Microsoft Windows 7 Unleashed

Explorer’s Details view is the preferred choice for power users because it displays a great deal of information in a relatively compact format. (The new Content view also provides lots of information, but each object takes up quite a bit of space, and the object properties that you see aren’t customizable.) Details view also gives you a great deal of flexibility. For example, here are some techniques to you can use when working with the Details view:

. You can change the order of the property columns by dragging the column headings to the left or right.

. You can sort on a column by clicking the column heading.

. You can adjust the width of a column by pointing the mouse at the right edge of the column’s heading (the pointer changes to a two-headed arrow) and dragging the pointer left or right.

. You can adjust the width of a column so that it’s as wide as its widest data by double-clicking the right-edge of the column’s heading.

To adjust all the columns so that they’re exactly as wide as their widest data, right-click any column header and then click Size All Columns to Fit. In addition, the Details view is informative because it shows you not only the name of each file, but also other properties, depending on the folder:

Documents—Name, Date Modified, Type, and Size
Pictures—Name, Date Taken, Tags, Size, and Rating
Videos—Name, Date Taken, Type, Size, and Length
Music—Track Name, Track Number, Track Title, Contributing Artists, and Album Title
Contacts—Name, E-mail Address, Business Phone, and Home Phone

These are all useful, to be sure, but Explorer can display many more file properties. In fact, there are nearly 300 properties in all, and they include useful information such as the dimensions of a picture file, the bit rate of a music file, and the frame rate of a video file.

To see these and other properties, you have two choices:

. To see the most common properties for the current folder type, right-click any column header and then click the property you want to add.
. To see the complete property list, right-click any column header and then click More. The Choose Details dialog box that appears (see Figure 1.2) enables you to activate the check boxes for the properties you want to see, as well as rearrange the column order.

The icons in Windows Explorer’s content area can be viewed in no less than eight different ways, which seems a tad excessive, but Windows has never been about restraint when it comes to interface choices. To see a list of these views, either pull down the Views button in the task pane or click View in the menu bar. You get four choices for icon sizes: Extra Large Icons, Large Icons, Medium Icons, and Small Icons. You also get four other choices:

List—This view divides the content area into as many rows as will fit vertically, and it displays the folders and files alphabetically down the rows and across the columns. For each object, Windows Explorer shows the object’s icon and name.

Details—This view displays a vertical list of icons, where each icon shows the data in all the displayed property columns (such as Name, Date Modified, Type, and Size). See “Viewing More Properties,” later in this chapter, to learn how to add to  these columns.

Tiles—This view divides the content area into as many columns as will fit horizontally, and it displays the folders and files alphabetically across the columns and down the rows. For each object, Windows Explorer shows the object’s icon, name,  file type, and (for files only) size.

Content—This view, new to Windows 7, displays a vertical list of objects,
and for each object it displays the object’s icon, name, last modified date,
size (files only), and any metadata associated with the object, such as author names and tags; the album name, genre, and track length; and
the dimensions and date taken (for photos).

Although I’m sure you’ve got countless more important things to do with your precious time, at least some of your Windows 7 face time will be spent dealing with files,folders, and other Windows “f-words.” These file system maintenance chores are the unglamorous side of the digital lifestyle, but they are, regrettably, necessary for the smooth functioning of that lifestyle. This means that you’ll likely be spending a lot of time with Windows Explorer over the years, so customizing it to your liking will make you more efficient and more productive, and setting up Windows Explorer to suit your style should serve to remove just a bit of the drudgery of day-to-day file maintenance. This chapter takes you through a few of my favorite Windows Explorer customizations.

Returning the Menus to Their Rightful Place

Microsoft seems to hate pull-down menus, for some reason. Over the past few years, Microsoft has hidden the menu system in many programs, and gotten rid of it altogether in Office 2007 (although the old menu keystroke combinations still work). In those programs where the menus are merely hidden, you can display them at any time by tapping the Alt key. This works in Windows Explorer, too, and that’s a good thing because Windows Explorer’s pull-down menus have several useful commands that simply aren’t available through the taskbar, keyboard shortcuts, or even by right-clicking. Still, it sticks in my craw that accessing the Windows Explorer menus requires the extra step of Alt, particularly if I’m in mouse mode. If you feel the same way, follow these steps to force Windows Explorer to display the menu bar full-time:

1. If you have a folder window open, select Organize, Folder and Search Options. (No
folder windows open at the moment? Click Start, type folder, and then press Enter
to select Folder Options in the search results.) The Folder Options dialog box
appears.

2. Click the View tab.

3. Click to activate the Always Show Menus check box.

4. Click OK. Windows Explorer (perhaps a tad grudgingly) restores the menu bar to its rightful place.