Macintosh OS X Leopard for Beginners

1. Where’s the Right Click?

Many a Windows user has had a minor panic attack when first using a Mac, because Macs don’t come standard with a two-button mouse. However, the “right click” function still exists. The default is to hold Control while clicking, but you can set up another method for the “right click” by clicking on System Preferences (the grey gears icon you see at the bottom of the screen), then the Keyboard & Mouse icon. If you have a Mighty Mouse, you can actually set up a right click, or if you have a Trackpad (on a laptop) you can set it to right click by tapping with both fingers at once.

2. Dock

The Dock is the grey platform at the bottom of your screen with a row of icons resting on it. This is the equivalent to the Start menu in Windows, but it only shows a limited number of programs. Don’t panic! You can see everything on your computer by clicking Finder, the first icon on the Dock (it looks like a square blue smiling face). Put the programs you use most often in the Dock. You can add a program by opening it from Finder or Spotlight (see below), then Ctrl + clicking the program’s icon in the Dock and selecting “Keep in Dock.” You can remove an icon by selecting “Remove from Dock.”

3. Hot Corners

One of the best things about a Mac is its knack for organization. Cluttered desktops are a thing of the past with Hot Corners, a feature that allows users to move windows out of the way, see multiple windows at once, or access Dashboard simply by dragging the mouse to a corner of the screen.

To set up Hot Corners, click on System Preferences, then the Exposé & Spaces icon. In the Exposé tab, you’ll see a menu bar for each of the four corners of your screen. Play around with it, but make sure one of your corners is set to “All Windows” – this shows all your open windows at once, so you’ll never have to use “minimize” again!

Note that you can also set up keyboard and mouse shortcuts here to perform the same functions, or other common tasks.

4. Spaces

Spaces is new to the Leopard operating system, and makes desktop organization even easier. Use the steps described above to get to the Exposé & Spaces icon, but this time click the Spaces tab.

Spaces are multiple desktops – you can have work on one desktop, fun on another, and “passive” programs like iTunes on third, for example. Click the + and – buttons next to “Rows” and “Columns” to choose how many Spaces you need, then decide where you want to put your applications. Select a Space for each open application from the menu, and click the + button below the menu to assign more applications. You can also select a keyboard shortcut to quickly switch between Spaces. To quickly move an application to a different Space, just use the Spaces icon (a four panel blue window in the Dock) and drag an application to the preferred space.

5. Spotlight

See that little magnifying glass in the upper right-hand corner? That’s Spotlight. Click on it and type in a phrase to search your entire computer. You’ll quickly see how this comes in handy. Also new with Leopard, all the Help menus have a Spotlight search bar that brings up Help for any application on your computer.

Now that you have the tools, have fun exploring your Mac!

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