Fans, Grids, and Lists

Now that all computers, including your teacher laptops, have had their operating system (OS) upgraded to 10.5, you might have noticed a few differences. One of those differences is the use of stacking folders on your Dock for downloads and documents. These Dock Stacks are simply a way for you to preview some of what is inside of a folder.

Dock Stacks can show folders in one of three ways; a fan, a grid, or a list.  Here’s what they look like:

Fan View

Grid View

List View

Remember, this view is just a way to preview items in those actual folders, and to quickly open a file. To open a file from a Dock Stack, just click on it one time. To see everything in that folder click the button/link you see in the Dock Stack that says, “Open in Finder.” You can also view everything in those folders by clicking the Finder button on your Dock (the double blue face), and then navigating to the Documents folder. The Downloads folder is inside the “house” that has your name on it.

If there are too many items in a folder to fit into a fan, it may show as a grid. The default content view is Automatic, meaning the computer decides based on the number of items in the folder. You can force a specific view to be used at all times. To do that, hold down the control button (ctrl) on your keyboard, and click on a Dock folder. From the “View Content As” section, select Fan, Grid or List.