Windows XP for Starters: The Missing Manual: Exactly What You Need to Get Started

2017-07-07 02:10:07

3.1. Windows in Windows

There are two categories of windows in Windows:

Desktop windows . These windows, sometimes called Windows Explorer windows, include the windows that open when you double-click a disk or folder icon. This is where you organize your files and programs.

Application windows . These are the windows where you do your workin Word or Internet Explorer, for example.

Nonetheless, all windows have certain components in common (see Figure 3-1):

Title bar . This top strip displays the name of the window. Drag it like a handle when you want to move the window on the screen.

Minimize button . Click this box to temporarily hide a window, shrinking it down into the form of a button on your taskbar (Section 3.4). You can open it again by clicking that button. Keyboard shortcut : Press Alt+Space bar, then N.

Maximize button . Click this button to enlarge the window so that it fills the screen, gluing its edges to the screen borders. At this point, the maximize button turns into a restore down button (whose icon shows two overlapping rectangles), which you can click to return the window to its previous size . Keyboard shortcut : Press Alt+Space bar, then X.

Tip: You can also maximize or restore a window by double-clicking its title bar.

Figure 3-1. All windows have the same basic ingredients , making it easy to become an expert in window manipulation. This figure shows a desktop windowa disk or folderbut you'll encounter the same elements in application windows.

Close button . Click the X button to close the window. Keyboard shortcut : Press Alt+F4.

Menu bar . Click a menu title (such as File or Edit) to open a menu, revealing a list of commands available for that menu in this window. Keyboard shortcut : Press Alt+[ underlined letter in menu], or press F10 to activate the menu bar in the active window and then press the underlined letter.

Toolbar . Some windows offer rows of one-click shortcut buttons as equivalents for the menu commands that Microsoft thinks you'll use frequently.

Scroll bar . A scroll bar appears on the right side or bottom of the window if the window isn't large enough to show all its contents (as described in the box on Section 3.1.1).

Address bar . This bar lets you type in a Web address or the address of a folder on your PC; when you press Enter or click Go, that Web page (or a list of the contents of that folder) appears.

Control icon . The icon next to the title is actually a menu that offers commands for sizing, moving, and closing the window. You can double-click it to close a window. Otherwise, it's not very useful, because its commands duplicate the other doodads described here.

Borders . You can change the size of a window by dragging these edges. Position your pointer over any border until the pointer turns into a double-headed arrow. Then drag inward or outward to reshape the window. (To resize a full-screen window, click the restore-down button first.)

Tip: You can resize a window in both dimensions at once just by dragging one of its corners. The diagonally striped ribs at the lower-right corner may suggest that it's the only corner you can drag, but it's not; all four corners work the same way.

3.1.1. The Task Pane

At the left side of every desktop window is a special, independent blue panel. For novices in particular, it's one of the most useful new features in Windows XP.

The programmers at Microsoft were clearly frustrated at having built so many interesting features into Windows that nobody knew existed. Most of these features appeared only when you right-clicked somethinga folder, file, or whatever. But by Microsoft's research, as many as 75 percent of Windows users never right-click anything . They've been missing out on all of these features.

The idea behind the task pane , therefore, is to unearth the list of features that once lurked (and still lurk) inside shortcut menus . The contents of this blue panel change depending on the kind of window you're viewing (Figure 3-2), but the idea is always the same: to wave a frantic little software flag in front of your eyes, so that you'll notice some of the possibilities that are only a click away.

UP TO SPEED

Scroll Bar Crash Course

Scroll bars are the strips that may appear at the right side or bottom of a window. The scroll bar signals you that the window isn't big enough to reveal all of its contents.

Click the arrows at each end of a scroll bar to move slowly through the window, or drag the square handle (the thumb) to move faster. (The position of the thumb relative to the entire scroll bar reflects your relative position in the entire window or document.) You can quickly move to a specific part of the window by holding the mouse button down at the location on the scroll bar where you want the thumb to be. The scroll bar rapidly scrolls to the desired location and then stops.

If your mouse has a little wheel on the top, you can scroll (in most programs) just by turning the wheel with your finger, even if your cursor is nowhere near the scroll bar. You can turbo-scroll by dragging the mouse upward or downward while keeping the wheel pressed down inside the window.

Finally, keyboard addicts should note that you can scroll without using the mouse at all. Press the Page Up or Page Down keys to scroll the window by one "windowful," or use the up and down arrow keys to scroll one line at a time.

In a standard desktop window, for example, the task pane lists frequently sought commands like "Make a new folder," "Publish this folder to the Web," and "Share this folder" (with other people on your office network). Below that list of File and Folder Tasks is a box (Other Places) that offers one-click links to frequently accessed locations on your PC: My Computer, My Network Places, and so on.

