FIGURE 1.15 The views that are available in Windows Explorer
Extra Large Icons Displays the contents of your libraries and folders using very large icons. This view is generally useful for people with vision disabilities.
Large Icons Displays the contents of your libraries and folders using large icons. This view is useful when you want to see the pictures found on your computer and you want to see a preview of them instead of a small icon.
Medium Icons Displays the contents of your libraries and folders using medium icons.
Small Icons Displays the contents of your libraries and folders using small icons.
List Displays the contents of your libraries and folders in a list that contains only the name of each file and its respective icon.
Details Displays the contents of your libraries and folders by providing detailed information about each item, including its name, the date when it was last modified, its type, its size, and so on. This view is very useful when you want to learn more about each file and folder before opening it.
Tiles This view displays medium-sized icons for each file and folder, as well as information about their type and size.
Content When using this view, each file and folder are placed on a separate row. Each row has detailed information about each file and folder: the date when it was last modified, its size, its author, and so on.
You should definitely experiment with each view and learn how they work (Exercise 1.5) so that you can use them effectively depending on what you want to do.
EXERCISE 1.5
Using Views and the Preview Pane in Windows Explorer
1. On the taskbar, click the Folder icon.
2. In the Navigation pane, click Pictures in the Libraries section.
3. In the right pane, double-click Sample Pictures.
4. Click the Views menu and click Extra Large Icons.
Notice how the pictures are now displayed.
5. Click the Views menu again and then Details.
Notice how the way pictures are displayed has changed.
6. Click the Preview pane button. Note that a new pane appears on the right.
7. Click any picture in the middle pane to see a preview of it in the Preview pane.
8. Click the Preview pane button again to hide this pane.
9. Click the Views menu and choose Large Icons.
10. Click the X in the top-right corner of the Windows Explorer window to close it.
Understanding File Types
When working on your computer, you will create many types of files: documents, spreadsheets, presentations, music files, and so on. When you save a file, you are prompted to give a name to the file and choose a file type. If you get the file from somewhere else, it has already been assigned a file type.
When browsing your files in Windows Explorer, you can see the file type of each file when you are using the Content, Tiles, and Details views. The file type is generally denoted by a three- or four-letter extension that follows the filename and also by the icon used by Windows Explorer to display that file. For example, document.docx means a file named document with the extension .docx. The dot separates the name of the file from its extension. The file extension is hidden by default in Windows when viewing files, but it is added automatically when saving them.
You can opt to change the file type when multiple options are available and change from the default file extension to something else. In Figure 1.16 you can see Paint open and the options that are available for saving a file. To save a file, click the Save As option, choose a file type, and then type the name of the file. If you make changes to the same file later, you need only click Save.
FIGURE 1.16 The Save As options that are available in Paint
Some of the most common types of files are the following:
■ Microsoft Office files
■ Microsoft Word (.doc and .docx)
■ Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt and .pptx)
■ Microsoft Excel (.xls and .xlsx)
■ Microsoft Publisher (.pub and .pubx)
■ Microsoft OneNote (.one)
■ Picture files
■ JPEG files
■ GIF files (.gif)
■ Bitmap files (.bmp)
■ PNG files (.png)
■ TIFF files (.tif and .tiff)
■ RAW files (.raw)
■ Music files
■ Windows audio files (.wav)
■ MP3 audio files (.mp3 and .m3u)
■ Windows Media audio files (.asx,wm, wma, and .wmx)
■ Free Lossless Audio Codec files (.flac)
■ AAC files (.aac)
■ Video files
■ Audio Video Interleaved files (.avi)
■ Motion JPEG files (.avi and .mov)
■ Windows Media files (.wm, wmv, and .asf)
■ Matroska multimedia files (.mkv)
■ Apple QuickTime files (.mov and .qt)
■ MPEG Movie files (.mp4, mov,m4v, mpeg,mpg, mpe,m1v,mp2, mpv2, mod,vob, and .m1v)
Other types of popular files are the following:
Executable Files (.exe) Executable files can be run with a double-click.
Text Files (.txt) Simple text documents without any kind of formatting.
Portable Document Format Files (.pdf) A very popular type of files that is generally used for sharing non-editable documents that need to look the same on all the devices on which they are used, no matter what operating system is used.
OpenOffice and LibreOffice Documents (.odt,.ott,.oth, and .odm) Documents created using free open-source office applications like OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
Managing Your Files and Folders
While working on your computer, it is better that you organize your work so that you will have an easier time finding the files you need later on. For starters, use the libraries provided by Windows 7 to store your files depending on their type. Save your pictures in the Pictures library, your documents in the Documents library, and so on.
Once things get too crowded, you will want to create your own folders and subfolders, move files around, and delete those that you do not need. Let's take each file and folder management activity and see how it is done:
Create a File You can create files from applications like Microsoft Office, but you can also create empty files directly from Windows Explorer. To do so, follow these steps:
1. Open the folder where you want to store the file.
2. Right-click anywhere in the available empty space and select New and then one of the available file types, as shown in Figure 1.17.
3. Type