog that you see in Figure 2-18.
Navigate to the location of the document that you want to open.
The pop-up menu allows you to jump directly to common locations — such as the Desktop, your Home folder, and your iDisk — as well as places that you've recently accessed (Recent Places).
If the target folder isn't in your pop-up menu, move the slider at the bottom of the dialog to the far left to display your hard drives, DVD drives, and network locations.
Click the habitat where the file will be found.
You'll note that the right column(s) changes to show you the contents of the item that you just clicked. In this way, you can cruise through successive folders to find that elusive document. (This time-consuming process is somewhat derisively called drilling — hence, the importance of using Recent Items, or dragging files, locations, and applications into the sidebar at the left of the Finder.)
When you sight the document that you want to load, either double-click it or click once to highlight the filename and then click Open.
Tip
"Hey, the Open dialog can be resized!" That's right, good buddy — you can expand the Open dialog to show more columns and find things more easily. Click and drag the bottom-right corner of the Open dialog to resize it. (You can also switch from column view to list view or icon view, just as you can in a Finder window, using the buttons to the left of the pop-up location menu.)
To save a document, follow these steps:
Choose File
If you've previously saved this document, your application should immediately overwrite the existing document with the new copy, and you get to return to work ...end of story. If you haven't previously saved this document, the program displays a Save dialog that's usually very similar to the Open dialog; it generally has a few more options, however, so stay frosty.
Navigate to the location where you'd like to save the document and then type a filename.
Often, you can use a default name that's already provided by the thoughtful folks who developed the software. Note that you might be given the chance to save the document in several different formats. For example, a word processing application might allow you to save a document in RTF, HyperText Markup Language (HTML), and even bargain-basement text format.
Click Save (or OK, depending on the application).
If I had a twisted and warped sense of humor, I'd simply tell you to quit applications by pulling your MacBook's power cord from the wall socket. (Luckily, I don't. Besides, it wouldn't work anyway, because your laptop's battery would automatically kick in!) There are, however, more sane ways to exit a program — use one of these methods instead:
Press the
Choose the Application's named menu and then click Quit.
Right-click the application icon in the Dock and click Quit on the pop-up menu that appears.
You can also click the Close button on the application window. Note, however, that this doesn't always completely close down the application. For example, Safari stays running even if you close the browser window. In general, if the application works within a single window (such as System Preferences), closing the window also quits the application.