Figure 3-2. Left: The task pane is divided into blocks: tasks at top, places below that, file and folder info below that. If the pane becomes too long, you can collapse sections of the pane by clicking the round buttons.
Right: The tasks you see pertain to the folder you clickMy Pictures, in this case.

Finally, at the bottom of every desktop task pane is a Details area. If you click a file icon, this panel displays its size, name, type, modification date, and (if it's a picture) dimensions. If you click a disk icon, you're able to see how full it is and how much it holds. If you select several icons at once, this panel shows you the sum of their file sizesa great feature when you're burning a CD, for example, and don't want to exceed the 650 MB limit.

Depending on the template that's been applied to a folder, you may also see special multimedia task links: "View as a slideshow" and "Print this picture" for graphics files, "Play All" and "Shop for music online" for music folders, and so on.

3.1.2. Sizing, Moving, and Closing Windows

Any Windows window can cycle among three altered states. The buttons that resize windows are labeled back in Figure 3-1, and the full descriptions are right here:

Maximized means that the window fills the screen. Its edges are glued to the boundaries of your monitor, and you can't see anything behind it. It expands to this size when you click its maximize buttonan ideal arrangement when you're surfing the Web or working on a document for hours at a stretch, since the largest possible window means the least possible scrolling.

When a window is maximized , you can restore it (as described below) by pressing Alt+Space bar, then R.

When you click a window's minimize button, the window disappears but not completely. It's merely reincarnated as a button on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. You can bring the window back by clicking this taskbar button, which bears the window's name. Minimizing a window is a great tactic when you want to see what's in the window behind it.

A restored window is neither maximized nor minimized. It's a loose cannon, floating around on your screen as an independent rectangle. Because its edges aren't attached to the walls of your monitor, you can make it any size you like by dragging its borders.

Tip: Double-clicking the title bar alternates a window between its maximized (full-screen) and restored conditions.

3.1.2.1. Moving a window

Moving a window is easyjust drag the title bar. Usually, you move a window to get it out of the way when you're trying to see what's behind it. However, moving windows around is also handy if you're moving or copying data between programs, or moving or copying files between drives or folders, as shown in Figure 3-3.

Figure 3-3. Creating two restored (free-floating) windows is a convenient preparation for copying information between them. Make both windows small and put them side by side, scroll if necessary, and then drag some highlighted material from one into the other.

3.1.2.2. Closing a window

You can close a window in any of the following ways:

Click the close button (the X in the upper-right corner).

Press Alt+F4.

Double-click the Control icon in the upper-left corner.

Single-click the Control icon in the upper-left corner, and then choose Close from the menu.

Right-click the window's taskbar button, and then choose Close from the shortcut menu.

In desktop windows, choose File Close.

Quit the program you're using, log off, or shut down the PC.

Be careful: in many programs, including Internet Explorer, closing the window also quits the program entirely.

Tip: If you see two X buttons in the upper-right corner of your screen, then you're probably using what Microsoft calls an MDI, or multiple document interface program (see Section 5.3). The outer window represents the application itself; the inner one represents the particular document you're working on.

If you want to close one document before working on another, be careful to click the inner Close button. Clicking the outer one exits the application entirely. If you have multiple documents open within one application, you can close the active document by pressing Ctrl+F4. The program may ask if you want to save the document before closing it, but nothing is certain, so get in the habit of pressing Ctrl+S before you press Ctrl+F4.

3.1.3. Working with Multiple Windows

Many people routinely keep four or five programs open at once, like a calendar, word processor, Web browser, and email program. Others (computer-book authors, for example) regularly work in just one program, but have several document windows open at once, representing several chapters. Clearly, learning how to manage and navigate a flurry of overlapping windows is an essential Windows survival skill.

3.1.3.1. Active and inactive windows

When you have multiple windows open on your screen, only one window is active , which means the following:

It's in the foreground, in front of all other windows.

It's the window that "hears" your keystrokes and mouse clicks.

The title bar is vivid blue, and the background (inactive) window title bars are a lighter, more faded blue.

Of course, just because a window is in the background doesn't mean that it can't continue with whatever assignment you gave itprinting, downloading email, and so on. If a background program needs to pass a message to you (such as an error message), it automatically pops to the foreground, becoming the active program. When you respond to the message (usually by clicking OK), Windows XP sends the program back to the background.

To activate a background window, click anywhere on it. If other windows are covering up the background window, click its name on the taskbar (described on Section 3.4).

You can also rotate through all the open windows and programs by pressing Alt+Tab. A little panel appears in the center of your screen, filled with the icons of open folders and programs; each press of Alt+Tab highlights the next in sequence. (Alt+Shift+Tab moves you one backward through the sequence.) Upon releasing the keys, you jump to the highlighted window, as though it's a high-tech game of Duck Duck Goose.

Of course, you won't become a true Zen master of window juggling until you've explored the multiple-window command center itselfthe taskbar (see Section 3.4).