0 User Interface (Desktop)

Mac Lessons - > Introductions -> User Interface (Desktop)

This lesson is for those who new to Mac OS. 

After boot up your Mac Machines, and login with your ID and password, you will come to your desktop screen as shown as below: 

Fig 1.1

Note: The Platform or OS that you see on the fig: 1.1 is using Mac OS X (Mountain Lion)

Basically it divides by 3 sections:

1) Desktop

2) Menu Bar

3) Dock

Let’s get more details for each section: 

1) Desktop: 

• You can create folder and save your documents
• Place your “shortcuts” for your applications
• It will automatically display out the removable drive when you have connected your external hard disk or USB thumb drive. 
• You can change wallpaper (the background image) to whatever image you like

2) Menu Bar: 

• This area is for you to configure your application settings or preferences.
  Note: Whenever you open your application, you will found that application name will be appear here, and you can click on the name to configure the settings.
• There are some applications shortcuts can be saved here. (it’s depend on the application whether it has this functions or not); and some applications it can use this bar to show some stats like weathers, the percentages of CPU usage, or memory usages

3) Dock: 

• This area will shows all the applications that you opens,  and also it  allow you to “dock” (save/create) your shortcut here.
  Note: The shortcut mentioned here is different with the shortcuts you placed in your desktop earlier. This Dock Bar will always show on every window that you open; so you will no need back to desktop screen to launch your applications.
• If you are “Windows OS” user before, this Dock is similar with Navigation Task bar that you seen on your windows desktop screen.