The Mouse's Tail - Tutorial 3

Files and Folders

It is very important to understand how things are stored on your computer. If you can't save, open and delete files then you might as well be using a calculator for all the control you will have over what is going on *grin*

There are several ways to look at the files on your computer. You can go through the My Computer icon, through Windows Explorer, through another installed file manager program and through the windows pop up dialogs.

The "usual" way is to use Windows Explorer.

Think of your computer like a set of file drawers.
Some of the drawers are always there. These are your hard drives

However some are portable drawers. These can be opened when needed but aren't seen at other times. These are floppy disks, zip disks and cdroms.

A drawer (drive) can contain many files (there are lots of different sized drawers) or the files can be sorted into folders stored in that drawer. You can put folders inside folders.

It is possible to have duplicate copies of files and store them in different places (however you can't have two files named the same in the same folder). You can also move files around from folder to folder, or even drawer to drawer. Keep in mind though that some files have to be stored in particular places for your computer to find them when it needs them.

Files are given a location address. If a file is referred to as D:\download\fun\freds games\solitaire.exe then you would know that solitaire is in the freds games folder which is in the fun folder, which is in the download folder which is on D drive.

A few definitions:

• Directory or folder - These terms are interchangeable - it depends who you are talking to. Most people will tell you to go to a "directory" and make a new "folder". Directory is more correctly applied to the entire address of a file ('It's in the C:\program files\fred\ directory'). Basically a folder is where a file is stored. (more below)
• Files - A file is a collection of data stored in an electronic format. Basically they are what makes your computer operate. Files can be programs, configurations or data. (Shortcuts and icons link to a file and so are only another way of clicking on a file)
• Extensions - All files have an extension (whether you can actually see it or not) of (usually) three letters after their name. This allows the computer to know how to react when you click on the file. Extensions determine what sort of file the file is. For example fred.jpg is a graphic image. Fred.doc is a word document. Fred.exe is a program and will probably do something when clicked on.
• Program - A program is a set of instructions for the computer to do something. Basically anything that you do in Windows is done by a program (Windows itself is also a sort of program, called an operating system).
  Programs often have .exe or .com extensions. Some programs you might have come across are MS Word, MS Works, MS Excel, MYOB, Cod-a-matik, Win Amp, calculator, notepad, outlook express, eudora,netscape, internet explorer, etc ad infinitum ;)
• Configurations - Most programs need to store information on how you want them to run (preferences, options, the last file you opened, the background colour chosen, etc). They do this in a variety of ways. One is to create a configuration file - a file stored somewhere with those settings in it. Often these are stored in the Windows directory, usually with .ini extensions (there are lots of variations on this of course, I'm trying to keep it simple here ;-))
• Data - There's data for programs, like the bookmark file for a browser or the file giving printer settings for Word, and then there's the data that you (or someone else) create, like a word or notepad document, a picture, wav file (sound) etc.

Windows Explorer

If you don't have an icon on your desktop for Windows Explorer (not Internet explorer, that's a different program) then you will find it in your start menu listing.

Open Windows Explorer

So we are all seeing a similar thing please do the following:
Go to the View menu > Folder Options
Click the View Tab
Set options as in this pic.

Then click APPLY then OK

Now you should see something like this:

1 Title bar

This shows the current directory highlighted in the left pane and showing in the right hand pane
in this case the C:\ indicates it is showing the basic C drive - or the ROOT directory of C

2 Left Pane

The left pane shows the drives and folders (or directories) only. No files. You can see that the C drive is highlighted. The + next to a directory indicates that there are more folders inside it.

3 Right Pane

The right pane shows the inside contents of the folder / drive highlighted in the left pane.

Folders are shown with a small yellow 'manila folder" icon beside them.

Files have a variety of icons depending upon their type. They may also have an extension like .bak on their name.

4 Name column

This column shows the file name (with the extension if hide extensions is not checked in the options) By clicking on the title bar of the column you can sort the folder contents alphabetically (or reverse abc with a second click)

5 Size column

This column shows the file size. By clicking on the title bar of the column you can sort the folder contents by size.

6 Type column

This shows the type of file (folder, exe, program, paint shop image etc). By clicking on the title bar of the column you can sort the contents by type alphabetically (or reverse abc with a second click)

7 Modified column

This shows the date the file was last modified (or saved). By clicking on the title bar of the column you can sort the contents by date (or reverse date with a second click)

8 Floppy or A drive

The A drive is usually the floppy drive. Clicking on the A drive without a floppy in it will bring up an error message that it can't read the drive. Just cancel if you didn't really mean to click there ;-)

9 Cd Rom Drive

The CD Rom is usually the last drive in your machine. It's letter depends upon how many drives you have. In this case it is Drive G. Clicking here when the drive is empty will bring up an error message. The title of the drive will change depending upon the type of CD you have in it at the time.

