Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition

The Very Basics

To use this book, and indeed to use a Macintosh computer, you need to know a few basics. This book assumes that you’re familiar with a few terms and concepts:

• Clicking. This book gives you three kinds of instructions that require you to use the mouse that’s attached to your Mac. To click means to point the arrow cursor at something on the screen and then—without moving the cursor at all—press and release the clicker button on the mouse (or your laptop trackpad). To doubleclick, of course, means to click twice in rapid succession, again without moving the cursor at all. And to drag means to move the cursor while holding down the button.

  When you’re told to -click something, you click while pressing the key (which is next to the Space bar). Such related procedures as Shift-clicking, Option-clicking, and Control-clicking work the same way—just click while pressing the corresponding key at the bottom of your keyboard.

• Menus. The menus are the words at the top of your screen: File, Edit, and so on. (The at the top left corner of your screen is a menu, too.) Click one to make a list of commands appear, as though they’re written on a window shade you’ve just pulled down.

  Some ...