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Saving Files |
When you save a file, you must pay close attention to several things at once. You must first notice which disk drive you are saving to. Secondly, you must be concerned with which folder you are saving to within that drive. Finally, you must give the file a meaningful filename and let the application handle the extension for you.
When you first save a file, you are presented with a "Save As" dialog box. This box gives you all the controls you need to specify exactly where and under what name your file is saved. Windows itself provides a generic Save As dialog that can be used by applications, such as that from Notepad as shown below. You may notice that this default dialog has changed somewhat with Windows 2000.
Perhaps the most important new feature is the buttons on the left-hand side that permit easy selection of the saving location. "My Documents" is the most common location, If you are working directly off removable media such as a Zip drive, or looking for a particular area, it is best to click on the button labeled with the machine name, e.g., CTLdev in the above graphic.
While picking a saving location is easier with Windows 2000 than before, it is well to realize that the "Save As" dialogs always have some default drive, folder and filename to which, if you simply click the "Save" button, they will save your file. The problem is they only give you a clear look at the filename and folder portion. They don't immediately indicate where the folder is located. It could be on any drive, and it could be at the root of that drive or in some folder or sub-folder. Since, for example, you could have any number of "Scratch" folders, even on a single drive (provided they were in separate folders themselves), it becomes very important to know which "Scratch" you are viewing.
An attempt has been made to configure the lab's applications to automatically select the My Documents (i.e., H:\My Documents) by default. However, many programs insist on defaulting to whatever drive and folder was used last. So, unless you are sure, you need to check; otherwise, you may end up saying, "The computer lost my file!"
There are two basic methods of determining the location to which you are saving. One method uses the mouse and the other the keyboard; once you know them both, you may use whichever suits your situation, or even some combination of the two.
Controlling the Save As Location: The Mouse Method
Click on the button labeled with the machine name (e.g., CTLdev) to see a list of all the drive resources available on the machine. It is as simple as that.
Now, you can select the drive you want to use by double-clicking on that item in the list. The list will change to show the folders and files in that drive; then you can move down through the folder structure to the folder you desire simply by continuing to double-click on the folders you wish.
WARNING: if you are using the C: drive, make sure you save at or below the C:\LocalScratch directory. Otherwise you will be storing your files in an inappropriate place. At best, they will be difficult to locate/manage later, at worst, you could cause problems for that machine. If you are using the H: (home) drive, be sure to store at or below the H:\My Documents directory. If you used the lab during the Windows 95 era and still have files in a H:\Scratch, it is recommended that you move these to H:\My Documents for ease of use under Windows 2000.
Controlling the Save As Location: The Keyboard Method
When the "Save As" dialog opens, the default filename is selected. You can see this by noticing that the foreground and background colors of the text are reversed. If you begin typing, whatever you type will replace the selected default entry.(This is a feature you will find throughout Windows, by the way. To replace some text, select it by dragging over it with the mouse and then simply type its replacement text.)
If you type a drive letter followed by a colon (:) and then click on the "Save" button, the list will immediately show the files and folders at the root of that drive.
If you type a drive letter, a colon, a backslash (\) and a folder name, you will immediately go to the specified folder on that drive. Again, the list will change to show the files and folders within the selected folder on the selected drive. If you want to save to a nested folder (i.e., a folder within another folder) you can indicate the entire folder structure in one string of typed characters. For example, if you want to save to the "Work" folder within the "My Documents" folder on your Home (H:) drive, you could type: "H:\My Documents\Work". If you wanted to save to a "Bug" folder within that location, you could type: "H:\My Documents\Work\Bug". I think you get the idea.
Since you will need to type to indicate a meaningful filename anyway (the default "Untitled" in the example above just won't cut it), the keyboard method has some advantages.
Once the drive and folder selections have been made, all that is left is to specify a meaningful filename by typing it into the "File name:" box. Longer isn't necessarily better, but use as many characters as you need to make the file recognizable to you later. Don't add an extension; let the application do that for you.
