Transcript Using an OS

Using Operating Systems
Introduction
Many users of Windows don’t know how to get
the best out of the system:File Explorer
File handling
Drag-and-Drop
The command prompt - the DOS/UNIX legacy
Some navigation commands
Help, simple network tools
Nic Shulver, [email protected]
Using Operating Systems
Explorer – File Handling
Customised
file and
folder view
View|Details
is on
Toolbars
have been
moved
around
Nic Shulver, [email protected]
Using Operating Systems
Explorer – File Handling
Multiple file selection:To select every item in a view
Press CTRL+A
Or Edit|Select All
To select a range of items
click on the first one
Shift-click on the last one
All the items will be selected
Why are there
many ways to
select items?
Why a combined
mouse and keyboard
command?
Is this Windowsonly stuff?
Nic Shulver, [email protected]
Note: the “current directory” is d:\j2sdk1.4.1 NB single
integrated filing
system in Unix
The “root directory” is therefore d:\
A subdirectory of the current directory is “demo”
Using Operating Systems
Explorer – File Handling
Multiple file selection:To select multiple items NOT grouped
together
click on the first one
Ctrl-click on each other item
Nic Shulver, [email protected]
Note: we can navigate by clicking on directory names in
the left-hand “Folders” panel.
It is also possible to navigate by double-clicking on
directory names in the right-hand panel.
Using Operating Systems
Explorer – File Handling
 The right-click context menu
 Right-click on a file (or a highlighted
selection of files)
 Check out the available options on the
pop-up context menu
 Note the example menu shown has
been customised by add-on software
 File Properties
 Really useful – check for file size, type,
various other status checks (e.g. read-only)
Nic Shulver, [email protected]
Why do the
“size” and “size
on disk” values
differ?
Using Operating Systems
Explorer – Drag and Drop
One of the least used and most useful abilities
of many GUIs is called “drag and drop”
For example
open Windows Media Player
Select some music files in Explorer
Click down and hold the files
Drag them across to Media Player
Release the mouse button to drop the files
Nic Shulver, [email protected]
Using Operating Systems
The Command prompt
Windows supports a DOS-style command
prompt window with some UNIX-like
properties
It is a text-only interface – you can usually find
it in Start|Programs|Accessories|Command
Prompt, or Start|Run… CMD (or COMMAND)
You need to know the commands to type in!
First thing to try: HELP
Nic Shulver, [email protected]
Using Operating Systems
The Command prompt
It doesn’t look very friendly
But it can be a very powerful tool
This is what most computer interfaces looked
like until the mid-1980’s
Useful commands:
help, dir, cd, cls, copy, xcopy, doskey, exit,
recover, tree, ver
Nic Shulver, [email protected]
Using Operating Systems
Some commands
“dir” does a directory listing
c.f. The “ls”
dir /p - lists one page at a time
command in Unix
dir /b - lists bare, basic information
dir /? - gets detailed help
“cd” changes the current directory (navigation)
cd directoryname – moves into the named directory
cd .. – moves back one directory c.f. The “cd”
command in Unix
cd \ - moves to the root directory
Nic Shulver, [email protected]
 Example of “dir /p”, a
directory listing one
page at a time
 Note the field order
– date, time,
type/size, name
 This order is UNIXstyle
 The Windows 95
command prompt is
DOS-style (the other
way round)
 The Explorer view is
also the other way
around – shows its
roots
Using Operating Systems
Network tools
There are some simple but powerful network
tools built into Windows
For example, “ipconfig” will tell you about your
Internet Protocol network configuration
“ping” will let you send test packets to a
computer and test whether they get back
safely
This is like submarine sonar “ping” signals
Nic Shulver, [email protected]
Why is this “ping”
command so fast?
IPConfig reports IP address information
Pinging an address is a simple test of connectivity
Using Operating Systems
Summary
We have seen how Explorer and other
programs allow us to be more sophisticated in
our use of Windows
We have seen the legacy, text-only “command
prompt”
Some navigation commands
Some simple network tools
GUIs give users choice of interaction styles
Nic Shulver, [email protected]