The Sidebar The Sidebar is the pane at the left side of every Finder window, unless you've hidden it and, by the way, also at the left side of every Open dialog box and full-sized Save
Trang 11.2 Windows and How to Work Them
In designing Mac OS X, one of Apple's key goals was to address the
window-proliferation problem As you create more files, stash them in more folders, and launch more programs, it's easy to wind up paralyzed before a screen awash with cluttered, overlapping rectangles
That's the problem addressed by Exposé, a useful feature that's probably worth at least
$34 of Mac OS X's $130 price, and Spaces, which is easily worth another $17.35 They're described in detail on pages Section 5.3 and Section 5.3.2.3
There are some handy clutter and navigation controls on the windows themselves, too For example:
1.2.1 The Sidebar
The Sidebar is the pane at the left side of every Finder window, unless you've hidden it (and, by the way, also at the left side of every Open dialog box and full-sized Save dialog box)
The Sidebar has been overhauled in Leopard Now this list has as many as four different sections, each preceded by a collapsible heading:
• Devices This section lists every storage device connected to, or installed inside, your Mac: hard drives, CDs, DVDs, iPods, memory cards, USB flash drives, and
so on The removable ones (CDs, DVDs, iPods, and so on) bear a little gray
logo, which you can click to eject that disk
• Shared It took 20 years for an operating system to list all the other computers on the home or small-office network, right there in every window, without any
digging, connecting, button-clicking, or window-opening But here it is: a
complete list of the other computers on your network whose owners have turned
on File Sharing, ready for access See Chapter 13 for complete details
• Places This primary section of the sidebar lists places (in this case, folders) where you might look for files and folders Into this list, you can stick the icons of
anything at all—files, programs, folders, disks, or whatever—for easy access Each icon is a shortcut For example, click the Applications icon to view the
contents of your Applications folder in the main part of the window (Figure 1-3) And if you click the icon of a file or program, it opens
• Searches The "folders" in this new Sidebar section are actually canned searches that execute instantly when you click one If you click Today, for example, the
Trang 2main window fills with all files and folders on your computer that you've changed today Yesterday and Past Week work the same way
Figure 1-3 The Sidebar makes navigation very quick, because you can jump back
and forth between distant corners of your Mac with a single click
In column view, the Sidebar is especially handy because it eliminates all of the columns to the left of the one you want, all the way back to your hard-drive level
You've just folded up your desktop!
Good things to put here: favorite programs; disks on the network to which you often
connect; a document you're working on every day; and so on
Folder and disk icons here work just like normal ones You can drag a document onto a folder icon to file it there, drag a downloaded sit file onto the StuffIt Expander icon there, and so on In fact, the disks and folders here are even
spring-loaded ( Section 2.4.4 )
The All Images, All Movies, and All Documents searches round up everything in those file-type categories, no matter what folders they're actually sitting in
These insta-searches are very useful all by themselves, but what's even better is how easy
it is to make your own search folders to put here Section 3.4 has the details
1.2.2 Fine-tuning the Sidebar
The beauty of this parking lot for containers is that it's so easy to set up with your favorite places For example:
• Remove an icon by dragging it out of the Sidebar entirely It vanishes with a puff
of smoke (and even a little whoof sound effect) You haven't actually removed anything from your Mac; you've just unhitched its alias from the Sidebar
Tip: You can't drag Shared items out of the list Also, if you drag a Devices item
out of the list, you'll have to choose Finder Preferences to put it back in; see the box on Section 1.2.3
Trang 3• Rearrange the icons by dragging them up or down in the list (You're not allowed
to rearrange the computers listed in the Shared section, though.)
• Install a new iconby dragging it off your desktop (or out of a window) into any spot in the Places list of the Sidebar Unlike previous versions of Mac OS X, you can't drag icons into any old section of the sidebar—just the Places place
Tip: You can also highlight an icon wherever it happens to be and then choose
File Add to Sidebar, or just press -T
• Adjust the width of the Sidebar by dragging its right edge—either the skinny divider line or the extreme right edge of the vertical scroll bar, if there is one You
"feel" a snap at the point when the line covers up about half of each icon's name Any covered-up names sprout ellipses (…) to let you know (as in "Secret Salaries Spreadsh…")
Note: The Leopard Sidebar is a lot less flexible than the old one For example, you
can no longer drag the divider bar so far to the left that it hides the icons' names It stops just to the left of the end of the longest name.Nor can you hide the Sidebar completely by double-clicking the dividing line, by pressing Control-Option-
-T, or by dragging the line all the way to the left None of those methods work anymore; the only way to hide the Sidebar is to use the Old Finder Mode button
• Hide the Sidebar by clicking the Old Finder Mode button, a white, capsule-like button in the upper-right corner of the window, or using its menu equivalent (View Hide Toolbar) (See Section 1.2.10 for more on the Old Finder Mode button.)
Then again, why would you ever want to hide the Sidebar? It's one of the handiest navigation aids since the invention of the steering wheel For example:
• It takes a lot of pressure off the Dock Instead of filling up your Dock with folder icons (all of which are frustratingly alike and unlabeled anyway), use the Sidebar
to store them You leave the Dock that much more room for programs and
documents
Trang 4• It's better than the Dock.In some ways, the Sidebar is a lot like the Dock, in that you can stash favorite icons there of any sort But the Sidebar reveals the names of these icons, and the Dock doesn't
• It makes disk-ejecting easy.Just click the button next to any removable disk to make it pop out After 20 years, the Mac finally beats the "It's illogical to eject a disk by dragging it to the Trash!" problem (For other ways to eject disks, see Section 11.1.1.3.)
• It makes disc-burning easy.When you've inserted a blank CD or DVD and loaded
it up with stuff you want to copy, click the radioactive-looking Burn button next to its name to begin burning that disc (Details on burning discs in Chapter 11.)
• You can drag onto its folders and disks.That is, you can drag icons onto Sidebar icons, exactly as though they were the real disks, folders, and programs that they represent
• It simplifies connecting to networked disks Park your other computers' hard drive icons here, as described in Chapter 12, and you shave several steps off the usual connecting-via-network ritual
1.2.3 Title Bar
The title bar (Figure 1-4) has several functions First, when several windows are open, the darkened title bar, window name, mini-icon, and colored left-corner buttons tell you which window is active (in front); in background windows, these elements appear
dimmed and colorless Second, the title bar acts as a handle that lets you move the
window around on the screen
TROUBLESHOOTING MOMENT
Fixing the Sidebar
If you've read the preceding paragraphs and gone on a squealing delete-fest just
to see how much damage you could inflict on your Sidebar, it's time for a splash
of cold water Once you drag the Macintosh HD or iDisk icon out of the top of
the Sidebar, you can't drag them back in Suddenly you're stuck with the
orphaned horizontal divider, with nothing to divide The top half of your list is
empty
That's why Apple gives you a quick way to restore the Sidebar to its factory
settings
If you choose Finder Preferences, and then click the Sidebar button, you
discover the checkboxes shown here They let you put back the Apple-installed icons that you may have removed in haste Just turn on a checkbox to restore its
Trang 5icon to your Sidebar So if something you expect to see in your Sidebar isn't there, check back here
On the other hand, you may as well streamline your computing life by turning off the checkboxes of icons that younever want to see filling your Sidebar