MacBook Pro Portable Genius E-Book

Galen Gruman

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Serie: Portable Genius
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 527

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Learn the skills, tools and shortcuts you need in order to make the most of your MacBook Pro This easy-to-use, compact guide skips the fluff and gets right to the essentials so that you can maximize all the latest features of the MacBook Pro. Packed with savvy insights and tips on key tools and shortcuts, this handy book aims to help you increase your productivity and save you time and hassle. From desktop sharing and wireless networking to running Windows applications and more, this book shows you what you want to know. * Includes the latest version of OS X, iCloud, FaceTime, and more * Covers all the essential tools, topics, and shortcuts on things like running Windows applications, using the Intel Ivy Bridge processor, and more * Features Genius icons throughout the book that provide smart and innovative ways to handle tasks and save yourself time MacBook Pro Portable Genius, 5th Edition puts you well on the way to being a pro at using your MacBook Pro!

Leseprobe

MacBook Pro® Portable Genius, 5th Edition

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 10475 Crosspoint Blvd. Indianapolis, IN 46256www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-118-67776-6

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Credits

Acquisitions Editor

Aaron Black

Project Editor

Martin V. Minner

Technical Editor

Paul Sihvonen-Binder

Copy Editor

Gwenette Gaddis

Editorial Director

Robyn Siesky

Business Manager

Amy Knies

Senior Marketing Manager

Sandy Smith

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Richard Swadley

Vice President and Executive Publisher

Barry Pruett

Project Coordinator

Sheree Montgomery

Graphics and Production Specialists

Jennifer Goldsmith

Quality Control Technician

Jessica Kramer

Proofreading and Indexing

The Well-Chosen WordPotomac Indexing, LLC

About the Author

Galen Gruman has written more than 35 books explaining how to use popular technology, incuding the iPad, OS X, Windows 8, iOS, Adobe InDesign, and QuarkXPress. He’s the mobile columnist at the technology website InfoWorld.com, former editor of Macworld magazine, and both a Mac and PC user since 1985.

To my brother Stephen and his adventure, with MacBook Pro in hand, in China

Acknowledgments

It takes a team to make a book, and for this project I had the pleasure of working with the same crew that has helped me deliver the OS X Bible series for Wiley: project editor Marty Minner, copy editor Gwenette Gaddis, technical editor Paul Sihvonen-Binder, and acquisitions editor Aaron Black. And special thanks to Brad Miser, the author of earlier editions of this book, for setting the stage for the current act.

MacBook Pro Portable Genius, 5th Edition

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: How Can I Use My Desktop Space Efficiently?

Setting the Finder Desktop’s Icon Preferences

Working with Finder Windows

Using Finder windows

Using and configuring the Sidebar

Using and configuring the toolbar

Working with the Dock

Understanding how applications and folders work in the Dock

Changing the Dock’s appearance and behavior

Using the Launchpad

Managing Your Desktop’s Windows

Managing windows on the Desktop

Using multiple Desktops

Configuring Mission Control

Using Applications in Full-Screen Mode

Configuring Notifications

Working with the Notification Center

Configuring Notifications’s display

Working with Monitors

Configuring the MacBook Pro’s LCD screen

Connecting and configuring an external monitor with a cable

Connecting and configuring an external display with AirPlay

Using a projector

Using mirroring versus showing separate screens

Setting the Desktop Background

Chapter 2: How Do I Manage User Accounts?

Working with User Accounts

Creating Administrator or Standard user accounts

Setting Login Items for a user account

Creating Group user accounts

Creating Sharing Only user accounts and enabling sharing

Changing user accounts

Deleting accounts

Configuring e-mail, contacts, calendar, and social service accounts

Limiting access with parental controls

Using Automatic Login

Configuring the Login Window

Requiring a Password to Awaken the MacBook Pro

Working with Fast User Switching

Working with the Root User Account

Chapter 3: What Are My Internet Connection Options?

Setting Up a Local Network

Building a local network

Connecting your MacBook Pro and other devices

Managing Multiple Network Connections

Configuring network connections

Managing network connections with locations

Troubleshooting an Internet Connection

Solving a network connection problem

Solving a MacBook Pro connection problem

Finding help for Internet connection problems

Chapter 4: How Do I Share Files, Printers, Videos, and More?

Using the Share Sheet

Sharing Photos, Music, and Movies

Sharing Calendars

Sharing Maps with an iOS Device

Sharing Files

Sharing files with AirDrop

Sharing with file sharing

Accessing shared files

Sharing files with Windows PCs

Sharing files via Bluetooth

Sharing Screens

Sharing your MacBook Pro screen with other Macs

Sharing another Mac’s screen on a local network

Sharing Printers and Scanners

Sharing an Internet Connection

Chapter 5: How Can I Control My MacBook Pro and Maintain Battery Power?

Using the Trackpad Effectively

Using the Keyboard Effectively

Configuring the keyboard

Configuring language settings

Controlling your MacBook Pro with keyboard shortcuts

Using the Character Viewer

Using Voice Recognition Effectively

Using dictation

Using voice commands

Maintaining the Battery

Saving power with App Nap

Monitoring battery status

Extending battery life

Powering your MacBook Pro while traveling

Chapter 6: How Do I Take Advantage of iCloud?

Getting Started with iCloud

Synchronizing Data on Multiple Devices

Configuring iCloud on a MacBook Pro

Configuring iCloud on an iOS device

Using iCloud Keychain

Using iCloud with Documents

Working with iCloud’s Web Applications

Managing your iCloud account

Working with iCloud’s e-mail and information management applications

Using iWork in the Cloud

Chapter 7: How Do I Manage Contacts and E-mail?