If a file with the same name already exists in that folder, you will be given an option of replacing it. If you agree, the existing file will be overwritten and its contents will be lost. Make certain that this is what you intend before clicking the "Yes" button. Files can have the same name as long as they are in different folders, which is another reason for creating multiple folders. For example, you might have a project where you need to save a "results.txt" file each month. You could create a project folder and sub-folders for each month. The filename could then be "results.txt" in each case, but they could be differentiated by their folder locations.
The Save As dialog generally lists only files of the type the particular application uses. In the Notepad example above, these are text files: files having a filename extension of ".txt". Many applications can save files in more than one format. That is purpose of the "File type:" box. If you click on the text in that box, you will be presented a list of the various file types which the application you are using can create. Since various file types generally have different filename extensions, this entry will also control which files are listed by the dialog. Generally, there will be one entry, "All Files (*.*)" which will list all the files in a particular folder, regardless of extension. If you really think your file is in a particular folder, but it doesn't show up, try selecting the "All Files (*.*)" type. You may have an inappropriate or missing filename extension.
Applications sometimes provide their own, non-standard dialog boxes rather than using the standard Windows version. We cannot cover each one here; however, if you cannot understand a particular feature, you can generally use that application's Help menu to find the answers you require.
Saving with Microsoft Office 2000
Word and all Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access) used to provide their own filesave box. With the latest version, these are almost, if not exactly, identical to the Windows 2000 default.
Saving with Corel WordPerfect Suite
Here is the Save As dialog for Corel WordPerfect 8:
Tip: WordPerfect and all Corel WordPerfect Suite applications (WordPerfect, Quattro Pro and Presentations) have a
(favorites) button in their Save As dialogs which is very useful for selecting where you wish to save a file. When you click on this button, you are shown a list of shortcuts, among which are those to common lab storage areas such as the Global Scratch and Local Scratch areas. Double-clicking on the shortcut to an area will take you there immediately.
There are a lot more things that even the standard Windows Save As dialog can do for you. It is well worth learning these things, as you will be using this dialog so often.
Creating New Folders
There is a "New Folder" button
which you can click to create a new folder within the folder you are currently viewing. By default, this folder is named "New Folder", but you can change this immediately, by simply typing the name you prefer.
If you click on a particular file or folder once, it will be selected. You can then delete that file or folder by pressing the delete key on the keyboard. You will be asked to confirm the deletion before it actually happens.
You may copy a selected file or folder by using the standard Windows keyboard shortcuts for Copy (Ctrl-C) and Paste (Ctrl-V). Holding down the Control key and pressing "c", will put the file or folder in the Windows copy buffer. Holding down the Control key and pressing "v", will paste the file or folder into the current location. You may navigate to a different drive and/or folder between the copy and the pasting actions. This will then create a copy of the originally selected file or folder in that new location. If you copy and then paste back into the original location, the file or folder will be renamed automatically, by prefacing the original name with "Copy of".
You can also move a selected file or folder by dragging it (clicking on it, then moving the mouse while holding down the mouse button) to another folder and then releasing the mouse button. This is useful only if the folder you wish to move it to is listed. If it is not listed, you can first use the standard Windows keyboard shortcut for Cut (Ctrl-X) to "Cut" the selected file or folder from its current location. Then you can navigate to a different drive and/or folder and Paste using Ctrl-V.
The Save As dialog also provides a drop-down view menu button which controls how the files and folders are listed. The options include: Large Icons, Small Icons, List, and Details. The latter is most useful, because it displays the file sizes and creation dates in addition to the filenames.
The small question mark in the upper right corner of the dialog box (next to the "x" which closes the box just like clicking on cancel would) is used to provide help with understanding the dialog box items. To use this feature, first click on the question mark, then click on some other area of the dialog. If help is available, a small explanatory box will pop up describing the item that you clicked on.
When you right-click on any file or folder in the list, you are presented with a context menu of actions you can take. Cut and copy operations are available here, so you would not have to memorize the keyboard shortcuts mentioned earlier (but you really ought to--they are SO useful!). It is worthwhile to be aware of these various options. Many, if not most objects in Windows have a context menu associated with them. It is a very powerful and useful general feature of which to remain aware.
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Last edited 10 August 2000 |
