Moving photos & folders (& clearing clutter)
Have a go with these simple exercises & practise using them, and
then astound your family & friends with your wizardry!
All the following magic tricks will be done on your Desktop.
If you are playing with photos or documents, back them up onto
a CD or flash drive, to make sure that you have copies of the
originals in a safe place. It’s most unlikely that you’ll
destroy anything, but photos & folders can sometimes become
tucked away in unlikely places… i.e. become lost.
• Create a new folder on your Desktop & name it as “rubbish”
(Rt mouse click > New > New folder. Type straight over the
blue-highlighted words. 2 mouse clicks outside the folder to
finish … DONE in under 10 seconds!)
• Open up this folder, and then open up one of your photo
folders
• Click on “restore down” and then “maximise” buttons (the
centre button at the top right edge of the folder, which alters
its size).
In some versions of Windows XP, you may have to click on the
outer edges(s) of the screen, and then drag it/them to a new
position.
• Click on the blue border at the top and drag to a new position
• Change the dimensions of these WINDOWS ~ click & drag
edges/corners … see what happens to the contents as you do so
• select & move one photo from one folder to another
(click and drag with your mouse)
• by the way, to activate a folder, you have to click on it
• select & move more than one photo from one folder to another
(click on each photo & press down the Ctrl key also, & drag)
• select & move all contents from one folder to another (Ctrl + A, & drag)
• drag them back the other way
• drag them back using Desktop as temporary “staging post”.
• try corralling/highlighting more than one photo (pressing
down the left key of your mouse just outside a photo + sweeping
across & up/down the outside of the other photos) and then
dragging the corrall across to another site. To undo the corrall,
click on the white space outside it.
So, we’ve had a go at “drag & drop”, which is easy-peasy.
With “drag & drop”, you’re moving a folder or photo from one place
on the computer to another place. With “copy & paste”, you will be
creating extra copies ~ doubling the number of photos on your
computer, and creating more stuff/clutter to delete in due course.
Now have a go with “copy & paste” using the keyboard shortcuts …
Ctrl + C (to copy) and then Ctrl + V (to paste elsewhere).
Press down the Ctrl button when selecting more than 1 item …
and use Ctrl + A to select everything (and then Ctrl + C to copy).
• Changing the VIEW in your folders (or windows) …
click on “View” on the top toolbar, and have a look at the whole
range of possible views.
If you were to label your miniatures as the original number with the
letters “min” tagged onto the end of the number, and then use “List”
in “View”, you will be able to pick out all the miniature versions of
your photos much more easily.
• Now leave one empty folder open on the Desktop, & open up
My Documents / Documents (press the Start button > My Documents)
• Reduce “My Documents” in size, & alter the dimensions and
also the views, and have a go at selecting & moving items from
My Docs to the folder on the Desktop.
• You can do this same trick with My Pictures (or Pictures).
In Windows XP: press the Start button > My Documents > My Pictures
In Windows Vista: press the Start button > Pictures
Deleting stuff … drag & drop into the “rubbish folder” or
directly to the Recycle Bin. You can drag & drop the rubbish bin
into the Recycle bin also. See how much quicker it is to use this
rubbish bin on your Desktop, rather than using the Recycle bin
directly.
Have a look in the Recycle Bin and have a go at restoring stuff
back onto your Desktop (or elsewhere).
Using a right mouse click will enable you to do lots of things,
especially on the Desktop. Have a go at using this whenever you
wish to relocate, copy, paste, delete and rename stuff on your
computer.
Using the “drag & drop” technique will save you lots
of time, when moving things around. You can clear away a lot of
clutter on your Desktop, by dragging unwanted items into
“Rubbish”, and by dragging other stuff into “My Documents” via
the shortcut on the Desktop … sweeping it under the carpet.
