This chapter introduces Mac OS X and key features such as the desktop, Finder, Dock, and Spotlight. You’ll learn how to use menus, buttons, and accessibility features that make it easier to use your computer, as well as how to work with applications and windows.
The desktop is the background area of your screen. It can display icons for hard disks, CDs, and any servers connected to your computer. You can also store files and folders directly on your desktop for quick access. Using System Preferences, you can customize the appearance of your desktop and choose the types of items shown on the desktop.
The desktop shows icons for everything it contains, such as your hard disk, folders, documents, and image files. When you open a folder on the desktop, a new Finder window opens automatically.
The Finder is the program that manages your files, applications, disks, network connections, and devices such as printers. The Finder is always on when your computer is on, though it may be in the background if you’re using another program such as Mail. To display a Finder window, click the Finder icon in the Dock (it’s always the first icon in the Dock).
The top-left corner of a Finder window contains three colored buttons used to close the window, send the window to the Dock (minimize), or change the window to its previous size (zoom). Under the buttons, along the top of the window, is a toolbar used to navigate, change the view, find items, and perform other actions. Below the toolbar, the window is split into two sections called the “sidebar” and the “view browser.”
The Favorites section has icons for the folders you use most, such as all of your files, applications, and desktop, among others. The Shared section lists shared computer and servers on your local network. The Devices section lists hard disks, external disks, DVDs, and other connected devices, such as iPods and iPhones.
Use the view browser to view the contents of the folder selected in the sidebar. Use the view buttons in the toolbar to choose how to view items.
Finder windows display the items on your computer. You use VoiceOver commands or gestures to open and navigate Finder windows. You can use Finder shortcuts to work with selected files and folders.
Note:The instructions below assume that cursor tracking is on, and the VoiceOver cursor and keyboard focus are tracking each other.
Do one of the following:
If a Finder window was open, you go to that window. Otherwise, you go to the desktop. In that case, go to the menu bar by pressing VO-M or, if you’re using VoiceOver gestures, double-tapping near the top edge of the trackpad. Then use the Right Arrow key to navigate to the Finder menu.
You can choose from icon, list, column, or Cover Flow view. In Cover Flow view, the browser is split horizontally into two sections. The top section shows a graphical view of each item, such as a folder icon or a preview of the first page of a document. The bottom section contains a list of the items.
To jump, press VO-J. If you’re using VoiceOver gestures, keep a finger on the trackpad and press the Control key.
Icon view: Use the arrow keys to move to the item you want.
List view: To move down the list rows, press VO-Down Arrow. To expand and collapse a folder, press VO-\. To move the VoiceOver cursor across a row and hear information about an item, press VO-Right Arrow. Or press VO-R to hear the entire row read at once.
Column view: To move down the list until you find the folder or file you want, use the Down Arrow key. To move into subfolders, press the Right Arrow key.
Cover Flow view: To flip through the items in the top section and move automatically through the corresponding list rows in the bottom section, press the Left Arrow or Right Arrow key.
VoiceOver announces when you have selected an alias or a file or folder you don’t have permission to open.
You can use Finder shortcuts to work with selected files or folders.
To add the selected item to the Dock, press Shift-Command-T.
You can temporarily hide the toolbar and sidebar in a Finder window to make it easier to navigate. To hide or show the toolbar, press Option-Command-T. To hide or show the sidebar, press Option-Command-S.
You use the Dock to open applications, documents, folders, and more. By default, it appears across the bottom of the screen.
The Dock comes with icons for some applications, such as Mail and iTunes; you can add others. When you minimize a window or open an application that isn’t in the Dock, its icon appears in the Dock.
Each item in the Dock has a shortcut menu that gives you quick access to commands for that item. The shortcut menu also contains the commands “Remove from Dock” for icons that have been placed there permanently, and “Keep in Dock” for applications that are open but whose icons are only there temporarily.
You can customize the Dock by changing its magnification, repositioning it, and more. To change Dock preferences, choose Apple menu > Dock.
Use the Dock to open applications, documents, folders, or stacks.
If you’re using VoiceOver gestures, double-tap near the bottom edge of the trackpad.
Press the Escape key. If you’re using VoiceOver gestures, scrub back and forth with two fingers.
To find out where the Dock is positioned on the screen, press VO-M to go to the Apple menu. Press VO-Down Arrow to move down the menu until you hear “Dock submenu” and then press VO-Right Arrow. Press VO-Down Arrow to move down the Dock menu until you hear the location of the Dock, such as “Checkmark Position on Bottom.”
When hiding is turned on, the Dock is hidden from view until the mouse pointer is over the area where it usually appears (such as the bottom). To make the Dock visible again without moving the mouse pointer, press VO-D.
When you open Launchpad from the Dock, a full-screen view displays the icons for all of the applications on your Mac arranged in a grid. You can easily navigate the grid to open any application.
VoiceOver automatically interacts with the grid containing your applications.
Depending on how many applications you have installed, Launchpad may have more than one page. To display other pages of the grid, stop interacting with the grid, navigate to the radio buttons at the bottom of the page, and then press VO-Space bar when you hear the page you want to display.
