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Many new Mac users, and even some veterans never fully utilize some of the advanced capabilities of the Mac OS Finder.

Windowshading

One of the neatest underutilized Mac OS Finder functions is windowshading. By clicking the Collapse box on the far right of a Finder window's title bar, the body of the window will disappear, sort of like an old-fashioned roller window shade, leaving just the title bar itself visible. Clicking the collapse box again makes the body reappear.

You can also configure this function to work when you click anywhere on the pin-striped area of the title bar by opening the Appearance Control Panel (Apple menu > Control Panels > Appearance > Options) and enabling the "Double-click title bar to collapse windows" option, which is disabled by default for some reason when OS 9.x installs.

If you option-click the collapse box, all of the open windows in the active application will windowshade simultaneously. Option-click again to reverse the process.

Window Views

Mac OS 9.x allows you to view files and folders in a desktop window in three different modes:

€ As icons (small or large)

€ As a list (with tiny icons heading each item)

€ As single click buttons (small or large)

You can select the desired mode using the Finder View menu.

Icon view lets you organize (or disorganize) the contents of a window any way you like, or you can have the Finder automatically snap them to a grid, or even sort themselves alphabetically. The View Options dialog box lets you select icon arrangement alternatives as well as icon sizes.

List view is especially useful in folders that contain a lot of files, and as it allows you to display them in a variety of hierarchies, the most useful of which are "Date Modified" or by "Name" (alphabetical). You can also display up to seven columns of file information in list view, using the List View Options dialog in View Options from the View menu. Configuration options for list view are extensive, and beyond the scope of this basic tutorial.

Button view is somewhat more limited in usefulness than the other two modes. It allows you to open files or folders with a single click. What I use it for is as a Launcher substitute. I've always thought that the Mac OS Launcher, a holdover from Performa days, is clunky, and instead I use a pop-up window folder (see below) with program aliases displayed as buttons. When I want to open an application, I just pop the folder and hit the desired button, Works for me.

Spring Loaded Windows

This Mac OS feature allows you to "drill" into a series of nested folders without sequentially opening them all. Just hold the mouse button down when you click on the folder, and after a short delay, the folder will open. Keep holding the button down over the next folder or file you want inside the first one, and the latter will automatically close as the next one opens, and so on. Especially useful for dragging and dropping a file into a nested folder.

You can also scan the contents of a folder without opening it by double clicking it but keeping the mouse button held down on the second click ("click and a half"). The cursor will change to a magnifying glass, and moving it over the folder will display its contents. Moving the magnifying glass off the window closes the folder again.

Pop-Up Windows

If you drag an open window of the bottom edge of the OS 9.x desktop, it will collapse to a title tab. Click that title tab, and the window will pop open. Click the tab again, and the window collapses.

You can also make an active window become a pop-up window by selecting "As pop-up window" from the View menu. To restore a pop-up window to ordinary window status, just drag the open window clear of the bottom edge of the desktop, or select "As window" from the View menu.

Screen Font

The Mac OS has traditionally used Geneva 10 as its default icon and list label font. Geneva is OK, but if you prefer a different font, you can change it using the Views Font pull down menu in the Appearance control panel.

I'm persoanlly partial to Sean Cavanaugh's freeware "Rosie" screen font, which is designed as a replacement for Geneva, more compact than either Verdana or Geneva, and is very easy on the eyes. I've been using Rosie as my default screen font for years.

To download a copy of Rosie, go here:
http://www.mvd.com/seanc/dlfonts.htm

Rosie is free