Using Accounts in Contacts

Adding Contact Information to Contacts

Configuring the card template

Creating and editing contact cards

Finding People in Contacts

Setting format and sort preferences

Browsing for cards

Searching for cards

Acting on Card Information

Organizing Cards with Groups in Contacts

Creating groups manually

Creating smart groups

Configuring E-mail Accounts in Mail

Setting Account Information preferences

Setting Mailbox Behaviors preferences

Setting Advanced preferences

Testing e-mail accounts

Working with File Attachments in Mail

Sending files through e-mail

Working with received files

Organizing E-mail in Mail

Using mailboxes

Using smart mailboxes

Making Mail Work Your Way

The General preferences

The Junk Mail preferences

The Viewing preferences

The Composing preferences

The Signature preferences

Chapter 8: How Do I Communicate in Real Time?

Conversing with FaceTime

Configuring FaceTime

Starting a call

Receiving a call

Conducting a call

Messaging with Messages

Configuring Messages

Using Messages to text-chat

Using Messages for audio chats or video chats

Sharing your screen during a chat

Using the Buddy List

Chapter 9: How Can I Manage My Calendars?

Managing Calendars

Configuring Calendar preferences

Managing calendars

Navigating calendars

Creating calendars

Adding events to calendars

Working with event invitations and availability

Printing Calendars

Sharing Calendars

Publishing calendars via iCloud

Sharing calendars via iCloud

Subscribing to public calendars

Chapter 10: How Can I Make Better Use of the MacBook Pro’s Audio Features?

Getting Sound out of a MacBook Pro

Understanding sound output options

Controlling sound output

Creating and Using Sound Effects

Configuring sound effects

Creating and using custom sound alerts

Recording and Working with Sound

Recording sound with a microphone

Recording sound with a video camera

Recording sound from musical instruments

Recording sound in QuickTime Player

Recording sound in iMovie

Recording sound with an iOS device

Chapter 11: How Do I Add and Manage Storage Space?

Using External Hard Drives

Connecting an external hard drive

Preparing an external hard drive with Disk Utility

Working with external hard drives

Maintaining Hard Drives

Managing free space on a hard drive

Checking or repairing an external drive with Disk Utility

Checking or repairing the internal drive with Disk Utility

Erasing an external hard drive with Disk Utility

Working with SD Cards and Flash Drives

Chapter 12: How Can I Run Windows Applications?

Choosing a Windows Option

Apple’s Boot Camp

Desktop virtualization applications

Running Windows with Boot Camp

Configuring Boot Camp and installing Windows

Running Windows using Boot Camp

Running Windows Virtually

Chapter 13: How Can I Protect My MacBook Pro’s Data?

Keeping Software Current

Keeping OS X and Mac App Store software current

Keeping other applications current

Protecting Your MacBook Pro with General Security

Preventing Internet Attacks

Shielding your MacBook Pro with a router

Shielding your MacBook Pro with the OS X firewall

Protecting Data with Time Machine

Setting up Time Machine

Backing up to Time Machine

Restoring files with Time Machine

Using the OS X Document Protection Features

Using Auto Save

Restoring documents with Versioning

Protecting Data with Encryption

Using Find My iPhone to Locate Your MacBook Pro

Using Firmware Password Utility

Protecting Information with Keychains

Viewing and configuring keychains

Adding keychains

Adding items to a keychain

Working with keychains

Chapter 14: How Do I Solve MacBook Pro Problems?

Looking for Trouble

Understanding and Describing Problems

Recognizing user errors

Recognizing software problems

Recognizing hardware problems

Describing problems

Trying Fast and Easy Solutions

Forcing applications to quit

Forcing the Finder to relaunch

Restarting or restoring

Shutting down soft

Shutting down hard

Using a troubleshooting user account and deleting preferences

Repairing external hard drives

Repairing the internal hard drive

Repairing permissions

Reinstalling applications

Starting up from the Recovery HD partition

Starting up from an alternate external drive

Getting Help with MacBook Pro Problems

Using the Mac Help system

Describing a problem in detail

Getting help from others

Starting Over

Reinstalling OS X

Starting completely over

Introduction

From its distinctive metallic finish to its backlit keyboard, dazzling display, and inviting design, the MacBook Pro is amazing technology that looks as great as it works. Running OS X and including lots of amazing software, a MacBook Pro allows you to do more right out of the box more easily than any other computer. In fact, a MacBook Pro does so much that it’s easy to overlook even more of the great things it can do. That’s where this book comes in.

Although you probably already know how to turn on your MacBook Pro, you might not know how to create virtual working spaces on the desktop, so you can keep many applications and windows open at the same time and move among them easily. Although you likely know how to use the trackpad to point to objects on the screen and select them, you might not know how to create your own keyboard shortcuts for just about any command in any application you use. Although you have probably thought about how you need to back up your important data, you might not have actually done it. Also, although you’ve probably surfed the web, you may not have taken advantage of all the options that being connected can give you, from sharing files locally to communicating with people around the world, easily and inexpensively.

The purpose of this book is to provide a resource for you when you are wondering how to do something better, how to do it more easily, or even how to do it at all. Each chapter is organized around a question. In each chapter are answers to that question. These answers are task-focused so you learn by doing rather than just by reading. If you start at Step 1 and work through each one in sequence, you’ll end up someplace you want to go.

The MacBook Pro Portable Genius is intended to be your companion, to guide you on your in-depth exploration of your MacBook Pro. After you’ve been through a topic’s steps, you’ll be prepared to go even further by extending what you’ve learned to other tasks.

This book is designed to cover a broad range of topics in which most MacBook Pro users are interested. There’s no particular order to the topics in this book, so you can jump to any chapter without having read the preceding ones. To get started, I recommend that you look at the table of contents and decide which question you want answered first. Turn to the appropriate page, and off you go!

