Thanks for taking the time helping us newbies.

I’m only on a 13″ MacBook, so I hid the dock and exclusively use spotlight to launch apps. However, typing “Finder” in Spotlight does not find the Finder. How do I quickly go to Finder without using the mouse? Thanks!

To the first commenter, you can press the
“command” button and at the same time hit the “tab” button to cycle you to the Finder.

@salamander
Just a small note, in general, replies can be addressed to the first user with using the @username format. We would like to get all our commenters to adhere to this generally accepted format.

Thanks also for supplying the answer to @switcher as well, we appreciate you taking the time to do this.

@switcher
To quickly get to the Finder, Command and Tab will take you there. You will see the smily finder icon. Press the tab key while still holding down the command key, and you will switch to that “application”.

I have some other ideas about how you can get to the Finder very fast as well, I have added a note to our future posts file, and we will see about covering it later on.

Re: Zoom:
Click it once to resize the window to the smallest size that can contain the window’s current configuration of icons; click it again to go back to the previous dimensions.

The only problem is that it’s sometimes not obvious that that’s what it’s done if you’ve scrolled down before clicking it.

Maybe it is too soon to bring this up, but I always try to teach my students to look at the equivalent keyboard command that is posted to the right of most menu items… and try to use it instead of always mousing up to the menu to choose an item.
I may have missed it, but I don’t think you have addressed this rather basic, but important item. (From my experience, you’ll have to also clearly explain which key corresponds to which symbol.
Good tutorial; keep going!

@Bob
Yep, keyboard commands and such will be mentioned in a full posts soon. I want to cover why you would use them, when they are a good idea, and how to prevent getting overwhelmed by just how many ways there are to do the same thing.

Thanks for taking the time to post a comment.

Thanks for the zoom tip. When reading your tutorials I “squeeze” the window of your text to the right, cutting off the ads so I can slide the active window to the far right of the desk top, so when I try out the pointers you are discussing (ie the pop down windows from the tool bar) they won’t cover the text of your article i am trying to follow.
I tried the “zoom” tip and my “squeezed” window expanded to full width and then shrank back to my prior selected size when I selected the “zoom” button again.
these bits size tips are fun. Thank you all! Bill

I hold the Command key down and tap the Tab key to cycle through open apps, but if I put the focus on, say, Finder, it doesn’t bring it to the forefront. What am I missing? Thanks…Jim

@Jim Does this happen to all apps, or just Finder? Finder is a little strange, in that while it is technically an application, it is also technically not an application. It is faceless, there is not much to see about it, it is just a menu bar and your files.

So, when you select the Finder, you should see your other frontmost app get a little less prominent, but it will not be hidden. If you look in the menu bar to the upper left, you should see “finder” is now the used application.

In all honesty, using the application switcher to move to the Finder is perhaps the least useful aspect of the application switcher. Toggling back and forth between two apps is where it really comes in handy.

Take a look at “Overview of the Application Switcher” for a more in-depth look.