Joyce Morris

jmorris@zoo.uvm.edu

1. What is the desktop anyway? This is a metaphor that compares the operating of a computer to a traditional office.The desktop refers to the opening screen that you see when you turn on the Macintosh
   
   
   
   • Finder-the program that creates the Macintosh Desktop

   • Hard drive-storage of data and applications

   • Folders-these contains files or other folders

     
     

   • Files-the documents, applications or data

   • Trash-to throw out files or eject your disk

   
   
   
2. Working with Icons The Mac's way of communicating with people is sometimes referred to as a graphical user interface. You control the computer by pointing at, moving, and manipulating little graphic symbols called icons with your mouse. These icons stand for files, folders, disks..... all the things you'll work with on your computer.
   
   

   Hard Drive

   
   
   

   Trash

   
   
   

   Folder

   
   
   

   File

   
   
   

   To double click or to single click...that is the question!

   To open anything on your computer, double click on the icon. To select the icon click on it once. By selecting an icon you are letting the computer know that the next command is meant for that icon.

   Opening Icons: You open a disk, folder, or document to see what's inside. You open a program to work with it. To open any item represented by an icon on the desktop, you double-click on its icon.

   Moving Icons: To move an icon, you simply drag it to its new position. You can move an icon to a new folder or disk by just dragging the icon over the icon of the folder or disk you want to copy it to. If you want to copy the icon to the new location rather than moving it, hold down the option key as you drag it. If the location you drag the icon is on a different disk, the icon will automatically be copied, rather than moved.

   Renaming Icons: You can change the names of files and folders on the desktop whenever you wish although it is not good to change the names of files you haven't created yourself. To change the name of a folder you created, click directly on the icon's name one time. When you do this the name becomes highlighted and outlined. You can now type in a new name. Press return or click outside the icon to keep the change.

3. Using your hard drive.
   Your hard drive is the place where you can store data & applications. To open the hard drive click on it quickly two times with the mouse.

   Storage space left on the hard drive

   
   
   
   Folders

   
   
   
   
   
   

4. The Menu across the top To use the options on the top menu, keep the mouse button pressed on the category word and drag the pointer down the menu to highlight the command you want to select. Some of the commands in these menus are dimmed (their names are in gray, not black). This means you can't use them at the present time.

   File:

   • New Folder - Use this command to create new folders to put documents into.
   • Open- Select a document or folder to open by clicking on it once. Then select open from the menu.
   • Get Info-You can find out information about a file or any other item on the desktop, including how large it is, when it was created and modified, and other useful facts by selecting its icon and opening the Get Info command.
   • Make Alias- An alias points to a program that is stored on the computer's hard drive and can give you quick access to a file from a number of places. To make an Alias click to select the item you want to make an alias for and choose the Make Alias option from the File Menu .
   • Find- When the Finder is the active program, you can use the Find command in the FIle menu to find a file or folder on any disk.
     
     
     
     
   View You can look at your files in different formats.The most common are: Icon which also lets you see how much storage space you have left on your hard drive, alphabetical view which alphabetizes everything by name, and date which gives you files organized chronologically. This can be quite useful if you forget a file's name.

   Label- You can colorize your folders and files to denote different categories.

   Special

   • cleanup desktop: tells your computer to logistically organize the icons on your screen

   • empty trash: gets rid of files that you want to delete. Files are not actually deleted until you empty the trash.

   • eject disk: To get a disk out of the machine it is better to put it in the trash. If you select eject disk the computer may ask for your disk at a later time. if it does you can usually cancel this by pressing the command key (apple) and period at the same time.
   • restart: This restarts your computer and is necessary to activate some new files-it also restores memory if you are getting low memory messages.
   • shut down: This totally shuts down your computer and clears its memory.
   • balloon help: Balloon help explains the function or significance of icons, menus, commands, and other features on the Macintosh screen. Choose the Show Balloons Command from the Help Menu. After you choose Show Balloons, balloons containing explanatory text appear next to objects as you point to them on screen.
   • application menu: All the way to the right you will see an icon showing you what application (program) you are currently in because a Mac using System 7 or later lets you open up a number of programs at one time. You can move between programs by selecting the one you want from the list you'll get when you click on this icon.

