The Panther Finder


The first thing you’ll probably notice about Panther is the new Finder windows (see Chapter 6). These are very different from those in Jaguar, not only because of their brushed-metal interface, but also because of the new style of display.

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Finder windows in Panther have a sidebar, a section at the left of the window that contains shortcuts to the places and folders you use most. At the top you’ll find icons for your computer, your iDisk (if you have a .Mac account), your network, and your hard disk. This section also displays removable media such as CDs or DVDs. At the bottom you’ll see, by default, your Desktop, your home folder, and five of the subfolders found in your home folder. You can add folders to the sidebar, giving you one-click access to the folders you use most.

Some people won’t like the brushed-metal interface, though I have to admit that it’s grown on me. But what’s really useful is the sidebar, with its ability to serve as a receptacle for all the folders I use a lot: my home folder, my Documents folder, and folders for projects I’m working on.

In addition, the sidebar metaphor is repeated in the new Open and Save dialogs (see Chapter 13); anything you put in the sidebar displays in these dialogs.

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This consistency provides a uniform view of your files and folders whether in the Finder, or when opening and saving files.

The Finder’s Action menu, invoked by clicking the Action button in a Finder window toolbar, gives you quick access to many common Finder commands.

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This is a type of contextual menu—in fact, if you hold down the CONTROL key and click on an item, or click with your right mouse button if you have a multibutton mouse, you’ll see similar commands. But the Action menu is useful and always present in Finder windows, which is easier for many users who don’t think of displaying contextual menus other ways.

Panther sees the return of a long-bemoaned missing feature: labels. Introduced under Mac OS 8, labels let you assign colored highlighting to files and folders, allowing you to organize your stuff more easily. You can also search for files and folders that have certain labels applied to them. I’ve missed labels in earlier versions of Mac OS X, and I’m glad they’re back. If you’ve never used labels, see Chapter 4 to find out what you can do with them.

Another great new feature in the Panther Finder is Expos . This feature lets you see all your open windows when you press a keyboard shortcut, so you can switch windows and applications more easily.

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I tell you all about Expos , as well as many other new Finder features, in Chapter 4.

Fast user switching is something Apple admits having “borrowed” from Microsoft Windows. You can now switch from one user to another without having to log the first user out. If you share a Mac with others at work, at school, or at home, you know how annoying it can be to have to quit all your applications so someone else can use your Mac for a few minutes. Now, another user can log in while you leave all your work as it is, and then, when they’ve finished, you can get back to work without having to restart your applications.

The Panther Finder offers some other great new features, such as the ability to create Zip archive files from the Action menu or a contextual menu; fast searching, which displays the results of your search even before you finish typing your keywords; and vastly improved network browsing. I’ll tell you all about these features in Chapters 4, 5, and 6.




How to Do Everything with Mac OS X Panther
How to Do Everything with Mac OS X Panther
ISBN: 007225355X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 171

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