Recognizing the Desktop


The vast expanse of swirling blue that’s displayed below the menu bar and behind the Dock is called the desktop. Initially, the only items on the desktop are your installed hard drives and any inserted disks, but other icons may appear. For example, an icon appears on your desktop for each file server, if any, to which your computer is connected. All these different icons normally appear on the desktop, but you can suppress them by changing settings in Finder Preferences.

The desktop is actually a folder, stored in your home folder. The contents of the Desktop folder are always displayed onscreen, so users always have a location to store and retrieve items quickly. Mac OS X keeps your desktop’s contents and appearance separate from users who log in with other user account names. Each user account has its own Desktop folder. Figure 2-26 shows the Desktop in all its glory.

Cross Reference

For more on changing settings in the Finder Preferences, see Chapter 4. You can also learn how to place icons on the desktop, change the picture displayed on the desktop, and customize other aspects of the desktop in Chapter 4.

Note

Although the icons of hard drives, CDs, and other disk volumes may appear on the desktop, your Desktop folder does not contain these items. The icons of disk volumes appear on the desktop simply because the Finder displays them there (together with other items actually stored in your desktop folder). This can be confusing, as it goes against our understanding of folders containing the items they display, but it is the only exception to this rule.

click to expand
Figure 2-26: Each user account has its own private desktop, and items you put on your desktop are kept in your Desktop folder.




Mac OS X Bible, Panther Edition
Mac OS X Bible, Panther Edition
ISBN: 0764543997
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 290

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