Chapter 1 How Can I Use My Desktop Space Efficiently?

The MacBook Pro’s Desktop is the area displayed on its screen. Like a physical desktop, you place things (in this case, icons and windows) on it to focus your attention on them and use their content. As you work, your Desktop naturally becomes cluttered with windows for applications, documents, and system tools. Keeping control of all these windows helps you make the most of your Desktop space. With all the great Desktop management tools that the Mac’s OS X operating system offers, it’s much easier to keep your MacBook Pro’s Desktop neat and tidy than it is a physical desktop.

Setting the Finder Desktop’s Icon Preferences

By default on a new MacBook Pro or in a new installation of OS X on a MacBook, icons for the MacBook Pro’s hard drive, external hard drives, DVDs, CDs, and servers do not appear on the Desktop. This keeps the entire space on the Desktop clear for your files and folders. (If you upgraded to a new version of OS X or used the Migration Assistant to transfer the contents of another Mac to your MacBook Pro, the drive icons that display are whatever was previously set.)

To access drives, whether or not they appear on the Desktop, open a Finder window (choose File→New Finder Window or press +N in the Finder, or double-click a folder or drive icon) and click them in the Sidebar to open their contents.

The folders and files you see on the Desktop are determined by the contents of the Desktop folder, which is located within your Home folder (choose Go→Home in the Finder to see the Home folder’s contents). If you don’t want a folder or file taking up space on your Desktop, move it into a different folder within your Home folder. In addition to having a neater appearance, this also helps you work more efficiently because it’s easier to find folders and files if they’re here rather than scattered on your Desktop.

Perform the following steps to show or hide Desktop icons:

1. Choose Finder→Preferences. The Finder Preferences dialog appears.

2. Go to the General pane, if it isn’t already visible.

3. Select and deselect the check boxes for the icons that you want to see and don’t want to see, respectively, on your Desktop. For example, to hide the icon for the MacBook Pro’s internal hard drive or any external hard drive connected to it, deselect the Hard Disks check box. As you deselect the check boxes, the related icons disappear from your Desktop.

To set the size, grid spacing, text size, and other options for the Desktop, click the Desktop so no Finder windows are selected. Choose View→Show View Options, and use the resulting panel to configure these settings for your Desktop. The title of this panel indicates the object for which you are configuring the view options, so it should be Desktop. You can use this same command with any folder to set its view options.

Working with Finder Windows

Much of the time that you are working on your Desktop will involve Finder windows. Two areas of Finder windows that you will use frequently are the Sidebar and the toolbar, in addition to the window itself. You can use these features as they are, but you can also customize them to make your Desktop space more efficient.

Using Finder windows

Finder windows are essentially lists of what’s in whatever drive or folder you opened. Double-click a drive or folder to open a Finder window. If you open a drive or folder from the Desktop, a new Finder window opens for its contents. If you open a drive or folder from within a Folder window, the Finder window displays its contents in place of whatever it was previously showing.

A quick way to open a new Finder window in the Finder is to choose File→New Window or to press +N. That way, you can look at contents from different locations at the same time, and even copy or move items across them.

If you drag items from one Finder window to another, the items are moved if the Finder windows are showing contents from folders on the same drive. They are copied if the Finder windows are showing the contents of folders from different drives. Hold down the Option key when dragging to copy files on the same disk, and hold down the Option key when dragging to move files to a different disk; holding Option reverses the standard behavior.

Close unwanted Finder windows by clicking the Close button at the upper left of the window or by pressing Shift++W. Note that this shortcut is new to OS X 10.9 Mavericks and had been just +W in previous versions of OS X.

Mavericks introduces a new capability in Finder windows called Finder tabs that reduces clutter on the Desktop. It works just like a browser’s tabbed panes do: Each pane has its own tab that you click to switch to that pane, as Figure 1.1 shows. Create a new tabbed pane by choosing File→New Tab or pressing +T. You can drag items from one tab to another: From the open pane, just drag the item to the tab of the other pane.

To close a tabbed pane, hover the pointer over its tab, and click the X icon that appears on the left side of the tab, or just press +W to close the active (open) pane.

1.1 OS X Mavericks lets you have multiple tabbed panes in the same Finder window, to decrease Desktop clutter.

Using and configuring the Sidebar

The Finder’s Sidebar makes it easy to get to specific locations, meaning folders, drives, and even files. It comes preloaded with a set of aliases (shortcuts) to common locations, but you can add items to, or remove them from, the Sidebar so it contains aliases to the items you use most frequently.

The Sidebar is organized into sections, as shown in Figure 1.2. You control which ones display by using the Finder Preferences dialog (choose Finder→Preferences). The process is similar to how you control which disk icons appear on the Desktop, except that you go to the Sidebar pane in the dialog rather than the General pane, and then check and uncheck the desired options to control what displays, as shown in Figure 1.3.

In the Sidebar itself, you can show or hide the contents of a section by hovering the pointer over a label, like Devices, and clicking the Hide or Show label that appears to its right to control if the section’s contents appear.

1.2 Use the Sidebar to quickly move to the items that you want to view in a Finder window.

1.3 You can determine the kinds of resources available in the Desktop via the Finder Preferences dialog’s General pane (top) and what appears in the Sidebar via its Sidebar pane (bottom).

So what are the sections? The Favorites section holds aliases to the folders on your MacBook Pro that Apple expects you open most frequently; you can customize it so it reflects the folders you open the most. The Shared section holds locations you are accessing on a network, such as a shared hard drive. The Devices section includes hard drives and disk images that are mounted on your MacBook Pro. And the new Tags section in OS X Mavericks shows files and folders that you tag with specific labels, such as those belonging to a specific project.

