CS Resources—Mac OS X—File System

Using Finder to look at your files

The next thing to learn about in Mac OS X is the Finder. This is the little thing that you see in the top menu bar when nothing else is open. It is also on the far left of the dock bar. If you click on it, this will bring up a new window. This window allows you explore your files on the Mac OS X system. A screen shot of the finder is shown below. The left-hand side contains places you might want to commonly visit. The default spot is your home directory. This directory is your student.cs directory and is equivalent to the U: drive on a Windows computer. All of your CS files will be stored here. The right-hand side displays the files in that directory. You can double-click on them just as you would in Windows to view their contents.

Feel free to explore the other icons on the left. One worth pointing out is the Applications one. The dock bar at the bottom of the screen contains only the most used applications. Mac OS X on the other hand has hundreds of other applications. You would access them from here. As you can see, there are many other applications such as a calculator, address book, and many many more. To open one, simply double click on it.

Using the Finder to manage folders

The Finder is used to manage files by organizing them into folders; as the name suggests, it can also be used to find files if you have forgotten where you put them. It is similar to, but not the same as, "My Computer" in Windows.

• Making Finder active: Click on its icon in the Dock (depicted on the far left in Figure 1) or click on the desktop.
• Changing the view: You have a choice of the icon view, the list view, and the column view. Use the View menu or the icons on the finder window.
• Creating a new folder: Use the menu item on the File menu, or in the Action menu (illustrated with a gear) in the Finder window.
• Moving a file: Drag the name or icon of file to the folder (this is easiest if you have two Finder windows open, one with the file and one with the folder).
• Finding a file: If you know where a file is stored, you can access it by clicking on the correct series of folders. You can also use the search box on the top right of the Finder window; you can choose to search for text in the name of a file or in its contents, should you have forgotten the name as well. If you select one of the files found, the bottom of the window will show the path through folders to find it (or you can double-click to open the file).

Deleting files

Drag files to the Trash when you wish to delete them. The Trash is found on the Dock (depicted on the far right in Figure 1); it is like the "Recycling Bin" in Windows. Simply putting a file in the Trash does not automatically delete it. You must choose the menu item Empty Trash from the Finder menu to permanently delete files from the Trash.