Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Opening and Saving Documents

Nearly all applications that let you create and edit documents, and that make use of Mac OS X’s Aqua interface, use the same dialogs for opening and editing files. They give you a variety of ways to navigate through the filesystem folder by folder until you find the place or object you’re seeking, or simply specify a known location in a single step.

This section will discuss the open and save dialogs, showing you how to navigate through the maze of disks, folders, and files on your Mac.

The Open Window

The centerpiece of every Open dialog window, as shown in Figure 1-31, is a columnar view of some place in your filesystem. In fact, it has the same function as the Finder’s Column View (see Section 2.2.3). Through it, you can select the file you’d like to open. Some applications might let you choose folders and disks to open as well.

Above that window floats a From pull-down menu. Its first (and default) option is always set to the right-most disk or folder selected in the window’s path of columns. Pulling down and selecting something else from the menu instantly zaps the columnar window to a folder elsewhere on your filesystem. Its selections are similar, but not identical, to those of the Finder’s Go menu:

Desktop (-D)

Switches the location to your Desktop folder.

Home (Shift- -H)

Switches the selected location to your Home directory.

iDisk

This submenu ...