Chapter 13: Work with Applications

How to…

• Open and launch applications

• Open and save files

• Install applications

• Use the Classic environment

When you come right down to it, what you want a computer to do for you is let you run the applications you need to do your job, your chores, or have fun. An operating system lets the computer do this, controlling what goes on under the hood, but you spend most of your time working with different applications. In your everyday work with your Mac, you don’t see the operating system much. You work with the Finder, which, while part of Mac OS X, is a separate application you use to manage your files. You also work with other parts of Mac OS X itself when you log in and out, change System Preferences, or start up and shut down your Mac; however, most of what you do is with your applications.

Mac OS X comes with a full suite of applications to surf the Web (Safari, see Chapter 10), manage e-mail (Mail, Chapter 10), and manage personal information (iCal and Address Book, Chapter 15), as well as Apple’s renowned digital hub tools (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD; Chapters 16, 17, and 18). But you can also purchase plenty of other applications, to do everything from word processing to graphic design, from managing your budget to playing games. There are thousands of applications available for Mac OS X, ranging from the standard graphics programs (Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator) to productivity software (Microsoft Word and Excel) to games and utilities.

In this chapter, I’ll look at the tasks you do with applications that are the same for all programs: I’ll show you how to get your applications up and running, how to quit them, how to open and save files, and how to install new applications. I’ll even tell you a bit about the Classic environment, which lets you run applications written for Mac OS 9 or earlier.