Finder:
the Window to your Files
The files on
your computer are the backbone of everything you do. Even
webpages – like the one you’re reading right now – are
really just files that your computer is loading from across
distance. Managing your files in good order is not just for
the anal-retentive types out there; everyone stands to
benefit from some good, old-fashioned structure. And
understanding the file and folder structure is a great
start to understanding the computer itself.
Your
File System & You
This screenshot shows the basic file system hierarchy. And yes, that’s what it is. Hierarchies don’t have to be bad, and they don’t have to be hard to understand, either. In fact, I’d venture to say that quite the opposite is true: understanding how the filesystem keeps things organized is really what your computer excels at, and if you can wrap your head around it, you’re halfway to being a computer geek.
Everything you see and click on your screen resides in the Hard Drive. As such, your hierarchy starts here. From there, your Mac registers and assigns each user their own folder, where they each have their own store of preferences, files, and folders that no other user has access to. Also at this level is the Applications Folder. This folder is listed at the same level as the user folders for an important reason: Everyone has access to this same folder and can use the same programs. This is a very important distinction! I once saw someone on a multi-user computer downloading a program off of the internet and putting it on their desktop. They then later questioned why another user could not seem to use this application. The answer? Well, since it’s on YOUR desktop, in YOUR user folder, which NO ONE ELSE has access to… they can’t see it! If you want something to be available to any user on the system, it needs to be in the Applications Folder specifically for this reason.
Folders & subfolders are amazing tools by themselves. With them, you can segregate your files into nice organized chunks. Mac OS X helps you do this by creating for each user a Documents Folder, Music Folder, Movies Folder, & Pictures Folder. This is a great way to get a jump start on keeping your files where you can find and use them again later with ease. Simply put your pictures into the pictures folder, documents into the Documents Folder, and so on. Then, if you start to grow a collection of files that is too much to look at at once and find your files, you can start to set up subfolders to keep things tidy. I’ll give you a personal example:
Personal example
While I was schooling at CSUSB (figure it out on your own), you can imagine that I had a multitude of files that I was creating and saving. Notes, presentations, reports, you name it. Well, I can tell you with complete confidence (because I just checked right now) that I managed to accumulate over 600 non-image files over that time! Can you imagine opening up your Documents Folder and trying to find that one specific file out of 600-700? Me either. Subfolders to the rescue. I created a folder inside the Documents Folder and named it “School.” so all my school work went into there. So now there’s my 100 personal files in the Documents Folder, and my 600 school files in School. Still hard to find that file, though. So we do another set of subfolders. This time, I went all the way and created a folder for each class I was in. So this way, when I open the School folder, instead of 600 files staring back at me, I have an organized set of folders – named after each class, such as “Econ 101” – standing at attention, holding all the files relating to their respective namesakes. Now, when I want to get that “Econ 101” report, I open the Documents Folder, the School subfolder, then the “Econ 101” folder, and am presented with 10-20 files that I can easily view and navigate.
Could you see how this perhaps is helpful to you? Maybe you have a lot of cooking recipes. Might it be easier to create a “Cooking Recipes” folder and put them in there? That way, they aren’t mixed in with everything else, and you can easily get to just them without much despair. Or maybe you have a lot of
And this is the basis of your entire computer. And this is also the logic behind how your computer operates. Most all of the computer-centric files that your machine uses to actually work are contained at a very high-level (hierarchically) folder called System. When the computer needs a tool to do something you ask of it, it goes to the folder where that tool is and uses it. If you double click on a Microsoft Word Document, the Computer goes and looks for the Application Microsoft Word, which it remembers was placed in the Applications Folder, and used it to open the program, and subsequently the document you asked the computer to open for you.
Where’s that document I had opened?
I saw a friend loading a Microsoft Word Document, and he did it rather unconventionally. Or rather I should say, he did it the long and obtuse way. Within almost every program – under the File Menu – is an “Open…” command. You can use this to open specific documents, but the window this brings up is not really the Finder, and as such is missing a lot of the Finder’s functionality. For instance, there’s no way to delete a document from this window, because it’s not the Finder, and it can’t remove files from the file system, in the same way that your friend can’t take money out of your bank account – it doesn’t have permission to do that.
