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Tutorials | Finder
So what is the Finder?
The Finder is Apples version of "My Computer" on a PC, only its better. It will give you access to nearly everything that is on, inserted or attached to your Mac, the hard drive, any CD's, DVD's, external hard drives and any networks that you might be connected to. You can use finder to organize your files, folder and applications. It is a tool on your Mac you really want to know how to use as you will be using it every time you log on.
To get access to it you can click on this icon on your dock (Fig 1).
Before we get into all the features of the Finder, take a look at Fig 2, it is a screen shot of the top left hand corner of a Finder. Here you can see three small circles, red, yellow and green.
The green circle is to expand the finder to fill a larger area of the desktop. Once the green button has been pressed and the window expands, you can press the same green icon and the Finder window will retract to its original size.
The yellow circle will minimize the Finder window down to the bottom right hand side of your Dock.
The red circle will close that particular finder window.
On the left hand side of the Finder is the SideBar, this will help you navigate though your files and folders (Fig 3).
To see what each item holds, click on it and its content will appear in the left area of the finder.
Near the top of the finder you will see these four icons (Fig 4), these are you viewing options and will change how the files are displayed.
Starting from the left, the first is the Icon view and will show your files just like in Fig 3.
The second is the List view and will show your files like this (Fig 5):
The third is the Column view and will show your files like this (Fig 6):
Finally the forth is the CoverFlow view and will show your files like this (Fig 7):
When scrolling though your files in any of these views there is a great new tool in OS X Leopard called "QuickLook" that will allow you to preview the content of many file types with out having to open a full program.
To access "QuickLook"select the file you want to preview and press the space bar on your keyboard (Fig 9):
The file will animate out into a box, this is a nice animation as it feels like the file is coming straight out at you (Fig 9).
When the "QuickLook" box is open and you have finished previewing the file that you had selected you can then use the arrow keys on your keyboard to open the other files in that folder in QuickLook.
With "QuickLook" you can preview files like .mp3, jpeg, pdf, mov etc.
Of course with all these nice features that the Finder has to offer we are not to forget its main purpose, to help you organize your files.
To create a new folder, select "File" form the main menu bar at the top of the desktop and then choose "New Folder" from the drop down menu (Fig 10).
To rename a file or folder click on it so that I is selected, and then click once on the text attached to that file/folder. Wait a few mill seconds and you will be able to type a new name in, then when you have finished press the enter key.
To organize your files and folders couldn't be easier, to move a file into a folder, click on the file and while keeping the button down drag it over to the folder you would like to place it in and then let go of the button when you are hovering the file over the folder icon.
That's the Finder tutorial finished, if you any further questions please Contact Us or join our Online forum and someone there will be happy to help.
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