Group Selection

The purpose for group selection is efficiency. In many cases, the action you can perform on one object can be done on any number of similar objects. To apply this concept at a simple level let's take deletion as our first example.

With group selection I can select 73 objects, say documents, in a list from top to bottom, and unselect documents #17, #22, & #70 from this group. And then easily press my delete key, and in one maneuver delete only the unwanted documents -very efficient! To start out and remain relatively safe we will practice group selection techniques on the icons on the desktop, but be aware that the following skills will work in the same manner in many different locations on your computer.

Always pay attention when selecting objects! If you are not careful you can loose icons behind other objects or off your desktop altogether as discussed in lesson 1 of this tutorial.

If, as in lesson 1, you turned your Auto Arrange feature off then you are ready to begin this exercise. Otherwise, please follow the link above to lesson 1 to learn how to turn this feature of Windows off. When you are done return here by pressing your browsers BACK button.

Selecting Icons - There are three methods of group selection. No one way will work under all situations, and most of the time you'll find that you will use a combination of two methods to achieve your desired results.

The first method is to select contiguous objects -objects that are lined up. (1) Determine what objects you want. (2) click the first object of your list to select it. (3) Move to the last object of your list, now press & hold the Shift key and click once on the last object of your list, watch what happens! This has the effect of selecting your first and last choice and everything in between. By the way, this works just as well from top to bottom of a list or bottom to top =^)

Now, read the warning over to the right in the tip box - I'll wait.

Okay your ready to go on . . . Go to your Desktop and select, using the method above, 3 - 5 icons in a list (or column). I am not telling you which ones to selected because the first skill of this exercise is for you to choose, or define your list!

Once you have the little guys selected -carefully- click and drag on anyone of the highlighted icons and move the group over to the opposite side of your desktop -WATCH THEIR OUTLINES- this tells you where they are while your moving them. If an outline of an icon goes off your Desktop and you release your mouse, that icon will be placed (you guessed it) OFF your desktop! Luckily all the icons will still be selected -highlighted, so you can click and drag them back to a safe location on your Desktop, just watch what you are doing. Should you click any place other than on one of the selected icons your group will be unselected and any icons off the Desktop are staying there. Okay -enough warnings, on to method two.

The second method is to select (and unselect) noncontiguous objects. (1) Determine what objects you want. (2) Hold down the Ctrl key while you click to select or unselect each icon. This works just like a light switch, if the light is on and we flip the switch it goes off, and if it was off and we flip the switch it goes on. In this case if your icon is selected -holding the Ctrl key while clicking it will unselect it. And like wise, if the icon is not selected - holding the Ctrl key and clicking it will select it. The action you receive depends on the state the icon is in when before you click it holding the Ctrl key.

Group selecting using the Ctrl key by its self is not efficient, so this method is often used along with method #1 and #3. As in the example I describe in the first paragraph. We will see how this works in more detail later on.

Now, you try it - Go back to your Desktop and select 5 icons using method #1 & with method #2 unselect every other one starting with the second in your list. You should have three icons left selected, now move them by clicking dragging on any highlighted icon across your Desktop -watch their outlines! Excellent.

Third selection method is lassoing - Yippee Caw Ye! This method is the funniest, but only works well if the objects are already grouped in a neat bundle.

First, I want you to 'see' something, in a free unoccupied area click and drag in a circle (if you can find one after the mess you've made on your Desktop). Watch the red dashed line as you move your mouse. See how this method uses a rectangle and it always draws from the corner where you clicked.

Okay let's try it. (1) Pick a group of icons on your Desktop, and in your head draw a rectangle around 'em. (2) Starting at one of the corners of your rectangle, click and drag diagonally - down or up depending on which corner you started in. Watch the red dashed line encompass your objects, as it does they become selected - woe get-a-long little doggy your lassoing!

Well, we are all done playing for now. Practice your group selection skills until the outcome you receive is exactly what you expected and desired (this is how you know you've got it. When done, simply right mouse click on your Desktop and select Arrange Icons | by Name (or any of the others -it doesn't matter much). And Windows will clean up your mess for you.

Windows Explorer

In Windows Explorer, you can see both the hierarchy of Drives and folders on your computer and all the files and folders inside each. This is especially useful for copying and moving files. There are many ways to launch MS Explorer, but the fastest is to hold the Windows key (if you have one on your keyboard) and press E! For the rest of us without Windows keys, right mouse click your Start button and select Explorer from the pop-up menu. You can run Explorer from right mouse clicking another object but it will open you to that location within Explorer. More on this later . . . .

Long filenames - You can now give any name to a file; you are not limited to eight characters with a three-character extension like in DOS or Win 3.1. You can even use spaces! I am assuming that you wont be sharing any of your files or folder with users of older operating systems. In that case use short file names or they will be automatically shortened when opened by an older operating system, and you may have a file name conflict.

Folders - Your documents and programs are stored in folders. In previous versions of Windows, folders were called directories. The whole system is like a file cabinet, the file cabinet represents your computer system, and each drawer represents a drive like A:\ (floppy) or C:\ (hard drive) or D:\ (CD Rom). And in each drive(or drawer) -let's say C:\ for this example, are folders (also known as directories), and of course in each folder there can be files or even other folders dividing things down even further.

