Mac OS X Pocket Reference

Introduction

This Pocket Reference is intended to be a quick reference guide to Mac OS X. If you’re an experienced user, this book may be the only one you’ll need. For Mac users who are coming to Mac OS X from earlier versions of the Mac OS, some of the material in this book can serve as a refresher, reminding you how to do certain things that you’ve always been able to do on the Mac. In addition, you’ll also learn more about the Unix side of Mac OS X. For Unix, Linux, or FreeBSD users coming to the Mac for the first time, you’ll get a quick summary of how to use Mac OS X’s interface and how to use its Terminal application for issuing Unix commands. For Windows expatriates, the Terminal and Unix commands will be all new, but not all too far off from the DOS prompt you’ve used in the past.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Italic

Used to indicate new terms, URLs, filenames, file extensions, directories, commands and options, program names, and to highlight comments in examples. For example, a path in the filesystem will appear as /Applications/Utilities.

Constant Width

Used to show the contents of files or the output from commands.

Constant Width Bold

Used in examples and tables to show commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user.

Constant Width Italic

Used in examples and tables to show text that should be replaced with user-supplied values.

Variable Lists

The variable lists throughout this book present tasks as the answer to a “How do I . . . " question (e.g., “How do I change the color depth of my display?”).

Menus/Navigation

Menus and their options are referred to in the text as File → Open, Edit → Copy, etc. Arrows will also be used to signify a navigation path when using window options; for example, System Preferences → Login → Login Items means that you would launch System Preferences, click the icon for the Login control panel, and select the Login Items pane within that panel.

Pathnames

Pathnames are used to show the location of a file or application in the filesystem. Directories (or folders for Mac and Windows users) are separated by a forward slash. For example, if you see something like, " . . . launch the Terminal application (/Applications/Utilities)” in the text, that means the Terminal application can be found in the Utilities subfolder of the Applications folder.

%, #

The percent sign (%) is used in some examples to show the user prompt for the tcsh shell; the hash mark (#) is the prompt for the root user.

Note

Indicates a tip, suggestion, or general note.

Warning

Indicates a warning or caution.

Menu Symbols

When looking at the menus for any application, you will see some symbols associated with keyboard shortcuts for a particular command. For example, to open a document in Microsoft Word, you could go to the File menu and select Open (File → Open), or you could issue the keyboard shortcut,

-O.

Figure P-1 shows the symbols used in the various menus to denote a keyboard shortcut.

Figure 1. Keyboard accelerators for issuing commands

Rarely will you see the Control symbol used as a menu command option; it’s more often used in association with mouse clicks or for working with the tcsh shell.