The Dock is known as an Application Switcher and Launcher. The default location for the Dock is along the lower part of your screen, although you can have it on the right or the left of the screen by selecting the appropriate setting from the Dock item in the Apple menu bar. On the desktop you will also see the Dock. Two other folders are also automatically created, Public and Sites. These are Desktop, Documents, Library, Movies, Music and Pictures.
When a new account is created a default set of folders are allocated to you which are private to your account. Your own home folder has an icon showing a small house " Home", to distinguish it from other users folders. In addition you can see where the Users folder is located.
Shown here are the System files are as well as the Applications folders, and other important folders such as Library, which is a storage location for system wide application preferences, and software libraries that allow applications to launch. The ToolBar itself is customisable, and has buttons which you can click to let you customise the way the items in the Finder window are displayed - icon, list or column view.Īlso illustrated in the image below is the folder hierarchy of the Macintosh. At the top of the Finder window is the ToolBar. NT servers, unix servers such as .uk or Apple file servers. Also shown is the Network drive icon, which shows any remote servers that you might be connected to e.g. In the screen shot shown below you can see the hard drive icons - this drive has been partitioned into three volumes. If you double click on the hard drive icon a new Finder window opens displaying the file system of the Mac.
On standalone Macs (your own Mac or those not on a network) your files are saved to your local home folder on the hard drive. This is because your unix home directory is your home file system. If you are using one of the IT Services iMacs, when you save a file it is saved to your unix home directory (keeler) on the network. The hard drive is where the Mac System files and Applications are stored. On the desktop you will see an icon for your hard drive. When an application has been launched and is active then instead of seeing Finder as the item on the left you will see the name of the active applications e.g. If you click anywhere on the desktop the menu bar will change to the default Finder menu bar as shown in the image below, which shows Finder - File - Edit - View - Go etc. This means that the menu bar items will change depending on which application is currently in the foreground and active. It consists of the menu bar, icons, windows, and the Dock.Īt the top of the desktop is the menu bar, which is context dependent. Once you have successfully logged in you will see the Macintosh "Desktop".įollowing your successful login the Mac desktop is displayed.The desktop is where you work.
If your password fails to let you in then please contact the IT Services Enquiries Desk. If you have the caps lock key down it will prompt you in case it is accidental. If you type an incorrect password the login box will "shiver" and ask you to type in your password again. If you are using the IT Services public iMacs you need to enter your University username and password. The public iMac cluster users are all assigned NORMAL user privileges.Īfter you have switched the Mac on, you should see the Login box. Admin users have access to settings and preferences that are locked to normal users. Both users can use all the Applications that are installed but a Normal user cannot make changes to the Applications that are installed, or delete them. There are two types of user accounts - an ADMIN user who has special rights and privileges, or a NORMAL user, who has more restricted access to certain areas of the Mac. When using the public iMac cluster in Engineering 1 you log in with your normal University username and password. This means that your own files are kept private to you so other users of the Mac cannot see them.
Mac OS X: Logging in, the Desktop, the Dock and Logging outĪs OS X is a 'multi-user' operating system it can support several individual private accounts, each one unique and password protected.