Files, Folders and Programs

The goal of this lab is to teach you to create and edit files using programs, to learn how to organize files in folders and learn to copy and move files on you hard-drive. All examples work with Windows XP but other operating systems work in similar way.

Files

Files store programs and they also store data you create: a document, a presentation or an HTML page. All files have a name and a name extension or simply an extension. The two parts of a file name are separated by a dot like this: name.extension. The file name extension is used to specify the type for the file which in turn can specify the program that can be used to create and modify the file. Some examples:

• Programs are stored in files with the extension exe. Some examples are notepad.exe or SshClient.exe
• HTML files are stored in files with the extension html as in index.html
• Microsoft Word files are stored in files with the extension doc as in Paper Freud.doc

The program that displays files and folders is called File Manager. This is the program that shows you the content of My Documents or the content of My Computer

Computer Programs

A computer program is a series of computer instructions used to do certain processing. There are programs that help you create documents, presentations and there are even programs that help you design cars or other computers.

Start a program directly: Start>All Programs>...

Exercise: create a text file in My Documents called spiderman. Use Start>All Programs>Accessories>Notepad to start Notepad and then type: "Peter Parker was a normal high-school student who excelled science." then save the file using File>Save As, choose the folder you Save in: to be My Documents and then type the File Name: to be spiderman and press Save. Close Notepad

Exercise: modify the text file you just created and add another proposition. Start Notepad with Start>All Programs>Accessories>Notepad. Open the file with File>Open, Look in: My Documents and then select spiderman and press Open. Type "His accomplishments were often overshadowed by his innate shyness." and then File>Save and then close Notepad

Start a program through a file: double-click or right-click>Open With

Navigate to My Documents and double-click on spiderman. Notepad is used to open spiderman, because it is the default program that can open this type of file. To use other programs that can open this type of file use right-click>Open With. Note that Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer can be used to open this type of file among others.

How do you create a new file? How to you modify an existing file?

Folders (Directories)

A folder stores files and other folders. My Computer stores one or more Disks which store folders and files. A Disk corresponds to a physical hard-drive and can be considered a special kind of folder: disks cannot store other disks but only regular folders and files. Example: My Documents folder for the current user is stored in c:/Documents and Settings/userName/My Documents where c: is a Disk

Create a folder

Exercise: create the following folder hierarchy:

      My Documents
          public_html
              homework
                  h1
              labs
                  lab1
                  lab2

To create a folder start File Manager make sure that the Address lists the folder where you want your folder to be stored in and then right-click over the white part of the window and choose New>Folder.

Navigate a folder hierarchy

You can use File Manager to navigate a folder hierarchy. At any given time File Manager displays the content of the current folder which is listen in the Address text-box.

You can double-click on a folder to list the content of that folder and go down the folder hierarchy. Note that the current folder (the one listen in Address) changes to the one you just double-clicked on.

Use the Up button to go up the folder hierarchy and list the content of the folder that contains the current folder.

File and Folder Operations

Copy - Paste a file or a folder

Copy copies a file (folder) from a source folder to the Clipboard which is a special storage area in the computer. Cut does the same thing but it also removes the file (folder) from the source folder. Paste is use to copy the file (folder) from the Clipboard to a destination folder.

We are going to use File Manager to Copy a file from a source folder and then Paste it to:

a folder listed in the Address field of File Manager

Exercise: copy spiderman from My Documents to labs. Start File Manager in My Documents and right-click on spiderman and select Copy. Navigate to labs by double-click on public_html and then on labs. right-click on the white part of the window and select Paste.

a folder inside the folder listed in Address field of File Manager

Exercise: copy spiderman from My Documents to labs2. Press Up and then right-click on lab2 and select Paste. Note that spiderman was copied in lab2 not in the folder listed as Address which is labs

Delete spiderman from both folders to prepare for next exercise.

Drag - Drop a file or a folder

This method is used to achieve the same goals as copy-paste: to copy or move files and folders on your computer.

Open another File Manager and position it to the right of the existing one. Make sure that the left File Manger shows labs in the Address and that the right File Manager shows My Documents in the Address. drag spiderman and in the same time keep Ctrl key pressed. drop the file

over the white part of the window

In this case the file is copied to labs

over lab2

In this case the file is copied to lab2

If you don't press Ctrl key the file will be moved not copied.

Rename a file or folder

right-click > Rename

Take a snap-shot of a window

Select the window you want to create the snap-shot of. Press Alt-Print Screen. This key combination has saved the image into the clipboard. To save the image you have to execute Paint, and then select Edit>Paste which pastes the image into the program. Then you have to save the image by File>Save As and then choose Save as type to be GIF.