Using the items on the Sidebar is simple (which is why it’s so useful). Simply click the icon with which you want to work. What happens when you click depends on the kind of icon it is. The following are the common items:

All My Files. When you click this icon, all the files you’ve worked with appear in the Finder window. You can use the view and browse tools to access any file you need.

AirDrop. When you click this icon, you can see other users connected to the same Wi-Fi network and have their AirDrop folder open—if they’re using a Mac made in 2011 or later and running OS X 10.7 Lion or higher. You can send files to other users by dropping them on the person’s icon in the AirDrop window, and they can share files with you in the same way.

Applications. If the icon is for an application, the application launches.

Documents. Clicking a document’s icon opens the associated application, and you see and work with the document’s contents.

Folder. When you click a folder, you see its contents in the Finder window.

Shared folder or drive. When you select a shared network resource, you see either the login dialog, or if your MacBook Pro is configured to automatically log in to the resource, you see its contents.

Devices. When you select a device, its contents are displayed in the Finder window.

Tags. If you click a tag icon, you see all files and folders using that tag—regardless of their location on the Mac— in the Finder window.

Each type of Sidebar item has a distinctive icon, making what it represents easy to determine.

You can add an alias to a drive or folder to the Sidebar by dragging its icon from the Finder window into the Sidebar’s Favorites section. To add an alias in the Sidebar to a file, select it and press Control++T. Drag any of these aliases out to remove them from the Sidebar (the original items are not deleted from the Mac, of course).

The Favorites section is the only one that you can manually configure. The content of the other sections is determined by the Preferences settings, what your MacBook Pro is connected to on the network, and the mounted devices or disk images. If you drag an icon onto something in the other sections, it may be copied there instead (for example, when you drag an icon onto a disk’s icon).

To copy the file into a Sidebar location (rather than open that location in another Finder window), hold down the Option key while you move the file’s icon onto a folder’s or drive’s alias in the Sidebar. But if you drag an item onto a shared location in the Sidebar, rather than to a folder or drive, it is copied to that location instead of moved; to move an item to a shared location via the Sidebar, hold down the Option key.

To change the order of items within the Sidebar, drag them up or down the list. As you move an item between others, they slide apart to show you where the item you are moving will be. (You can move items within their sections, as well as from the Devices section to the Favorites section (but not in the reverse direction, or to or from other sections).

Using and configuring the toolbar

The toolbar appears at the top of the Finder window and contains buttons and pop-up menus that you can use to access commands quickly and easily. You can configure the toolbar so it contains the tools you use most frequently. When you open a Finder window, the toolbar appears at the top.

When viewing a Finder window in Grid view, you can change the size of the icons using the slider at the bottom right of the window. If you don’t see it, choose View→Show Status Bar.

The following default tools appear on the toolbar (as grouped from left to right):

Back and Forward buttons. These move you along the hierarchy of Finder windows that you’ve moved through (just like the Back and Forward buttons in a web browser).

View buttons. You can change the view of the current window by clicking one of the View buttons. For example, to see the window in List view, click the second button in the View group (its icon has horizontal lines). The four buttons (left to right) are Grid, List, Columns, and Cover Flow.

Arrange pop-up menu. This menu lets you arrange the contents of the window. For example, you can rank items by name, date last opened, size, and so on. Choose None to remove the arrange settings.

Action pop-up menu. This menu contains a number of useful contextual commands. These are the same as those that appear when you right-click an item. Options can include Move to Trash, Get Info, and Make Alias.

Share menu. Use this menu to share a selected item; the options you see depend on the type of item you have selected. Options can include Email, Message, AirDrop, Flickr, and so on.

Tag button. Use this new capability in OS X Mavericks to apply a tag to the selected item. A pop-up opens in which you can select an existing tag or type in a new one. Items can have multiple tags.

Right-clicking opens a contextual menu showing options relevant to whatever was right-clicked. A right-click is also called a secondary click, because it’s possible to have the Mac reverse the left and right sides of the trackpad (or external mouse if you’re using one) to accommodate left-handed users. By default, a standard click, such as to select an item, is done on the left. Another way to do a right-click is to hold down Control and do a standard click.

Search bar. You can search for items on the Mac by typing text or numbers into the Search bar. As you type, items that match your search term appear in the Finder window. By default, OS X searches both file names and file contents. But if you wait a moment before pressing Return to begin the search, a menu appears to let you limit the search to, for example, filenames or types of files, as Figure 1.4 shows.

1.4 When you search files, you can narrow the search by pausing in the Search bar briefly to open a menu.

You can change what appears in the toolbar. Follow these steps:

1. Open a Finder window.

2. Choose View→Customize Toolbar. The Toolbar Customization sheet appears, as shown in Figure 1.5.

3. To remove a button from the toolbar, drag its icon from the toolbar outside the Finder window. When you release the trackpad, the selected button disappears. (You can always add it back later.)

4. To add a button to the toolbar, drag it from the sheet and drop it on the toolbar where you want it to appear. When you release the trackpad, the selected button is added to the toolbar.

1.5 Use the Toolbar Customization sheet to define and organize the tools on your toolbar.

5. Using the Show menu, choose how you want the buttons on the toolbar to appear. Your options are Icon and Text, Icon Only, and Text Only.

6. When you finish customizing the toolbar, click Done. The Toolbar Customization sheet closes, and you see your customized toolbar in any Finder windows.

To return the toolbar to its default state, open the Toolbar Customization sheet and drag the default set of buttons onto the toolbar.

Working with the Dock

The Dock is an important part of your Desktop space. By default, it appears at the bottom of the Desktop, but you can control many aspects of its appearance, including where it is located and, to a great degree, how it works. The Dock is organized into two general sections. The area to the left of the application/document separation line (the faint, dark line a few icons to the left of the Trash icon) contains application icons. The area to the right of this line contains icons for documents, folders, minimized Finder or application windows, and the Trash/Eject icon.

