Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

Application Basics
You’ve already worked with a number of applications in this book, and although each
application is unique in many ways, they all tend to share some commonalities. In this
chapter, we will cover some of these common features that aren’t covered elsewhere in the book
so that whatever application you are using, you will have a good grasp of how to do certain
tasks (and have a good starting point for figuring everything else out). These tasks include the
following:
• Installing an application with a standard installer
• Using the file dialog (opening and saving files)
• Choosing a document’s default application
• Using the Services menu
NOTE Most of these tasks are the same across applications because they all rely on the same
common frameworks to perform these functions. That said, some applications will not work in
all the ways described in this chapter because the developer decided for whatever reason to
do things differently. In those cases, we can only hope that the developer came up with something
so obviously easy that it doesn’t need description or that the developer documented the
differences sufficiently.
Installing an Application Package
CHAPTER
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In Chapter 6, we covered the basic ways of installing an application; some applications you can
just drag onto your hard drive and they are ready to go, while others come in packages that will
walk you through an installation. Applications are generally packaged either when they require
more complex installations than simply moving an application bundle where you want it or
when multiple options are provided when you install the application. If you just click through
the installer, though, you may miss these options. Although every package you install will be
slightly different, the general process is similar, so the best way to show how this works is to
walk you through some of what you may encounter.
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