List View
In windows that contain a lot of icons, list view is a powerful weapon in the battle against chaos. It shows you a tidy table of your files’ names, dates, sizes, and so on (Figure 1-17). Very faint alternating blue and white background stripes help you read across the columns.
Figure 1-17. You control the sorting order of a list view by clicking the
column headings (top). Click a second time to reverse the sorting
order (bottom). You’ll find the 
or 
triangles—indicating the identical
information—in email programs, iTunes, and anywhere else where
reversing the sorting order of a list can be useful.
You get to decide how wide your columns should be, which of them should appear, and in what order (except that Name is always the first column). Here’s how to master these columns.
Sorting the List
Most of the world’s list-view fans like their files listed alphabetically. It’s occasionally useful, however, to view the newest files first, largest ones first, or whatever.
When a desktop window displays its icons in list view, a convenient new strip of column headings appears. These headings aren’t just signposts; they’re buttons, too. Click Name for alphabetical order, Date Modified to view ...
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