When folders appear on the Dock, they become stacks by default. When you click a stack, it pops up into a fan or appears as a grid (depending on how many items are in the folder), as shown in Figure 1.6, so you can work with the items it contains. You can disable this feature for any folder so it behaves more like a normal folder (more on that shortly).

1.6 Clicking a folder’s icon on the Dock causes its contents to either appear in a grid or fan out (as shown here), depending on how many items it contains and your preferences.

You can perform all the following functions from the Dock:

See running applications. Whenever an application is running, you see its icon on the Dock. If the related preference is set (more details on this a bit later), a small, glowing blue light is located at the bottom of every running application’s icon. Application icons also provide information about what is happening with those applications. For example, when you receive e-mail, a badge on the Mail application’s icon changes to indicate the number of messages you have received since you last read messages.

Open applications, folders, minimized windows, and documents quickly by clicking the related icon. You can drag applications from the Desktop or a Finder window to the Dock’s left side and can drag folders, files, and drives to the Dock’s right side to put an alias to the items on the Dock for one-click access later. Or right-click a running application’s icon, and choose Options→Add to Dock to keep it in the Dock. Drag an icon out of the Dock to remove it from the Dock (the item is not deleted from your Mac). You can rearrange the application icons on the Dock by dragging them to the Dock location where you want them to reside.

Quickly switch among open applications and windows by clicking the icon for the item you want to bring to the front.

Be alerted about issues. When an application needs your attention, its icon bounces on the Dock until you move into that application and handle the issues.

Control applications and switch to any of their open windows. When you right-click the icon of an application, a contextual menu appears. When the application is running, this menu lists commands, as well as all the open windows related to that application. When the application isn’t running, you see a different set of commands (such as the Open command).

Customize its appearance and function. You can control how the Dock looks, including its size, whether it is always visible, and where it is located using the Dock system preference, which I describe later in this chapter.

To open a system preference—OS X’s method for customizing much of the Mac’s behavior—choose →System Preferences to open the System Preferences application, and click the icon for the specific system preference you want to adjust, such as Dock or Security & Privacy.

Understanding how applications and folders work in the Dock

Two icons on the Dock are unique and always there: the Finder and the Trash.

When you click the Finder icon (anchored on the left end of a horizontal Dock or at the top of a vertical one), a Finder window opens (if one isn’t already open). If at least one Finder window is open, clicking the Finder icon brings the Finder window you used most recently to the front.

The Trash icon is where all folders and files go when their time is done. When the Trash contains files or folders, its icon includes crumpled paper so you know something is in there. When you select an ejectable item (such as a DVD), the Trash icon changes to the Eject symbol. You can drag a disc, drive, volume, or any other ejectable item onto that icon to eject it.

To move between applications quickly, hold down +Tab. The Application Switcher appears. Click an icon to switch to its application, or while holding down repeatedly press Tab to cycle forward through the list, or repeatedly press Shift+Tab to cycle backward through the list. When you release the keys, you switch to the selected application. You can also type Q to quit the selected application in the Application Switcher.

Unless an application is permanently added to the Dock (in which case, its icon remains in the same position), the icon for each application you open appears on the right (or bottom) edge of the application area of the Dock while running and then disappears when you quit the application.

Unlike open applications, open documents don’t automatically appear on the Dock. Document icons appear on the Dock only when you minimize a document’s window from the application using it or when you manually add them by dragging their icon from a Finder window.

In what Apple calls App Exposé, you can see a list of all open windows in a running application by right-clicking the application’s Dock icon and choosing Show All Windows from the contextual menu that appears. Or just press the default shortcut (usually Fn+F10 or Control+down arrow); the same shortcut restores the regular view.

When you minimize an application window, it is pulled by default into the Dock using the Genie Effect. You can change this so the Scale Effect is used instead, via the Dock system preference. You can also change where the minimized application’s document windows go: into the application’s icon or into the document section of the Dock. When in the document section of the Dock, minimized windows are marked with the related application’s icon in the lower-right corner of the Dock icon so you can easily tell from which application the windows came. Minimized windows disappear from the Dock when you maximize them or when you close the application from which they came.

When you hide an application, OS X also hides its open windows in the Dock, though you can quickly open one of its windows by right-clicking the application icon or pressing the default shortcut (usually Fn+F10 or Control+down arrow) and choosing the window you want. (The application’s icon remains in the Dock, so you know it’s still running.)

When you place a folder’s icon on the Dock, it displays as a stack. A stack has some special characteristics, which is why it isn’t just called a folder (however, you can configure a stack to behave like a folder). Two stacks are installed on your Dock by default: Downloads and Documents.

Stack icons sometimes take on the icon of the most recent file that has been placed into them. For example, if you last downloaded a disk image file, the Downloads stack icon is the one for a disk image. When you place an image into your Pictures folder and have that folder installed on your Dock, its icon is a thumbnail of the last image you placed in it.

When you click a stack icon, its contents fan onto the Desktop if there are only a few of them, or open into a grid if there are many. You can access an item on the fan or grid by clicking it. You can open the folder’s contents in a Finder window by clicking Open in Finder.

To configure how an individual stack’s icon behaves by using its contextual menu, right-click the stack icon to reveal its menu, as shown in Figure 1.7.

1.7 Stacks have several configuration options.

The following options are included in the menu:

Sort By. Choose the attribute by which you want the items in the stack to be sorted. For example, choose Date Added to have the most recently added content appear at the bottom of the fan (if the stack is set to fan, of course).

Display As. Choose Stack to have the icon look like a stack, or choose Folder to replace the stack icon with the folder’s icon. The only difference is that when you select Folder, you always see the folder’s icon on the Dock, as opposed to the icon of the most recently added item, which is what you see when Stack is selected.

