Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 2: Getting Started StarOffice

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Using the Explorer Window


The Explorer window is shown in Figure 2.14. It can be viewed any time by choosing Explorer from the View menu. The Explorer gives you a treelike structure on which you can locate and store documents of different types, including templates, Web pages, and documents that you've created.

Figure 2.14
The Explorer window in StarOffice.

The Explorer is also where resources such as email accounts, StarSchedule event calendars, and newsgroup accounts are accessed.

Using the Explorer might remind you of using things such as the file manager in Windows 3.1 or the file system Explorer in Windows 95. The difference is in the extras that StarOffice provides as preconfigured types of information that are listed in the Explorer window for easy access.

You'll see the Explorer used for examples throughout the rest of this book.

Viewing the Beamer

As you explore the icons in the Explorer window, you'll view many different types of information and system resources. One way to view these items is in the Beamer window. If the Beamer isn't onscreen, some items from the Explorer window appear in the main viewing window, but this makes it harder to use them in your documents.

The Beamer window is similar to a little catalog or listing where information is displayed. The Beamer window appears just below the toolbars.

To view the Beamer window, select Beamer from the View menu.

With the Beamer window onscreen, it is easier to see how useful the different parts of the Explorer can be. In general, the items displayed in the Beamer window can be dragged and dropped into the document that you're working on.

Using the Explorer Icons

The sections that follow define some of the default items included in the Explorer and show you how to try them yourself :

Caution - Dragging a Desktop icon to the Recycle bin places the actual file in the Recycle bin, not just a Desktop pointer to it.


Tip - The Recycle bin is actually a directory located at ~/Office50/explorer/Trash.


Caution - The delete function in Linux is permanent. When you delete files by emptying the Recycle Bin, you cannot recover the files that were deleted. If you select the Empty Immediately option for the Recycle Bin, everything placed in the Recycle Bin is permanently deleted from your system.


Tip - If you did a custom StarOffice installation and de-selected the Sample documents, the Samples folder is empty.


Tip - When you view the Work Folder, you're actually viewing the contents of the directory ~/Office50/explorer/WorkFolder.


Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

ContentsIndex

Hour 2: Getting Started StarOffice

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