10 Zip Drive

Some people may have a zip drive or other removable drives on their machines. The letter name depends again on how many drives. Some zip drives have the ability to set the letter that you choose.

11 Object count

This shows how many objects are in the open folder / drive shown in the right pane.

12 Folder Size

This shows how much space the visible files in the right pane take up. Note this does not include space taken up by files inside folders, only the visible files. Free space is the amount of space left on a drive. I'll discuss file size more in a later tutorial (check the index) but the basics are that a kb (kilobyte) is 1/1024th of a mb (megabyte) and a mb is 1/1000th of a gig (gigabyte).

Warning: Windows is incredibly unreliable about reporting drive size and file usage. Don't ask me why, sometimes I think it just makes up numbers for it's own amusement ;-) The fact remains that if you look at a drive in DOS the size and available space will differ from that shown in Windows. Not a major problem, just another confusing thing in the world of computers.

To find out the space available on your drives:

Highlight each drive in turn in the left pane and check the 'disk free space' at the bottom of the window.

OR

Highlight the drive letter. Right Click. Select Properties. It will show drive size and used space.

Navigating the File Jungle

Double clicking on a folder will open it, showing the contents in the right hand pane and moving the highlight in the left pane.

Double clicking on a file will open it.

The best way to learn is to go in and play.

With Windows Explorer open click once (to highlight) on C drive (in the left pane)

If there is a - (minus sign) beside it click it once.

Now everybody, click the +

You are now looking at a list of all the folders on your C drive.

Find My Documents Double click it.

This is the default folder for many programs to save to. It's a good idea to get into the habit of saving all your documents into this folder (you can make sub directories (folders) to sort things. It makes it much easier to find things if you keep them centralised.

Double click one of the folders in the right pane.

Now to go back to My Documents click the Up Directory button

Note that the address line will always tell you where you are - in this case in the humour folder in the My documents folder on the C drive.

Saving a File

The key to finding files is knowing where you save them.

Let's practise.

Open notepad (Start button > program files > Accessories > notepad.)

Type something.

Go to the File menu. Click Save.

A dialog box will pop up with file directories in it.

If the folder listed at the top isn't the folder you want to save into then click the arrow to drop down the menu.

Click My Documents.

The box now shows the folders in my documents.

To make a new folder click the new folder button. A new folder will appear - type in a name (in this case type test).

Hit Enter, then double click the test folder.

Enter a file name in the space (type my first file ) (it will automatically add .txt -see the type of file in the "save as" part of the box. More on this later) )

Note: In the early days of home computers files had to be no more than 8 letters followed by the 3 letter extension, with no spaces, leading to enlightening names such as glta1612.doc. With the later versions of Windows longer file names have been possible so you can have a file called general letter to all 16 dec.doc. Be aware that if you look at this file in a program that doesn't support long file names it will appear as genera~1.doc

Click save

Close Notepad.

Opening a File

Open Notepad (Start button > program files > Accessories > notepad.)

Go to the File menu, Click Open.

Most probably it will open in the place you last saved to.
If not use the drop down menu to negotiate your way to the test folder in My documents.

Note: it will only show files that have .txt extensions unless you change the "files of type" setting at the bottom of the dialog box to "All files"

Click on my first file and click open (or just double click the filename)

Simple isn't it :)

Close notepad

You can (to a certain extent) move files around to suit yourself and make them easier to find. For example if Word normally stores all yur files somewhere in the depths of the program files folder you can move them to my documents. However you can't move a program file (like the files that run word itself for instance, if you do the program won't run. In general thought word, works, text files, graphics, sounds etc can be moved.

How to make a NEW Folder (directory)

Highlight the drive or folder you want the new folder in.

Go to File menu > New > New Folder.
The new folder will appear in the right hand pane - type in the name and hit enter.

To rename a file

Right click the file, select rename and type in the new name.

Try not to rename files that already have shortcuts etc or nothing will be able to find them.

Moving, copying and deleting files

To move or copy a file is similar to the techniques used in the last tutorial for copying and pasting text etc.

Simply highlight the file you want to move or copy and use the preferred technique (see tutorial 2)

Copying/ Moving a file to a different directory

Open Windows Explorer

Go to My Documents

Create a new folder called pastetest

Go to the test folder and right click on my first file.

Select copy

Go to the pastetest folder. Highlight it and right click and select paste.

Now double click the folder - you should see a copy of my first file.txt in it.

To move instead of creating a duplicate use Cut instead of copy. However be careful, ne false move and you could lose a file. I usually copy then go back and delete the original file.

To Delete a file or folder.

Highlight the file my first file.

Press the delete button on the keyboard OR right click and select delete.

It will ask if you really want to delete the file. Select Yes

Deleted files go to the recycling bin which is sort of a halfway folder. More about recycling another time;-)

Highlight the pastetest folder.

Hit delete and select Yes.

Do the same for the test folder.

Congratulations! You made it through the file jungle.

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