PCs All-in-One For Dummies®, 5th Edition

Chapter 2. The Many Windows of Windows

In This Chapter

• Managing windows

• Recognizing icons

• Selecting one icon (or many icons)

• Using toolbars in Windows 7

Doing things graphically is what Windows 7 is all about. The idea of visual control is at the heart of today's graphical user interfaces (GUIs), like Windows and Mac OS X (and Linux, when it's wearing the right makeup).

In this chapter, I introduce you to the graphical building blocks of Windows 7. Plus, I show you the "antique" keyboard combinations that are even faster than a speeding mouse. (Hey, any power user will tell you that pressing a sequence of two or three keys is often faster than clicking!)

Managing Windows Means Productivity

What's that on the horizon? Oh, boy — it looks like another of those weighty Mark's Maxims:

Note

Learn the Zen of the window and become a power user.™

In this section, you do just that — and your efficiency and speed in Windows 7 will amaze your friends and family. (And that's what it's all really about, right?)

Tip

Windows 7 has a helpful feature that displays a short pop-up description of the controls in a window. If this book isn't handy, you can find out the function of a button or widget by leaving your mouse pointer sitting motionless on top of the control in question. (Interesting trivia fact: This mouse action is hovering, and the descriptive text that appears is a tooltip.)

Opening and closing windows

You rarely need to manually open a new window in Windows 7, which is a trademark of good design from ...