All Dock settings are specific to each user account; see Chapter 2 for more information. One user’s Dock settings do not affect another’s.

View Content As. Choose Fan to see the default fan layout for the stack (until it contains too many items, at which point it uses the grid instead). Select Grid to have the folder’s contents always appear in a grid. Select List to always display the contents in a columnar list; this is useful for folders that contain subfolders because you can select a subfolder to open its contents. Select Automatic to have OS X select the most appropriate view based on the folder’s contents.

Options. Choose Remove from Dock to remove the icon from the Dock. Choose Show in Finder to open a Finder window showing the folder’s contents.

Open. Choose this command to open the folder on the Desktop.

Changing the Dock’s appearance and behavior

The Dock offers several behaviors that you can change to suit your preferences. These steps walk you through how to change various aspects of the Dock’s appearance:

1. Open the Dock system preference.

2. Drag the Size slider to the right to make the default Dock larger, or drag it to the left to make it smaller. Note that the Dock doesn’t grow any larger when it’s completely full of icons, even if the slider isn’t all the way to the right.

When your MacBook Pro is connected to one or more external displays, the Dock in OS X Mavericks automatically appears on the active display, meaning the one where the pointer is. In previous OS X versions, the Dock appeared only on the primary display, which you could change in the Displays system preference’s Displays pane.

3. Select the Magnification check box if you want to magnify an area of the Dock when you point to it. Drag the Magnification slider to the right to increase the level of magnification or to the left to decrease it.This can make identifying items easier, especially if many items are on the Dock or when it is small.

4. Select the position of the Dock on the Desktop by clicking Left, Bottom (the default), or Right.

5. From the Minimize Windows Using pop-up menu, choose Genie Effect to pull windows down to the Dock in a swoop when you minimize them, or choose Scale Effect to shrink them straight down into the Dock.

6. If you want to be able to minimize a window by double-clicking its title bar, select the Double-Click a Window’s Title Bar to Minimize check box.

7. If you prefer windows that you minimize to move onto the related application’s icon instead of to a separate icon on the right side of the dividing line, select the Minimize Windows into Application Icon check box. With this setting enabled, you must open the application icon’s menu and select a minimized window to reopen it from the Dock, or switch back to the application and use its Window menu to choose the minimized window (unless the minimized window is also the application’s active window, in which case you move into it directly).

8. By default, application icons bounce as the application opens. If you don’t want this to happen, deselect the Animate Opening Applications check box.

9. If you want the Dock to be hidden automatically when you aren’t pointing to it, select the Automatically Hide and Show the Dock check box. If you set the Dock so that it is hidden except when you hover the pointer at the bottom of the screen, you can use more of your display.

10. To show the glowing dot icon under running applications, select the Show Indicator Lights for Open Applications check box. These lights are useful because they help you more easily identify open applications when you glance at the Dock, even hidden ones.

You can turn Dock Hiding on or off at any time by pressing Option++D.

Using the Launchpad

If you’ve used an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you already know how to use the Launchpad on the Mac because it works in exactly the same manner as the Home pages on those devices. If you like the iOS style of accessing apps, the Launchpad provides one-click access to all your applications and utilities, and you can organize the Launchpad to make it work efficiently for you.

One difference between the Home pages on Apple mobile devices and the Launchpad is that only application icons can be stored on the Launchpad, whereas on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you can also store web page icons.

Click the Launchpad icon on the Dock (it is located just to the right of the Finder icon by default) or perform a three-finger pinch (three fingers pinched against your thumb) on the trackpad. This preference is enabled by default in the Trackpad system preference. The Launchpad then fills the Desktop, and you see icons on the current page, as shown in Figure 1.8. To move to a different page, drag two fingers on the trackpad to the left or to the right. As you drag, the page flips to the next or previous page. You can also search for an app by entering all or part of its name in the Search field at the top of the Launchpad.

1.8 The Launchpad provides easy access to all your applications.

You’ll notice that the Dock remains visible if it isn’t hidden, or it becomes visible if it is hidden when the Launchpad is open. You can also use the Application Switcher while the Launchpad is displayed.

To open an application, click its icon. The Launchpad closes and switches to that application. Click a folder in the Launchpad to access the applications stored in it. The folder then expands, and you see the icons it contains, as shown in Figure 1.9.

To close the Launchpad without opening an application, click it (but not an application’s icon), perform a three-finger expand gesture on the trackpad, or press Esc.

The Launchpad is actually an application. Therefore, you can add its icon to the Sidebar, open it by double-clicking its icon in the Application folder, and so on.

1.9 To access an app stored in a folder, click the folder’s icon and then click the application’s icon.

You can organize the icons on your Launchpad to make accessing them easier and faster. To change the location of icons on the Launchpad, open it and drag the icon you want to move to the desired location. You can change its location on the current page, or you can drag it off the screen to the left or right to move it to another page (you have to linger at the edge of the screen until the page changes). As you move one icon between others, they shift to make room for the one you are moving. When the icon is over the location you want, release it.

To create a new folder, drag one icon on top of another. Launchpad creates a new folder and tries to name it according to the type of applications you place together. The folder opens, and you see the icons stored there. To change the folder name, select it. When it is highlighted, type its new name.

You can place icons into existing folders by dragging them on top of the folder in which you want to place them. You can also reorganize icons within folders by dragging them around when the folder is open. To remove an icon from a folder, drag it outside of the folder window until the folder closes. To delete a folder, drag all its icons outside of it; when you remove the second to last icon, the folder disappears (folders can’t contain just one icon).

