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.To organize all the icons on the desktop, right-click an empty part of the desktop and chooseArrange Icons By on the shortcut menu that appears.Then click whichever option you prefer(Name, Type, and so forth).Choosing Name will arrange the icons into (roughly) alphabeticorder (although some icons, such as My Documents, My Computer, and Recycle Bin, tend tostay near the upper-left corner of the screen).To have Windows XP automatically arrange icons for you, right-click an empty part of thedesktop or the window and choose Arrange Icons By from the menu, and then choose AutoArrange from the submenu that appears.After you have done this, however, you cannot moveicons, because they will immediately jump back into their original place.To turn off theautomatic arrangement, repeat this step.When Auto Arrange has a check mark next to it, thatfeature is currently turned on.If you prefer to put icons into your own order, and want them neatly arranged, choose ArrangeIcons By ’! Align to Grid.After you do so, the icons will align on an invisible grid, creating aneater appearance.As mentioned, when you open an icon, a window appears.Learning how to work those windows is animportant part of using your PC.As you learn in the next section, you have quite a bit of control over thesize and shape of every window that appears on your screen.Managing Open WindowsIn the olden days of computers, when you ran a program, that program took over the entire screen.Touse a different program, you had to exit the one you were in and then start the other program.Thatprogram, in turn, hogged the entire screen.With WindowsXP, you can pretty much run as manyprograms as you want.Instead of hogging the entire screen, each program occupies only a window onthe screen.That s where the name Windows comes from in Microsoft Windows.In Figure 2-2, forexample, I currently have two open windows on the screen: one titled My Computer, the other titledWindows Media Player.You can see the title (name) of each window in its upper-left corner.Figure 2-2: Two open windows on the desktop: My Computer and Windows Media Playerpage 24 Windows XP BibleWhat s with the ’! ?Throughout this book, I use the symbol ’! to separate options you choose in a series.For example, Click the Start button and choose All Programs ’! Accessories ’! Notepad is a shortcut way of saying Click the Start button, choose the All Programs option, choose the Accessories option, and then clickthe Notepad option. Window dressingEvery window that you open on your desktop will have certain elements in common.What s inside thewindow will vary a lot, because all programs display within windows.If you look closely, however, youmay notice the frames surrounding those windows are similar.The reason for this similarity is simple: Allthe tools you use to manage the window are in this frame.Because of this arrangement, you need tolearn only one set of skills to manage windows.Those skills then apply to any and all open windows.Figure 2-3 points out the tools that are common to most windows.Figure 2-3: Features available on most windows that open on your desktopMost windows have all the tools shown in Figure 2-3.The following sections describe how you work witheach tool.(If you want to open the WordPad window on your own screen, click the Start button andchoose All Programs ’! Accessories ’! WordPad.)Title barThe title bar shows the System Menu icon, the title of the window or name of the program being run inthe window, and the buttons for resizing and closing the window.The title bar alone offers some handyfeatures:To expand a window to full-screen size or to shrink it back to its original size, double-clickits title bar.To move a window to some new location on the screen, drag the window by its title bar.Tip Remember, to drag something means to put the mouse pointer on it and then tohold down the mouse button while moving the mouse.You can move a windowonly if it s smaller than the entire screen.Minimize buttonWhen you click the Minimize button, the window disappears and shrinks to a button in the taskbar.Doing so gets the window out of the way for the moment so that you can see the desktop behind thatwindow.To reopen a minimized window, click its button in the taskbar.Every open window has a button in the taskbar associated with it.As an alternative to using theMinimize button to hide/show a window, you can just click that button in the taskbar.page 25 Windows XP BibleTo instantly minimize all open windows on your screen, thereby showing the desktop, click the ShowDesktop button in the Quick Launch toolbar.Doing so instantly clears all the clutter from your desktop,but only by hiding not closing all the open windows.To redisplay all open windows, click thatbutton a second time.Tip As an alternative to using the Show Desktop button, you can right-click someneutral area of the taskbar, perhaps just to the left of the Notifications area.Thenchoose Show the Desktop from the menu that appears.To restore the windows totheir previous size, right-click the same area again and choose Show OpenWindows
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