Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

The Finder Toolbar

At the top of every Finder window is a row of navigation and function icons. One click on any of these icons takes you directly to the corresponding disk or folder, or triggers the corresponding command.

The first time you run Mac OS X, for example, you’ll find these icons on the toolbar:

• Back, Forward. As you’ve probably noticed, the Mac OS X Finder works something like a Web browser. Only a single window remains open as you navigate the various folders on your hard drive.

  The Back button returns you to whichever folder you were just looking at. (Instead of clicking Back, you can also press

  

  -[, or choose Go→Back—particularly handy if the toolbar is hidden, as described on the next page.)

  The Forward button, new to 10.2, springs to life only after you’ve used the Back button. Clicking it (or pressing

  

  -]) returns you to the window you just backed out of.

• View controls. The three tiny buttons next to the Forward button switch the current window into icon, list, or column view, respectively (Section 1.3). And remember, if the toolbar is hidden, you can get by with the equivalent commands in the View menu at the top of the screen—or by pressing

  

  -1,

  -2, or

  -3 (for Icon, List, ...