You can remove applications purchased from the Mac App Store by clicking and holding an icon. After a moment, the icons begin to jiggle and the Remove button (X) appears. Click the Remove button, and then click Delete at the prompt. Removing an application from the Launchpad also deletes it from your MacBook Pro, so make sure you really don’t want it before completing this action. To return the Launchpad to normal without deleting an application, click outside of any application icon.

To remove applications that you didn’t download from the App Store, run the application’s uninstaller or drag it to the Trash, and then empty it.

Managing Your Desktop’s Windows

OS X gives you a few ways to manage your Desktop’s windows. As explained earlier, you can use the App Exposé feature in the Dock to display the windows for a running application, and you can use the Application Switcher to move among open applications. But those are methods to move among running applications and their windows, not to manage the Desktop itself.

OS X provides two basic methods for managing Desktop windows: the Show/Hide feature available to each application and the Mission Control application.

You can make all applications except the one you’re running disappear from the Desktop by choosing Hide Others from their application menu or pressing Option++H. For example, in Mail, choose Mail→Hide Others. (They’re still running, as you can see in the Dock or the Application Switcher.) You can also hide the current application by choosing Hide in the application menu (such as Word→Hide) or pressing +H. To restore all hidden applications, choose Show All in the application menu (such as iTunes→Show All).

Mission Control offers more complex controls, such as letting you create multiple Desktops (also called spaces) that you then run applications in. That way, you could have all the applications for a specific project running in one Desktop and your basic applications like Safari and Mail running in another. You then switch Desktops to see just those application groups. (You can access any application at any time via the Dock or Application Switcher, no matter what Desktop they are assigned to.)

To open the Mission Control view, click its icon on the Dock or swipe four fingers up the trackpad (the default gesture; see Chapter 5 for more information) or press Control+up arrow (the default shortcut, which you can change in the Mission Control system preference). You then see the thumbnails for the following items at the top of the screen, as shown in Figure 1.10:

1.10 Mission Control shows all the open windows on your Desktops.

Dashboard, the little-used application that lets you run widgets.

Your spaces, named as Desktop X (where X is a sequential number).

Applications that are open in full-screen mode (here, Safari).

In the center part of the window, you see all the applications running in the current Desktop, as well as their open windows. The application’s icon and name accompany its windows. The Dock appears in its default location, and you can use it just as you would when working outside of Mission Control. At top are the Desktops, or spaces, you’ve created, as well as any applications running in full-screen mode (here, Safari).

Managing windows on the Desktop

As you work on documents, move to websites, check your e-mail, choose tunes to listen to, and all the other things you do on your MacBook Pro, you can accumulate lots of open windows on your Desktop. This makes it easy to multitask so you don’t have to stop one activity to start another. The downside, though, is that it’s easy to lose track of where the specific window you want is located, or you might have a hard time getting back to the Desktop.

Mission Control helps you manage screen clutter from open windows with these three modes:

Show Desktop

Show the active application’s windows

Show all windows on the current Desktop, all Desktops, the Dashboard, and full-screen apps

Each mode has a specific use, and you access them in slightly different ways. The Mission Control application doesn’t need to be running for the first two modes, just the third.

Showing the Desktop

Showing the Desktop is useful when the Desktop on which you are working is so cluttered with application windows that you have a hard time finding anything. To clear away all your windows in one sweep, press the keyboard shortcut Fn+F11 (you can change this default in the Mission Control system preference). Now you can access the icons of folders, files, and drives on the Desktop without distraction. Your applications are still running, and you will see the edges of their windows pushed to the four sides of the Desktop. Press the shortcut again to see the normal Desktop with all open windows.

Showing the active application window

When you are working with multiple windows in the same application, it can be tough to get back to a specific window if you can’t see all them at the same time. Press the keyboard shortcut (Control+down arrow, by default) or swipe down with four fingers (the default gesture) to see all open windows for the current application, as shown in Figure 1.11. Yes, this is the App Exposé view covered earlier that is also available from the Dock.

At the top of the screen, you see the windows that are currently open on the Desktop. Below these, you see any windows that are hidden or those that you worked with previously that are now closed (such as documents you have edited).

To switch to a window, click it; it is highlighted in blue when you hover the pointer over it. The window becomes active (if it is for a closed document, the document opens) and moves to the front so that you can use it. The rest of the open application windows then move to their previous positions.

When you have all the windows for an application showing, press Tab to quickly move through them. You can also use +Tab to open the Application Switcher bar, which shows all open applications, and then keeping holding as you press Tab to move to the application on which you want to focus. When you release the key, the windows for the selected application appear.

1.11 When you have many windows open in an application, Mission Control makes it easy to move into a specific one.

Showing all windows

In this mode, you see Mission Control, as previously shown in Figure 1.10, which shows your Desktops, applications running in full-screen mode, and the windows open in the active Desktop. Click a window to switch to it, or click a Desktop to switch to it, if you have multiple Desktops.

Using multiple Desktops

As you use your MacBook Pro, it’s likely that you’ll develop sets of tasks that you work on at the same time. For example, you might use Word to create text and Photoshop to create the images for a book. These kinds of activities invariably involve lots of windows. Although you can use Mission Control to manage all the open windows for an application, it’s not very efficient because you can focus only on one window at a time, so it can still take some work to get to the windows you want to use.

But you can use Mission Control to create collections of applications and their windows on separate Desktops, also called spaces. This way, you can jump between sets easily and quickly. For example, if you use several Internet applications, you can create an Internet Desktop specifically for those, such as an e-mail application and web browser. To use your Internet applications, just open that Desktop and the windows are all in the positions you last left them. You might have another Desktop that contains Contacts and Calendar. You can then use these applications by switching to their Desktop. Multiple Desktops make moving to and using different sets of windows fast and easy. They also improve the efficiency with which you work.

