Some very basic questions...

[jedirunner]

Ok, as a fairly new mac user (got my MBP in August -- loving it!) I have some nagging questions I've never asked...

How do I get a folder's icons to stay auto-arranged as I drag new contents into them, resize the window, etc.? Am I really expected to manuall arrange icons after every change in the window? Seems like I must be overlooking something here.

How do you go about emailing a document you create to someone? I understand that a document (depending on the app) is actually a special folder? Is zipping a single "file" a standard practice among mac users? How does a new user know that in order to properly mail a file to someone it has to be zipped first?

Thanks very much!

Kevin

 

[jedirunner]

Followup

I can see that others referred to using "Alt" while opening the "View" menu in Finder to get access to functionality to keep items arranged. Is there a way to make this a system-wide preference? Or do I have to do it on all folders?

As to the other question about emailing documents, what are you guys doing when you mail a document? Zipping them before hand? Or is there some way to get files in a "mailable" state?

Thanks,

Kevin

 

[mkrishnan]

How do you go about emailing a document you create to someone? I understand that a document (depending on the app) is actually a special folder? Is zipping a single "file" a standard practice among mac users? How does a new user know that in order to properly mail a file to someone it has to be zipped first?

What kind of document? Most of the standard document formats that people exchange (i.e. word processing files, spreadsheets, presentations, music files, movie files, PDFs, etc) are single files, and you can just attach them to the e-mail by dragging them in. You can zip them if you want, although some receiving servers will reject zip files automatically because of virus concerns.

The files that are actually directories are more like "working" documents -- for instance, if you use iMovie, then the iMovie project is a directory, I think. But usually you would not send someone an iMovie project -- you'd export it as a standard movie file (such as a H.264 Quicktime file), which would again be a single file. iWeb is another example that creates a folder (with the website in it). But yes, if you wanted to send those, you would probably zip them, although they're generally all too big to be sent as attachments in e-mails.

As for the arranging issue, I can help, but I'm at work now and have no Mac handy. So I have to defer to someone else or else help you in the evening when I can look at it and remember how to do what you want. But just to clarify, are you talking about Tiger or Leopard for this question?

 

[roland.g]

Are you using Mail or something else. Really just attach it. Or drag and drop the file. You can even check, send windows friendly attachments, which I thing really just makes sure the extension, .doc, .xls, .pdf, .jpg is on the end.

As far as arrangement, I never use icon view always list or column, but there are view options and preferences in the finder menus that allow you to set globally and for individual windows. i.e. you can set specific picture folders to always go to icon view and even increase the preview size with the pixel slider. Likewise you can set it to keep items arranged by name, size, date, etc. in the menu items. sorry at work so I don't have a mac in front of me to give you exact guidelines, but it should be easy to find. The arrange is a menu drop down. Also in the finder preferences there is the option to snap to grid which keeps the icons laid out in a grid rather than floating and overlapping. To access this you must have a finder window open when setting the preference and choose global for all windows. If you don't have a window open, then it gives you preferences for the desktop which are different. If you want to set preferences for a particular folder, open it in the finder set it the way you want it and then go to preferences and select this window only.

 

[cuanurse]

How do I get a folder's icons to stay auto-arranged as I drag new contents into them, resize the window, etc.? Am I really expected to manuall arrange icons after every change in the window? Seems like I must be overlooking something here.
Kevin

While in that window, under View.. select Clean Up.
Hope this helps.