SYSTEM PREFERENCES, PT 1

System preferences are home to many wondrous utilities and settings. I figure that what I’d do is outline some, giving details on how I put them to use. Are we ready to get started? Let’s. First thing’s first, though, you’ll need to know how to access them. There are a few ways. The most correct and formal way is to navigate with the Finder – the utility always in the leftmost position on the Dock with the happy Faces – to the applications folder. This is the repository for all your applications. However, the easiest way is the use the Apple Menu. This is accessed simply by clicking the Apple Logo in the upper left-hand corner, and selecting “System Preferences."

Appearance
Here you can alter the basic appearance of Mac OS X. Thing is, you don’t really have many. The Appearance is either Graphite or Blue, and this only really affects whether the Close, Minimize, & Zoom buttons in the upper left corner of each window are color-coded or not. Highlight color dictates the color of text and other items you select or highlight. You can
Mac OS X Appearance Preferences pane
modify the placement of the scroll arrows, the buttons used to scroll up, down, left & right in a window that contains documents longer/wider than the window. I keep them together, because if you overshoot your target while scrolling, it’s easier to move the mouse a few pixels than to move it across the screen if you need to back up. Jump to Here when you click in the scroll bar is the setting I use. It’s useful if you open a finder window or Safari window or anything that’s longer or wider than the display. This way, if you know the thing you’re looking for is at the end of the list, you can simply click at the end of the scroll bar and jump to it, no waiting.

In the very same Apple Menu that got us to system preferences, you can find an option called Recent Items. Here you see a list of the most recently used applications & documents, arranged alphabetically. You can control how many items are kept in these lists at any given time by modifying this system preferences window.

For the font smoothing, there’s no right or wrong answer. It’s personal preference, but you should know that it will affect globally the way text is displayed on your computer. I recommend leaving this at it’s default setting.

Dashboard & Exposé
If you haven’t accidentally hit the F12 key when trying to kit “Delete,” then you’re one of few. Most of us have, and for those that didn’t know about Exposé, the window management feature in Mac OS X, this was the first experience. Before we modify it, we should probably know what it is, right? Exposé is a dynamic way to control, navigate between, & view open windows & your desktop. There are controls to Show All Windows, to Show Application Windows, and Show Desktop.

Show All Windows allows you to quickly uncover all of the windows you have open. This makes it easy to have many different windows open, doing many tasks. You don’t have to worry about covering up any particular window with another one, because it will be easy later to get to that window. You simply invoke this command using the key that you have set (or the default key if you prefer to leave it unchanged), and you’ll see something like the picture to your right. These are all the windows I have open at the moment, and you’ll notice that whichever window I put my mouse over gets highlighted & displays the name of the document to aid me finding my way.

Show All Application Windows is very similar to the former feature, but it is more limited in one important way: it only brings up to view the open windows for the current or frontmost application, leaving
Mac OS X Dashboard & Exposé preference Pane
everything else behind and dimmed. This is useful if say, for instance, you have 3 different excel spreadsheets open that you’re copying information across. Let’s say you’re in one, copying information, but other that you need is hidden behind other windows. Activating this command will bring those 3 windows to the front, in full view, so you can quickly get back & forth between your documents without disturbing other windows you may want open, such as your mail program & calendar, the internet, or anything else.

Show Desktop is a wonderful feature, too. The desktop is usually a quick place to put things for just about everyone. But if there’s no way to quickly get there, then it’s not nearly as useful. Enter this command. By default, most internet applications place files you download onto the desktop. You downloaded it from the internet because you wanted to use it, right? So let’s make it easy to get to. Invoke this command, again using the key you set in the Dashboard & Exposé or the default one if you didn’t change it, all the windows will scoot themselves to the very edges of the screen, leaving you visual access to all the files on the desktop. Invoke the command once more, and they all return to where they were. Fast and easy.

