macOS Sierra For Dummies. Bob LeVitus

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      This chapter introduces important features of macOS, starting with the first things you see when you log in: the Finder and its Desktop. After a quick look around the Desktop, you get a look into two of its most useful features: windows and menus.

      Windows are (and have always been) an integral part of Mac computing. Windows in the Finder (or, as a PC user would say, “on the Desktop”) show you the contents of the hard drive, optical drive, flash (thumb) drive, network drive, disk image, and folder icons. Windows in applications do many things. The point is that windows are part of what makes your Mac a Mac; knowing how they work – and how to use them – is essential.

      Menus are another quintessential part of the Mac experience. The latter part of this chapter starts you out with a few menu basics. As needed, I direct you to other parts of the book for greater detail. So relax and don’t worry. By the end of this chapter, you’ll be ready to work with windows and menus in any application that uses them (and most applications, games excluded, do).

      Touring the Finder and Its Desktop

      The Finder is the program that creates the Desktop, keeps track of your files and folders, and is always running. Just about everything you do on your Mac begins and ends with the Finder. It’s where you manage files, store documents, launch programs, and much more. If you ever expect to master your Mac, the first step is to master the Finder and Desktop. (The default Sierra Finder and Desktop appear in the preceding chapter, in Figure 1-2).

      The Finder is the center of your Mac OS experience, so before I go any further, here’s a quick description of its most prominent features:

      ❯❯ Desktop: The Desktop is the area behind the windows and the Dock. In macOS 10.12, the default Desktop picture again honors its namesake, showing a portion of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

      It’s also where your hard drive icon (ordinarily) lives, although if you bought a new Mac with Sierra preinstalled, there won’t be any icons on it at all.

      

If you don’t see your disk icon(s), and you’re old-school like me and prefer to always see disk icons on your Desktop, never fear – you’ll learn how to enable this behavior in Chapter 4.

      The Desktop isn’t a window, yet it acts like one. Like a folder window or disk window, the Desktop can contain icons. But unlike most windows, which require a bit of navigation to get to, the Desktop is always there behind any open windows, making it a great place for icons you use a lot, such as oft-used folders, applications, or documents.

      

Some folks use the terms Desktop and Finder interchangeably to refer to the total Mac environment you see after you log in – the icons, windows, menus, and all that other cool stuff. Just to make things confusing, the background you see on your screen – the picture behind your hard drive icon and your open windows – is also called the Desktop. In this book, I refer to the application you use when the Desktop is showing as the Finder. When I say Desktop, I’m talking about the picture background behind your windows and the Dock, which you can use as a storage place for icons if you like.

      To make things even more confusing, the Desktop is a full-screen representation of the icons in the Desktop folder inside your Home folder. Don’t panic. This will become crystal clear in upcoming pages and chapters.

      ❯❯ Dock: The Dock is the Finder’s main navigation shortcut tool. It makes getting to frequently used icons easy, even when you have a screen full of windows. Like the Desktop, the Dock is a great place for the folders, applications, and specific documents you use most. Besides putting your frequently used icons at your fingertips, it’s extremely customizable; read more about it in Chapter 3.

      ❯❯ Icons: Icons are the little pictures you see in your windows and even on your Desktop. Icons represent the things you work with on your Mac, such as applications (programs), documents, folders, utilities, and more.

      ❯❯ Windows: Opening most icons (by double-clicking them) makes a window appear. Windows in the Finder show you the contents of hard drive and folder icons; windows in applications usually show the contents of documents. In the sections that follow, you can find the full scoop on Sierra windows.

      ❯❯ Menus: Menus let you choose to do things, such as create new folders; duplicate files; cut, copy, or paste text; and so on. I introduce menu basics later in this chapter in the “Menu Basics” section; you find details about working with menus for specific tasks throughout this book.

      Whereas this chapter offers a basic introduction to the Finder and Desktop, Chapter 6 explains in detail how to navigate and manage your files in the Finder. But before you start using the Finder, it helps to know the basics of working with windows and menus; if these Mac features are new to you, I suggest that you read this entire chapter now and pay special attention to Chapter 6 later.

      Anatomy of a Window

      Windows are a ubiquitous part of using a Mac. When you open a folder, you see a window. When you write a letter, the document that you’re working on appears in a window. When you browse the Internet, web pages appear in a window … and so on.

      For the most part, windows are windows from program to program. You’ll probably notice that some programs (Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Word, for example) take liberties with windows by adding features such as custom toolbars or textual information (such as zoom percentage or file size) around the edges of the document window and in toolbars.

      Don’t let it bug you; that extra fluff is just window dressing (pun intended). Maintaining the window metaphor, many information windows display different kinds of information in different panes, or discrete sections within the window.

      When you finish this chapter, which focuses exclusively on macOS Finder windows, you’ll know how to use most windows in most applications.

And so, without further ado, the following list gives you a look at the main features of a typical Finder window (as shown in Figure 2-1). I discuss these features in greater detail in later sections of this chapter.

       FIGURE 2-1: A typical Finder window in macOS Sierra.

      

If your windows don’t look exactly like the one shown in Figure 2-1, don’t be concerned. You can make your windows look and feel any way you like. As I explain later in the “Working with Windows” section, moving and resizing windows are easy tasks.

      Meanwhile, here’s what you see on the toolbar: (clockwise from top left):

      ❯❯ Close, Minimize, and Zoom buttons: Shut ’em, shrink ’em, and grow ’em.

      ❯❯ View buttons: Choose among four exciting views of your window: Icon, List, Column, and Cover Flow. Find out more about views in СКАЧАТЬ