To create a Desktop, hover the pointer over the upper right of the Mission Control view. When a large + icon (the Add Space button) appears, click it. Now drag any desired applications in the main Mission Control view to that Desktop to move them there. When not in Mission Control view, you can assign applications to the currently open Desktop by right-clicking the application icon in the Dock and choosing Options→This Desktop, as Figure 1.12 shows. To assign an application to all Desktops (that is, for applications you want easily available no matter what Desktop is open), choose Options→All Desktops instead.

1.12 Assign an application to the current Desktop or to all Desktops using the Dock’s contextual menu.

To unassign an application from a Desktop, display that Desktop, right-click the application icon in the Dock, and choose Options→This Desktop so the check mark beside that option disappears. To unassign an application from all Desktops, choose Options→None. Note that unassigning does not quit the application; it prevents the application and its windows from automatically opening in a specific Desktop the next time you run it.

A quick way to change Desktops—without needing to be in Mission Control view—is to swipe three or four fingers (depending on your trackpad’s settings) to the left on the trackpad to move to a later space, or swipe to the right to move into a previous space. When you stop on a space, it becomes active and the windows open in it appear the same as they were the last time you used that Desktop.

The gestures or keyboard combinations you use to work with Mission Control depend on the preferences you set using the Trackpad and Mission Control system preferences.

When there are too many Desktops and full-screen applications for the names of each to be displayed, point to a Desktop or application; it is magnified and its name appears.

You can reorganize your Desktops by dragging their icons at the top of the Mission Control view.

To close Mission Control without changing spaces or windows, swipe four fingers down the trackpad or press Esc.

Configuring Mission Control

Now that you have a good understanding of Mission Control, you can configure it by setting your Mission Control preferences:

1. Open the Mission Control system preference, shown in Figure 1.13.

2. Deselect the Show Dashboard as a Space check box if you don’t want the Dashboard to be accessible in Mission Control view.

3. If you don’t want Mission Control to automatically rearrange spaces based on the ones you’ve used most recently, deselect the Automatically Rearrange Spaces Based on Most Recent Use check box.

1.13 Configure Mission Control preferences to tweak how its features work.

4. Deselect the When Switching to an Application, Switch to a Space with Open Windows for the Application check box if you don’t prefer that. If you select this option, when you switch applications, you also move into the Desktop in which the switched-to application has windows open.

5. Deselect the Group Windows by Application check box if you don’t want windows to appear on the Desktop clustered based on their application. Deselecting this option makes it harder to tell what application will open when you click a window.

6. If you don’t want each monitor attached to your MacBook Pro to display as its own Desktop, deselect the Displays Have Separate Spaces option. OS X Mavericks introduced this option. If selected, each monitor is automatically its own Desktop, so you can’t have Desktops that go across multiple monitors. Deselecting this option makes Desktops display across all monitors, as if they formed one very large monitor. (I explain how to set up multiple monitors later in this chapter.)

7. In the Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts section, configure the keyboard shortcuts and mouse clicks to activate Mission Control, activate application windows (App Exposé), and show the Desktop and Dashboard. Use the menus on the left to set key combinations and the menus on the right to set mouse-clicks. If you use function keys such as F10, you must hold down Fn for them to work; without holding Fn, these function keys control aspects of the MacBook Pro’s hardware, such as sound volume and screen brightness, as the labels on the MacBook Pro’s keys show. To use modifier keys with a function key, such as Option, hold down the modifier keys while selecting from the menu. Using modifier keys with function keys usually means you don’t have to hold Fn. For example, if you hold down Option, the menus show ⌥ F1 through ⌥ F16; if you hold down Control and , the menus show ^F1 through ^F16.

8. Click the Hot Corners button to open the Hot Corners sheet. Use this sheet to set an action to occur when you point to that corner of the screen. For example, if you want the Launchpad to open when you move the pointer to the upper-right corner of the screen, select Launchpad on the menu in that location.

Using Applications in Full-Screen Mode

Many applications, such as Safari, Mail, iMovie, Aperture, and even the Finder, really benefit from all the Desktop room they can get to work more efficiently. That’s why OS X lets applications appear in full-screen mode. In this mode, the application takes over the entire screen and its menu bars are hidden, as shown in Figure 1.14.

Developers must enable full-screen mode in their applications, so it’s not available for all software. You can tell if an application supports full-screen mode because it has an icon of two opposing arrows in the upper right of its window.

Explore full-screen mode in applications that you use frequently to see if it helps you use them more efficiently. These pointers may help you:

Activate full-screen mode. Choose View→Enter Full Screen, or press Control++F. The application’s current window fills the screen and the menu bars are hidden.

Reveal the menu bars. Hover the pointer at the top of the screen. After a few seconds, the menu bars appear and you can access them just as you do when you aren’t working in full-screen mode.

As covered earlier in this chapter, applications running in full-screen mode appear as spaces in Mission Control view.

Exit full-screen mode. Choose View→Exit Full Screen, or press Control++F.

1.14 Using an application in full-screen mode gives it the most screen real estate possible.

Configuring Notifications

Many applications use notifications to communicate information to you. For example, Mail notifies you when you receive new messages, Calendar alerts you to upcoming events, Reminders reminds you about various things, and so on. The OS X Notification Center provides a central point of control for, and configuration of, the notifications with which you work.

Working with the Notification Center

To view the collection of notifications you have received, click the Notification Center menu located on the right end of the menu bar. The Notification Center pane appears, as shown in Figure 1.15. Notifications are grouped by the application from which they come. You can scroll the list to see all the notifications you have received. The order in which the groups are shown is determined by a preference setting (covered later in this chapter). When this is set to Manually, you can drag sections up or down the list.

1.15 The Notification Center provides a one-stop shop for the information that various applications are managing for you.