Rather than access your files in this way, I’d recommend that you open the files directly. Basically, I am saying you’re better off opening the Finder and locating the specific file you want to open, then double-clicking on it to gain access. In this way, you’re:
- More familiar with where the files are located
- Able to remember where things are relative to each other
- Able to move, copy, duplicate, delete, & inspect each file
Quick & Helpful Tips
OK, so now you have at least a quick and basic understanding of the Finder. Now, let’s equip you with some quick tips that’ll serve you well in the future.
- The Happy Face(s) icon cannot be removed from the Dock or Moved from it’s #1 spot. Simple reason is that it’s that important. What good is a computer if you can’t access your files? The makers of the OS saw fit to ensure that users couldn’t accidentally handicap themselves by removing probably the single most important & enabling program on their machine.
- Each program on the computer has its own Menu (at the top of the screen). When the Finder is the frontmost program, you’ll see its name is visible in bold just after the Apple Menu Logo. Another menu option is View, and under there is an option called “Show View Options.” You can invoke this to bring up a menu for each Finder window you have open and modify the size of the fonts, the size of the icons, whether icons are generic or show a preview of the file (some files, such as picture files, can display a small version of the actual picture instead of just a placeholder), how things are arranged, and other options, as well. As I say at every step of the way, don’t be afraid to explore. If you see a menu, open it and see what options you have. Each program has its options in its menus, and by just opening them and trying things out, you may find helpful tricks that really benefit you in ways you hadn’t thought possible.
-
You can do
cool things in the Preferences of the
Finder, as well. Click on the Finder’s Name in the Menu Bar, then select Preferences. You can select certain items to show up in the Finder Sidebar or to be hidden from showing up there. There are 4 tabs that you have options to mess with.
-
About
that
Sidebar. It’s
divided into two sections. The upper section is
reserved for system navigation. Things will show up
here like your Computer icon, the Hard Drive, any CD’s
you insert, and servers you connect to. The bottom half
is all you! Be default, the system places shortcuts to
your User folder, as well as your Documents Folder,
Music, Movies, Pictures, and Desktop Folders (the
Desktop is
really just a big Finder Window that resides behind everything else). You can drag these around to change the order, and even drag often-used files or folders you access over here for fast, convenient access. Then, if you decide later you want to remove it, simply drag it out of the Sidebar and let go, and the shortcut disappears with a *poof!* But don’t worry; the icons are just shortcuts, and the actual files or folders are not moved to the Sidebar; instead, the system uses a dummy icon to direct to the actual file. So if you accidentally drag something off, it’s not lost, it’s right where it always was, and you can simply navigate back there and re-insert its shortcut into the Sidebar.
- Drag & Drop is really really easy. If you’re new to the Mac, you may not even consider this. What is it? It’s how you’d do things in real life. If you had a bunch of folders sitting on your real desktop, and wanted to move a file from one to the other, you’d pick out, grab it and move it to the file you wanted it in (dragging), then place it in its new home (dropping). In windows, this is hard to accomplish and seems very much like the plague; Apple is about intuitiveness. I always tell newbies (that’s you) that if you’re looking at a situation on the Mac, and stop to think “Man, this would be really easy if I could accomplish X by doing Y.” Well? What are you waiting for? Do Y, and you’ll most likely get X. Open two finder windows (File>Open New Finder Window), go to the file you want moved in one, go to the place you want to put it in the other, then drag & drop the file to its new home. Want the file on the Desktop to go to the Documents Folder? Drag it and drop it onto the Documents shortcut in your sidebar, and it’s done.
- Quickest way to open a new Finder Window? Well, there’s a couple, actually. First, you can hold down the Apple key (next to the spacebar), then hit “N” and a new one will pop right up. Alternatively, when you have a finder window open already, if you hold that same Apple Key, then click on a folder in the Finder window, it will open in a new window. This also works on folders in the Sidebar, too.
End
And with that we’ll call this article a day. There’s more to learn, obviously, but I can’t teach you everything! Remember: the point of these articles is to give you a push to discover things on your own. I’m merely trying to show you some of the things I’ve learned by plunging ahead and experimenting on my own. No one told me these things, there wasn’t a special manual I read, and I wasn’t born with a Keyboard & Mouse in my hand; I was just brave enough to try and learn. My computer’s running fine, right? Nothing’s broken, right? And I was at one point as new to this as you are.
Jump into the water, splash around, and get familiar with your new tool. I hear these Computer things are the Wave of the Future.
;-)