Dashboard
While it’s under the the heading of Exposé, it’s different enough to warrant it’s own section. The other commands all affect how the open windows behave and assists in navigation. Dashboard however, provides different functionality. It’s a visual layer that covers your entire desktop, and contains many little
A Busy example of a Dashboard
“widgets” that have very specific functions. They’re a quick & easy way to view weather, look at time-zone information, have a little break with some games, or look up information in the Dictionary & Thesaurus. It’s nice because you don’t have to open a large application to do a small task, and it doesn’t have keep the entire system cluttered when you’re only going to, say, convert Currency with the Converter Widget once a day, if that. When the time comes, just start Dashboard!

The first time you start this layer, there will only be a couple widgets you see. There are more, and you can add all kinds of your choosing to suit your needs. The first step is to click on the “+” symbol in the lower left corner, which brings up a menu at the bottom that shows you all your widgets you have installed to use. Select the Widgets Manager, and you can delete ones you don’t like. You can also click the button “More Widgegts,” which takes you to Apple’s Widgets website, where you can browse a whole catalog of different widgets that do all kinds of things.

Quick tips about “dashboard & Exposé”
OK, we know how to do it with the buttons. But, there’s an alternate way to activate these commands that can be easier for you. In the same preference pane at the top, you can select Active Screen Corners to invoke these commands. For instance, say that for the top right corner, you select “Show Desktop.” Now, when you put your mouse all the way into the top right corner, the windows will scoot to the edge and show the desktop. And just like the keys, do it again and they’ll revert back to the location they were in before you showed the desktop.

For me, this is essential. That way, I don’t have to take my hand off the mouse to get around. I can just flick it from corner to corner and accomplish what I’m looking to do.

Another cool thing is that you can drag files around while doing these things. Say you want to send a picture that’s on your desktop to someone in an email you’re currently writing. Flick the mouse to that corner, click & hold the picture, then flick the mouse back to the same corner, and now you have the file ready to drop on the email, which is still the frontmost selected application. Just let go of the mouse at the right spot.

Now, letting go of the file in the right spot is essesntial! A thing you should know about Exposé, the name for the entire set of window management tricks described here, is that when it’s activated, you can’t actually control functions in the windows you see, only select them. Therefore, if you are holding a file and invoke dashboard to show all your windows, dropping the file on the window while it’s highlighted isn’t good enough. You have to wait until that window is brought to the front and Exposé is off. This can be sped up by hitting the spacebar key as soon as the window you want is highlighted.

Dock
Here you can modify the parameters of the Dock, the bar at the bottom that holds applications you want there, and whether it magnifies as you mouse over it, and the overall size of it.

International
Seeing as how you probably don’t know any language but this one, you would probably pass this right by, and I wouldn’t blame you. Except that I was bored one day and looked at it. There’s a section in this pane that I think could be useful. Under the Input Menu, you can select
Mac OS X int'l Preference Pane – Select
different things that will show up on the Menu Bar. The Menu Bar is the white bar across the top of your screen. To the rightmost side, the system can add certain buttons that may be of use. You’ll probably notice a volume control there by default, but there are other things that can go there, and a couple useful ones are in this menu. For instance, you can select to Show the Character Palette & Keyboard Viewer to show up there. These are great, because they will give you access to rarely-used but still useful symbols. The Keyboard Viewer in particular shows you what keys are and become as you hit Modifier keys – keys that change what other keys are or do, such as the (Apple) Key next to the spacebar.

End
That’s the end of Part 1. I think it’s enough to try and Digest in one sitting; probably more than you can, actually! You’ll notice that we’ve only covered most of the first row, not even all of it! Don’t worry, I’m not going to heave you through each one like this. These we went through just now are the ones which have the most visual affects on the system and user usability. A lot of the others are things that you could probably get by never touching, though I always recommend experimenting and exploring, see what you can discover that may be useful to you. Remember: it’s a Mac, not Windows – you aren’t going to ruin the system. You aren’t going to crash the computer. Have fun. Yes, it’s possible to have fun on the computer.

As always, if you have questions, email me and I'll try my best. But please keep in mind that I'm a proficient user, not a tech-head. I'll do my best.