The Explorer window -is broken up into two panes, a left-hand pane and a right-hand pane. It is important to note that on the left pane you will only find Drives and Directories (or folders), never any files. And on the right pane side you will only find Directories (folders) and files, never any Drives! Its easiest to think of the left side as where and the right side as what. The left pane is called the Directory Tree, and the right pane The Content.

The Directory Tree side - The tree is displayed in outline format with drives and folders that have subfolders. A Drive or folder with a + to the left of it indicates that there are sub-folders, and one with a - to the left means there are no sub-folders. These symbols have nothing to do with files, remember on the Directory side files are not dealt with.

The actual process of opening and closing folders and Drives works the same in Win 95 & NT, and in 98, but the process of moving and reveling the Contents varies a little. To open or close a Drive or folder on the Directory side simply click on its + or - symbol. Notice that clicking the + or - does not affect the Content side of Explorer.

EXERCISE - The Directory Tree
The hardest part of using Explorer is to master moving around so let's get a good foundation right at the start.

1. First, just click on a + in front of a drive or folder and watch what happens. Then click on the resulting - box of the same object and again, watch what happens. Play with this opening deeper and deeper folders until there are no more. Be careful not to click and drag or click on the titles of drives or folders. You will never 'see' files on this TREE side.
2. Now, something a bit different, right mouse click on a Drive like your C:\ (check out your options) select Properties, and read the first Tab, and then click on and read the second just behind it. There is a lot of power and usefulness to the right mouse and Explorer Window, for instance:
   • To format a floppy disk quick you can right mouse click the A:\ Drive and select Format from the pop-up menu (assuming there is a disk in the drive). NEVER SELECT "FORMAT" FOR ANY OTHER DRIVE! To Format a Drive is to erase it.
   • To Empty the Recycle Bin, right mouse click it (hint: its at the bottom of Explorer on the tree side).
   • To run Scan Disk or Disk defragmenter, right mouse click the Drive you want and select properties, then the Tools Tab and select Scan disk or Disk defragmenter . . .

The Content side - Revealing contents of Drives or folders is where the versions of Windows vary a bit, you will want to try the following on your Windows version to get a feel for how it works. I will not waist time explaining every example here. So try it now, click once on a folder (which is closed, + symbol is showing) and watch what happens on your Content side. Now, try double clicking on a closed folder. And then try both, single & double clicking, on folders that are already open (- symbol is showing) reveling their sub-folders.

Explorer can be daunting at first, when you are unfamiliar with how to move around in it. The best way I know to get your sea legs is to practice the directions above until you can control the outcome.

Explorer Operations - The most common operations you'll do in Explorer are the basic file management operations Deleting, Copying, Moving, and Renaming.

Explorer supports an interesting use of the clipboard for file copying and moving. On the Edit menu in Explorer you'll see items Cut, Copy and Paste. The usual hotkeys work for them (See Tip), and the toolbar has the standard buttons for the operations.

New folder - To create a new folder first make sure you are looking, on the Content side, at where you want to new folder to be located. Now, you create a new folder by selecting File | New | Folder, or by right clicking on a free area of the Contents pane and selecting New | Folder.

Renaming - Best way is to rename a file or folder is to select the name by clicking it once count to three and then click it again (not to fast or the computer will interpret a double click). This will highlight the old name and give you a blinking I beam. Just type in the new name and it will replace the old, or to edit the old name, after you are in edit mode, click inside the title box where you want to make your changes, use the arrow keys to move. Use Edit/Undo to undo changes!

Using Find

Find allows you to search your disks for files based on different criteria such as a partial name, a file type, or a creation date. Find can be used to make a list of files with similar properties, or to find a file that you know something about but you do not know its exact location on the disk. Find can also be use to easily create shortcuts to documents or programs.

Two ways Find lets you locate files and folders -Find allows you to locate files and folders by name with the aid of wildcards (*) and by file type. Find also allows advanced searches where you to locate files by a specific date or range of dates; by a size or range of sizes; and by text contained in the file.

Wildcards - There are two wildcard is a symbols, * & ?. The * wildcard represents any number of characters so that s*.txt represents any text file with a name of any length that starts with s. The ? wildcard can also stand for any character but it represents only one character such that s?.txt represents all text files with a two character file name that begins with s. Wildcards are most useful in locating files by name when you either want to locate a file that you do not know the full name of, or when you want to locate several files with related file names.

EXERCISE: Using Find to Find a file or folder
Let's use the Find File features of Windows.

1. Click the Start button, and select Find | Files or Folders.
2. In the Named box, type the file name, 'Windows'.
3. You will want to specify where to begin the search, so click the down arrow in Look in and select the C:\ for your search. Click Find Now . . . Pay close attention to what 'Find' gets for you. You may want to open the Find window up to see what it brings back better.
4. Now search again using 'Window' this time. Pay close attention to what it finds for you.
5. Now search for 'Win'. And again take note of what the computer brings back for you. You see how you widen your search and there by increase your returns by being less specific. So always shoot for as much of the title as you know, and if you 'don't find' what you are looking for you can take off characters from the right side one at a time, widening your search (and increasing your work) until you find it. You can also use a wild card character, to help find things. Let's try it
6. Type in *Window or *Win and see what Find brings back for you.
7. Now type in *.doc Find will now bring back every MS Word doc(cument) on the C drive. You can use this type of search to find special files like executables .exe or picture files .bmp or .jpg's.

Okay, on to Lesson 4