Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Lion Edition

Opening Mac OS X Programs

You can launch (open) an application in any of several ways:

• Single-click an icon on the Launchpad, described on the following pages.

• Single-click a program’s icon on the Dock, the Sidebar, or the Finder toolbar.

• Use Spotlight. Hit -space bar, type the first letters of the program’s name, and then press Return.

• Double-click an app’s icon in the Finder.

• If you’ve added the Applications folder to your Dock, click the Dock icon to open the pop-up fan, grid, or list of icons. Then click the program you want (or even type the first few letters of its name and then press Return).

• Highlight an application icon and then press -O (short for File→Open) or -down arrow.

• Use the submenus of the menu’s Recent Items→Applications command.

• Open a document icon in any of these ways, or drag a document onto the icon of a program that can open it (whether in the Dock, the Finder toolbar, the Sidebar, or a folder window).

Frequently Asked Question: What’s with the Big “Duh”?

So I’ve just installed Lion, I’m all excited, and I double-click an Excel document. And now the Mac asks me: “You are opening Microsoft Excel for the first time. Do you want to continue?” Well, HELLO! I double-clicked the icon, didn’t I? Does Apple think I’m some kind of idiot?

It’s not you Apple is worried about. It’s the silent parade of evil hackers, lurking out there in Internet Land, waiting for the right moment to bring down the Mac.

See, spyware authors have to be sneaky about how they install their stuff on your computer. You wouldn’t be so stupid as to double-click an application called Spyware Installer™, of course. So the spyware tricks you into running its installer. In the Windows world, it commandeers a certain document type (like MP3 or JPEG), reassigning it to its installer. You innocently double-click some document, but an unanticipated program opens—and you’ve just opened Pandora’s box.

In Mac OS X, that can’t happen. When double-clicking some document opens a program for the first time, this dialog box appears, just to let you know what’s about to happen. If the program that’s about to open isn’t the one you were expecting, well, you’ve got a chance to back out of it.

And if it is the program you were expecting, click Continue. You won’t be asked again about this version of this particular program.

Tip

If you press Option as you open an application (or anything else) in the Finder, you automatically close the window that contains its icon. Later, when you return to the Finder, you find a neat, clean desktop—no loitering windows.