To exit Launchpad without opening an application, press Escape.
New applications downloaded from the Mac App Store automatically appear in Launchpad.
The menu bar at the top of the screen contains the Apple menu, application menus, status menus, and the Spotlight menu.
In the online help that comes with your Mac, the right angle bracket, or greater symbol, is used to describe a sequence of items in a menu. For example, to open a new Finder window, you open the File menu and choose New. This is written in instructions as “Choose File > New” and spoken by VoiceOver as “Choose File greater New” or “Choose File greater than New.” If an item is contained in submenus, you hear a series of greater or greater than symbols.
You can press a modifier key (such as the Option or Command key) when a menu command is selected to learn whether the command has an alternative action with that modifier, and then perform the action.
If the menu command has a different action with that modifier, VoiceOver speaks it. For example, if you choose Apple menu > About This Mac and hold down the Option key, the command changes to System Information.
Most of the information in your computer is stored in files. Files include documents, images, applications, and so on. Folders are simply a collection of files. Each file or folder is represented by an icon with its name below or to the right of the icon. You can select the text in the file’s name to change it, and you can copy, move, and delete files on your computer.
Your computer comes with some folders already set up, but you can create and delete your own folders to organize your information. Most folders and files you create are stored in a home folder with your user account name. If you have multiple user accounts on your computer, each user account has its own home folder.
You click once on a file or folder icon to select it and twice to open it. Clicking twice quickly is called “double-clicking.” If you double-click an application icon, you start the application and a window for the application opens. If you double-click a file created by an application, you automatically open the application (if it wasn’t open already) and open the file. For example, if you double-click a TextEdit file on the desktop, TextEdit starts up and its icon appears in the Dock. At the same time, the document opens on the desktop.
If you can’t use a mouse to select and click, you can use VoiceOver commands instead.
You can copy a file or folder to another location using the Copy and Paste commands in the Finder. Copying an item doesn’t remove it from its original location.
Note:The instructions below assume that cursor tracking is on, and the VoiceOver cursor and keyboard focus are tracking each other.
Don’t open the folder; the VoiceOver cursor should be on the folder.
You use System Preferences to customize your computer and choose essential system settings, such as your network configuration and Internet access. System Preferences is located in the Apple menu and has an icon in the Dock.
You can find settings to improve accessibility in these preferences:
The easiest way to learn about the many options in System Preferences is to explore the different preference panes. Some preferences have multiple panes you access by clicking the tab buttons. Network preferences even has an “Assist me” button to help you troubleshoot connection problems.
You can use Spotlight to easily find content on your computer. Spotlight is extraordinarily useful for VoiceOver users. In many cases, it may be easier to use than the Finder for opening files, folders, and applications. When you type text in the Spotlight search field, search results appear immediately in a menu below the search field.
The more complete the word or phrase, the more refined your list of results will be. Search results are grouped by category, such as Applications, Messages, and Folders, among others. You click an item in the list to open it.
If you don’t find the item you want, you can search again or click Show All in Finder at the top of the results list.
Spotlight search results include all the metadata inside files, including the kind of content, the author, edit history, format, size, and many more details. Depending on the search word you type, you may find thousands of results. Spotlight narrows its results to show you the best matches, but you can also browse the entire list if you want.
You can find more information about Spotlight in Help Center on your computer.
Generally, you select an item by pressing the VoiceOver command VO-Space bar. But if an item isn’t accessible or that VoiceOver command doesn’t work as expected, you can simulate a mouse click using a different VoiceOver command.
If you didn’t set the mouse pointer to follow the VoiceOver cursor (in the Navigation category of VoiceOver Utility), you must move the VoiceOver cursor to the item and then press VO-Command-F5 to place the pointer on the item.
You can also use Mouse Keys, a Universal Access feature in Mac OS X, to control the mouse pointer. You can’t use Mouse Keys when the NumPad Commander is enabled.
The Sticky Keys feature treats a series of modifier key presses as a single key combination. For example, you can press Control and then Option, and your keyboard interprets that combination as the Control and Option keys held down together.
When you turn on Sticky Keys, you can also set options to display on the screen a symbol for each modifier key you press, and to hear a sound when a modifier key you press is accepted. Checkboxes for these options are below the Sticky Keys On and Off radio buttons.
With the Slow Keys feature you can control the amount of time between when a key is pressed and when it is accepted by the keyboard. If you frequently press keys accidentally, you may want a longer delay.
You can also hear audible feedback when you press keys. You hear one sound when a key is pressed and a different sound when the key is accepted. This is a good way to monitor what’s happening if you can’t see the screen. Select the checkbox labeled “Use click key sounds” to turn on audible feedback.
You can use the mouse, keyboard, and VoiceOver cursor to navigate to text and objects that appear on your screen. VoiceOver uses three function keys to describe the keyboard, VoiceOver cursor, and mouse pointer.
Note:If your keyboard has an Fn key, press the Fn key when you press a function key.
