This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Window buttons
In the upper-left corner of each window are three little buttons: red, yellow, and green. These are in color in the active window (the one in front) and gray in all other windows behind that one.
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Close a window (red button)
Use the red button, the Close button, to close a window.
- If you don't have a window open, single-click the Finder icon in the Dock to open one.
- To close the window, single-click the red button. This puts it away, back into the folder or disk it came from.
Zoom a window (green button)
Use the green button, called the Zoom button, to zoom a window larger or smaller. How large or small the window becomes depends on what is in the window and how large or small it was before you clicked the button.
- If you don't have a window open, single-click the Finder icon in the Dock to open one.
- Single-click the green button to zoom the window large enough to see everything, or to zoom it smaller.
Minimize a window (yellow button)
When you minimize a window, you send a tiny icon of that window down to the Dock, to the right side of the dividing line. Whenever you want to see that particular window again, you can open it straight from the Dock.
Exercise 1: Minimize the window and open it again.
- Single-click the yellow button to minimize the window, which sends the window down into the Dock, as shown below.
- To open a minimized window, single-click its icon in the Dock.
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Minimize windows into application icon
If you're feeling comfortable with minimizing windows, try this—make minimized windows hide behind the application icon in the Dock so they don't take up space. Just set this preference, below, and then watch the windows minimize behind their Dock icons.
Exercise 2: Minimize windows into application icons.
- From the Apple menu, choose "System Preferences...."
- Single-click the "Dock" icon.
- In the pane (shown to the right), check the box to "Minimize windows into application icon."
- Close the preferences (click the red button, upper left).
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