Starting Up an Application

You start an application with your mouse, by clicking on its icon. You can keep an application icon in the workspace's application dock, which makes it easy to find, but you can also start applications that are not in the dock.

* To start an application from the dock, double-click on its icon.

The icon is highlighted for a moment, and then the application's main menu appears. One or more windows may also open.

Figure 4-1

Notice that before you start up an application in the dock, its icon has three dots in its lower left corner. After you start up the application, the dots are removed, to indicate that the application is running.

See "Opening a File From the File Viewer" on page 5-9 for information about adding applications to the dock.

* To start an application from the File Viewer, double-click on its icon in the File Viewer.

You can also double-click on an icon that represents a document, which starts the application and opens the document. See "Opening a File From the File Viewer" on page 5-9 for more information on these techniques.

Figure 4-2

Using Multiple Applications

You can run several applications at once--for example, you can create a document in Edit^(TM) and use Mail to communicate with your co-workers.

Running Multiple Applications

* Start up each application you want to run. You can start them from the dock, the File Viewer, or both.

Each time you start up an application, its main menu opens and replaces any menus that were previously visible. Most applications also open one or more windows, which can cover any windows that are already open.

Switching Between Applications

Although several applications might be running, you work in only one at a time--the active application. The active application is the one whose menu is showing.

When several application are running, you can switch to the one you want to work in.

* To switch from one application to another, move the mouse pointer over one of its windows and click on the window. Or double-click on the application's icon.

When you switch applications, the menus switch. If you switch by clicking in a window, it comes to the front.

Figure 4-3

Hiding an Application

If you're done working in an application for now but may use it later in the work session, you can hide the application to get its windows out of the way.

* To hide an application, choose Hide from its main menu.

All of the application's windows disappear, but the application is still running and you don't lose any unsaved work. If other applications have windows open, one of those applications becomes active.

By hiding applications, you can have several applications running and easily accessible. However, your workspace remains free of windows you're not using at the moment.

When you're completely done using an application, quit the application--as described in"Quitting an Application" on page 4-8.

Figure 4-4

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Note - Hide applications to unclutter your workspace when several applications have windows open.

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Unhiding an Application

When you want to work again in a hidden application, you can unhide it.

* To unhide an application, double-click its icon.

Its windows reappear--just as though the application hadn't been hidden--and the application becomes the active application.

If you hide the Workspace Manager, you can unhide it by double-clicking on the Sun icon at the top of the application dock.

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Note - Whenever you want to work in an application, you can get to it (whether or not it's hidden) by double-clicking on its icon.

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Figure 4-5

Quitting an Application

When you're completely done working in an application, quit the application.

* Choose Quit from the application's main menu.

If you haven't saved your work in the application, a panel gives you a chance to save before quitting. Then the application's windows are closed.

If you don't save your work when you quit, it will be lost. (For more information on saving, see Chapter 5, "Files.")

When you log out at the end of a work session, all running applications quit automatically.

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Note - Hide rather than quit applications that you plan to use later in your work session--it takes less time to unhide an application than it does to start it up again.

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Figure 4-6