Mac 101: Modify Your Windows

Change Window Element Colors and Functionality

You can choose one of the listed text highlight colors, or choose your own in Appearance Preferences.

1. From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences to open the window.
2. Click Appearance to display its preferences.
3. To change the colors of the window elements from the default Blue Appearance, choose Graphite from the Appearance pop-up menu to make all elements take on a cool, monochromatic graphite color.
4. To change the highlight color, choose any color from the Highlight Color pop-up menu. Or choose a custom color by choosing Other from the Highlight Color pop-up menu, then selecting a color in the resulting Colors window.
5. If you'd rather have the scroll arrows appear at opposite ends of the scroll bar instead of having them placed together, the default, select the "At top and bottom" radio button next to "Place scroll arrows."
6. You can also choose how many items you want to see displayed in your Recent Items menu, to view choose Recent Items) from the Apple menu, or how to handle font smoothing and window minimizing, and more, using the other window settings.

Modify the Sidebar

We prefer to see our Home folder at the top of our folder list in the sidebar, so we moved it.

1. To add a folder, file, or application to the Finder window's sidebar, drag the item to a desired place in the sidebar below the line that separates folders from volumes—a horizontal line displays to indicate the tentative position—and drop it.
2. To remove a folder, file, or application from the sidebar, simply select the item and drag it out of the sidebar—the item disappears in a poof of smoke. The original will remain intact on your Mac.
3. If you want to rearrange the order of sidebar items, just select an item and drag it to the desired position. Keep in mind that volumes must remain in the sidebar's upper portion, while everything else must be kept below that line.
4. Don't care for the sidebar? You can hide it by dragging the small dot on the center of the vertical bar, the one that separates the sidebar from the rest of the window, all the way to the left of the window. If you change your mind, just drag the same dot to the right to reveal the sidebar.

Customize the Toolbar

We added a few frequently-used commands to our toolbar
and had it display their text labels in case we forget what's what.

1. To change the contents in the Finder window toolbar, choose Customize Toolbar from the View menu.
2. In the dialog sheet that slides down from the window, drag whatever items you want to add onto the toolbar (such as Burn, Eject, Get Info, and more).
3. To remove a toolbar item, simply drag it off the toolbar.
4. To rearrange stuff in the toolbar, just drag an item to the desired location.
5. To group items so that they appear separated from others, drag a "Space" or "Flexible Space" item to the toolbar to create a separation.
6. You can have the toolbar display only icons, show icons and text, or display text only. From the Show pop-up menu at the bottom of the dialog, choose your preference.
7. When finished, click Done.
8. You can also add items to the toolbar by dragging an item in a Finder window to the toolbar.

Change the View and View Options

Depending on your window's view, you can modify how it displays its contents—
we made our list view icons bigger and selected what information to display in the columns.

1. To change a Finder window's view, click the appropriate button in the toolbar, or choose as Icons, as List, or as Columns from the View menu. (For more information on Finder window views, see the lesson on "The Finder.")
2. To customize the window further by view, choose Show View Options from the View menu.
3. If you chose List or Icons view, you can choose whether to apply your settings to only the current window or to all windows. Select the appropriate radio button at the top of the View options window.
4. In Columns view, you can modify the text size, and icon and preview column visibility. In List view, you can modify the icon and text size, select what file information to display in columns, and more. In Icons view, you can modify the icon and text size, the label name position, and more.

Tag Finder Items with Color

For visual organization, use color labels to separate one categorical group of folders and files from others.

1. You can make any application, file, or folder stand out from the rest by giving it a color label. To do this, select an item in the Finder.
2. From the File menu, choose a color under Color Label, or choose a color from the Finder window's Action menu.

Hang Pictures in Windows

Don't like white windows? You can hang a picture or paint them with color.

1. If you display a Finder window in Icons view, you can display a picture as the window backdrop or change its color. Select a folder whose contents you'd like to see all spruced up and double-click it to open it.
2. From the View menu, choose as Icons if the window isn't already in Icons view.
3. From the View menu, choose Show View Options.
4. In the window, select the "This window only" radio button if you don't want to have your picture decorate all your Finder windows.
5. To plaster a picture in the window, under the Background header, select the Picture radio button, then skip to step 7. To change the background color, select the Color radio button.
6. To select a color, click the color swatch that appears next to the Color radio button, and select a color in the resulting Colors window. Click OK to make your change—that's it!
7. To select a picture, click the Select button that appears, and then navigate to and select an image in the resulting window, it looks like a Finder window. Click Select to make your change.