Easy Mac OS X Lion - Kate Binder [9]
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Setting Up VoiceOver
With VoiceOver, you can use the keyboard and Mac speech features to control your computer. Standard keyboard commands are augmented by special commands to enable you to start up, switch, and control programs, and to move around your hard drive.
Choose Apple menu, System Preferences.
Click Universal Access.
Click On to enable VoiceOver, and then click Open VoiceOver Utility to configure VoiceOver settings.
In VoiceOver Utility, click Visuals to control when and how the VoiceOver feature is invoked.
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Note: More or Less
The Display settings determine how evident VoiceOver is as you use your Mac. For example, you can turn on the VoiceOver cursor to hear spoken descriptions of the objects and dialog boxes under your cursor, or you can turn off the cursor to hide this feature.
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Click Verbosity to control how much VoiceOver talks.
Click Speech to change the voice VoiceOver uses.
Click Navigation to control how VoiceOver moves around your screen.
Click Web to set how VoiceOver interprets web pages for you.
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Tip: PatienceOver
The level of your Verbosity settings should be proportional to your patience. If you want to get moving without listening for very long, lower the Item Description and Punctuation settings.
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Chapter 2: Working with Disks, Folders, and Files
The tasks in this chapter might not be glamorous or exciting, but they’re the foundation of everything you do on your Mac. It’s all about files, folders, and the disks that hold them. Every time you create a new document or receive an email attachment, that information is stored in a file on your hard drive, and the file is in turn stored within a folder. Mac OS X provides many ways for you to view and modify folder contents and file attributes, so you’re in complete control of your Mac.
The tasks in this part teach you how to create new folders and view their contents in different ways, how to move and copy files, how to organize your hard drive and keep it uncluttered, and how to back up your hard drive with Time Machine.
You might notice that windows on your Mac OS X desktop have two distinct guises—a “plain” dress that looks like any document window and a “fancy” version that includes racks of buttons down the side and across the top. These are, respectively, multi-window mode and single-window mode. Don’t be deceived, though—you can have windows of both types open at the same time. This important aspect of Mac OS X is covered in the first task in this part.
Using Single-Window Mode
Traditionally, the Mac spawned a new window for each folder or disk you opened. Mac OS X introduced single-window mode, in which the contents of each folder or disk appear in the same window, like each successive page in a web browser displays in the same window. It took a little getting used to, but it’s a better way of working.
If you’re using multi-window mode, choose View, Show Toolbar to switch to single-window mode and display the toolbar and sidebar.
Double-click folders in the main window to see their contents.
Click a folder or disk in the sidebar to see its contents.
Click the left and right arrows to go back and forward in the series of windows you’ve viewed (similar to the Back and Forward buttons in a web browser window).
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Tip: Single Versus Multi
Single-window mode is at its most useful when you need to see the contents of only one window. If you’re copying or moving files from one folder to another, you’ll probably find multi-window mode a better bet. Don’t forget that you can switch window views in single-window mode by clicking the Icon, List, Column, and Cover Flow view buttons at the top of the window. A button with a picture of a gear next to these four summons up a contextual menu called the Action menu.
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Using Multi-Window Mode
Sometimes you need to see the contents of two windows at once, and it’s easier to focus on what you need to look at without the sidebar and toolbar in single-window mode.