5. Working with Windows
   When you open a disk, folder, or document icon, the contents of that item will appear in a window . If you open a disk or folder icon, the window shows the files saved on that disk. In order to do anything with or to a window it has to be active. You can have several windows open on a screen at one time, but only one of them can be active.
   • active window - to make a window active just click anywhere in the window. You will know that it is active when its title (top) bar turns grey.

   • closing a window.- To close a window, click in the little box at the left end of the title bar.

   • moving a window - You move a window by dragging it by its title bar. Click anywhere in the title bar, then, holding the mouse down, move the mouse to reposition the window.

   • resizing a window - Drag the size box vertically, horizontally, or diagonally to manually resize a window. To automatically resize a window to show all of its contents(or as much as will fit on the screen), click the zoom box (upper right).

   • scroll bars - When the scroll bars in the active window are gray, that means there are items in it that aren't showing. When the scroll bars in the active window are blank, everthing is already displayed in the window. Drag the box to move the contents of the window up or down and use the scroll bar on the bottom of the window to scroll sideways.

6. Under the Apple In the upper left hand corner of the menu there is a picture of an apple. This is not decorative, it also houses menu items.
   
   • What's the memory? to find out how much memory your computer has, point the mouse to the apple, drag down, and select About This Macintosh.

     Looking at total memory will tell you how much memory your computer has installed.

     You can also see what version of system software your machine is using.

     
     
     

   • Calculator: You will also find a calculator that is available to you in most programs. Use the keyboard to type in the numbers and the mouse to click on the calculator buttons.

   • Chooser: The chooser lets you select (choose) which printer you would like to use and also gives you access to AppleShare -a way to connect to the university network.

   • Control Panel: the control panel has some features that you need to know about. The most importart are:
     • Color-to change the color of the highlight and window frames.
     • Network-here is where you tell your computer to connect to the network or to local talk
     • Monitor-Some programs require you to use a 256 color monitor. Here is where you change from thousands to 256 colors. Don't use the millions of colors option-it causes some crashing.
     • Sound-use this to increase or decrease the volume of your computer.
     • Views-use the views option to change the font and font size used in all views, the arrangement of icons, and the size of icons used in the list views.

   • KeyCaps: Use this function to locate symbols that are found in your fonts with different key combinations. Hit your option key and see how the keyboard symbols change.

   • Scrapbook: back under the apple you'll find your scrapbook. This is a great place to keep clip art that you use frequently. You can copy pictures into the scrapbook and then copy them to your documents at any time. To put pictures into your scrapbook, first copy the picture (under edit). Open the scrapbook and paste (also under edit) the picture. To copy from your scrapbook, go to the edit menu, copy and then paste it on to your document.

7. Special functions
   • screen dumps: You can "take a picture" of anything you see on your screen. . The command for this function is (apple shift 3). Keep these three keys down and you should hear a click. Look for your picture icon on the hard drive.

   • moving between applications: you can keep a number of programs open at one time. The number depends upon the memory of your computer. To get to an application already open, go to the finder at the top right of the screen and select the program you wish. The program you are currently in will have a check next to it.

   • locking a file: You can lock a file to prevent it from accidently being thrown out. To lock (or unlock a locked file), click once on the icon of the file you want to lock. Choose get info from the file menu. Click the Locked box in the lower-left corner so that an x appears in the box. To unlock a file click on the box to remove the x.

   • locked disks. It is possible to lock any disk which will prevent writing to it. This means you cannot save on it. To make sure that your disk is writeable, the locking moveable square should be away from the disk's end.

     this disk is unlocked
     and can save files.

   • to raise the memory of an application: If you are using lots of graphics you may need to raise the memory that you computer allots for that program. Make sure the program is not open. You can check to see if its open by clicking on the finder icon (upper right hand corner). Next locate the program, click once on the program's application file-not folder. Choose get info from the file menu. If you have selected the application you will be able to raise these numbers. Just click on the boxes and input the new numbers and press return. Remember when you raise the memory, it will take that much more memory from your machine to run that application.

   • Closing vs. quitting applications: You can close any or all your documents without quitting the program but remember as long as the program is open, it is using computer memory. You can always tell if a program is still open by checking with the finder.