Blessings of the Graphical User Interface
By Charles Miller

One of the greatest benefits of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) popularized by both Apple and Microsoft is that when you learn how to perform an operation in one program, you soon learn that the same technique often works in other programs as well.

It was not always this way. Those of us who started using personal computers in the days of MS-DOS may remember that every program had its own set of commands. For example, to print a document using WordPerfect the command was to hold down the [Shift] key while pressing [F7], but in Microsoft Word you needed to press [Esc] then the letter [P] twice, and for Lotus 1-2-3, I believe the sequence was the slash key followed by [F] then [P]. But so much for my trip down memory lane.

Using the GUI not only has made many operations easier but also, as I mentioned in the beginning, has made many of them almost universal. One of the best of these techniques is “selecting” things.

What do I mean by “select?” To select an object means to choose or highlight it so that you can manipulate it in some way. The object can be an icon, file, email, folder or some text.

To select an object, you usually move the mouse pointer to the object and click the left mouse button. In many applications, you can select a block of text by positioning the mouse pointer on the first letter of the block, holding down the left mouse button and then dragging the mouse down to the last letter of the block.

Surely one of the most empowering techniques to learn is how to select multiple objects. Doing this permits you to copy, delete, move, or rename multiple items at once.

For example, let’s say you use Microsoft Outlook as your email client and you have an inbox bulging with several thousand old emails. Assuming you already understand how to delete or move emails, you could just sit there for hours doing that, one email at a time.

There is an easier way, though. You can select large numbers of emails, then move or delete them all at once.

Let’s say you want to be rid of all your old emails prior to 2004. In Outlook, click on the column heading “Received” to sort the emails into chronological order. Now use the elevator bar on the right edge of the window to scroll down to the first 2004 email you want to delete. Click one time only to select it. Use the elevator bar to scroll down the list until you can see the last email you want to delete. Hold down the [Shift] key and click one time only on that last email. When you do this, all the emails between the first one you clicked on and the last one on which you click will be selected. You can now delete them all at once.

Suppose you only want to delete emails from a particular person, say, Charles Miller. Click on the column heading “From” to sort the list in alphabetical order. Select the first email from Charles Miller, scroll down and hold the shift key to select the last email from Charles Miller to select them all.

By holding down the [Ctrl] key, you can select or deselect individual objects. This means that if you see one Charles Miller email you do want to keep, you can deselect just that one before deleting all the rest.

Once you have mastered this technique, you will be pleased to learn that this works equally well elsewhere, such as in Excel spreadsheets, Hotmail and Yahoo. The same selecting technique works for files, pictures, icons, music files and so on..

Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 044-415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.