To hear a description of the item in the VoiceOver cursor, press VO-F3. This could be a control, text in a document, an HTML content area, and more. The description includes the current state of the item. For example, you might hear that the checkbox is selected, or hear the value settings of a slider.F4—Keyboard Focus Key
To move the mouse pointer to the VoiceOver cursor, press VO-Command-F5. When you move the mouse pointer again, the VoiceOver cursor does not move with it. Use this command when cursor tracking is turned off, or if you don’t have mouse tracking options turned on in VoiceOver Utility.
If you find that keys register more than once when you press them, you can adjust the key repeat rate. The key repeat rate and key repeat delay let you control how fast keys repeat and how long the keyboard waits before it begins to repeat a key press. If you have trouble releasing keys fast enough, you can set the delay very long or turn off the repeat.
If you tend to make mistakes when pressing keys, moving the slider to a slow setting will help minimize the number of repeated keystrokes.
To turn off key repeating completely, move the Delay Until Repeat slider all the way to the left.
You can use VoiceOver commands or gestures to click buttons, select checkboxes, choose an item in a list or menu, and adjust sliders, steppers, and splitters.
Make sure you know where the keyboard focus and VoiceOver cursor are located before you select an item.
If you’re using VoiceOver gestures, flick right with two fingers to start interacting with the slider or stepper. Then with a single finger, flick up to increase the setting or flick down to decrease the setting. To stop interacting with the control, flick left with two fingers.
Mission Control gives you a comprehensive view of what’s running on your Mac, including Dashboard, all your spaces, and all open widows, including those in full-screen view. When you need more room for your windows and documents, Mission Control lets you create new desktop spaces and quickly navigate among them.
In Mission Control, a row of thumbnails across the top of the screen represents Dashboard, desktop spaces, and your full-screen apps. The lower part of the screen shows an Exposé view of the open windows on your desktop, grouped by application.
To add a desktop, navigate to the Add Desktop button, located immediately after the Spaces List.
To exit Mission Control without making a selection, press Escape or swipe down with three fingers.
In many Mac OS X applications, such as iCal or Mail, you can expand the window to fill your entire screen.
You can hear which applications and windows are open on your computer.
When you have more than one application open or more than one window open for an application, you can quickly switch to the application and window you want.
If you used the VoiceOver command to open the chooser, pressing the Space bar opens a submenu that lists all open windows, dialogs, or alerts for the application. Navigate a submenu in the same way you did the list of applications.
To exit the Application Chooser without making a selection, press the Escape key. If you’re using VoiceOver gestures, scrub back and forth with two fingers.
Hold down the Command key and press the Tab key repeatedly to cycle through the open applications. When you hear the application you want, release the keys. Press Command-Shift-Tab to cycle backward.
If you’re using Spaces, you can use the Spaces shortcut Command-arrow keys to navigate your spaces.
When you have more than one window open for an application, you can quickly switch between windows.
To exit the Window Chooser without making a selection, press the Escape key. If you’re using VoiceOver gestures, scrub back and forth with two fingers.
Hold down the Command key and press the ` key repeatedly to cycle through the open windows for the current application. When you hear the window you want, release the keys. Press Command-Shift-` to cycle backward.
Sometimes the window where the VoiceOver cursor is located doesn’t move to the front of the other windows. If this happens, some of the buttons and controls in the window won’t be active. You can use a VoiceOver command to move a window to the front so you can use all the controls.
You can move windows and some objects in applications, such as graphics and text boxes.
VoiceOver tells you if an item can’t be moved.
You can’t use other VoiceOver commands until you stop moving the item.
You can use certain number keys to quickly move windows and objects around the screen: the top-left, middle, and right section using keys 1, 2, and 3; the center-left, middle, and right section using keys 4, 5, and 6; and the bottom-left, middle, and right section using keys 7, 8, and 9.
You can resize windows and some objects in applications, such as graphics and text boxes.
VoiceOver tells you if an item can’t be resized.
You can’t use other VoiceOver commands until you stop resizing.
You can turn on FileVault to encrypt the information on your disk and protect it from unauthorized access. After your disk is encrypted, you must log in to your account whenever your computer is restarted or wakes from sleep. VoiceOver and Mac OS X speech services aren’t available in the login window. Instead, a series of beeps indicates in which field of the login window the cursor is positioned.
If you hear a single beep, the cursor is positioned in the Name field and you can begin logging in. Continue to step 2.
If you don’t hear a single beep, the login window might not be displayed yet. Wait a minute and then press Command-F5 again. If you still don’t hear a beep, there may be a problem with encryption. Turn off your computer and then turn it on again. An unecrypted login process will begin and you can log in with VoiceOver available.
If you hear a double beep, you entered a valid account name. Continue to step 3.
If you hear a single beep, you entered an invalid account name and the cursor remains in the Name field. Keep entering your account name until you hear a double beep.
If you hear three beeps, you entered a valid password and login proceeds.
If you hear a double beep, you entered an invalid password and the cursor remains in the Password field. Keep entering your password until you hear three beeps.