Using Your Virtual Desktop

Transcription

1 Using Your Virtual Desktop This guide will introduce you to the different parts of your Virtual Desktop, illustrate the document process creating or opening, saving, printing and show you how you can customize this space to ease your work. Vocabulary Local computer or client means the machine you re using to access the Virtual Desktop, i.e., the one right in front of you; server means the collection of computers in the Old Book Store you can access over the internet. Click means clicking with the left button on a two-button mouse or clicking on a one-button mouse; right-click means clicking with the right button on a two-button mouse or for a onebutton mouse by clicking while pressing the OPTION key. The Virtual Desktop when you first open your Virtual Desktop, it has a familiar look: Points to your folder on the server Points to your server folder and local hard drive Toolbars with the contents of your server folder and other frequently used folders Shortcuts to some of the available programs The usual Windows toolbar with the Start menu, program shortcuts and a button for each of the programs you are using My Documents folder The My Documents folder on the Virtual Desktop leads to your folder on the server. Whenever you save a file to My Documents in the Virtual Desktop environment, you are saving to your server folder, not your local computer. This is very convenient, because you can access that My Documents folder from any computer anywhere by connecting to your Virtual Desktop by using the internet. The My Documents window on your desktop is a toolbar a dynamic shortcut (a new feature of Windows 2000). Any time you save a new file or create a new folder in the My Documents folder, it will immediately appear in your My Documents toolbar window. Clicking a folder in the My Documents toolbar opens that folder; clicking a file opens the file in the program that you wrote it.

2 Your Stuff The Virtual Desktop icon for your stuff gives you another way to access your server folder and also leads to the contents of your local hard drive. Computers have different local configurations the below is an example. Your stuff folder may have a different configuration of client drives from the pictures below. From the stuff window, you can click on a Client drive to see what it is (hard drive, CD drive, etc.) and what it contains. Double clicking on the stuff desktop icon... hard-drive on local desktop computer storage folder on the server... opens to a folder that shows all of my file storage options both on the network and on my local computer. DVD-drive on local desktop computer CD-drive on local desktop computer list of every faculty s storage folder on the server Compare to the jbaring stuff folder on a laptop computer: Documents creating, saving, printing hard-drive on laptop computer CD-drive on laptop computer storage folder on the server list of every faculty s storage folder on the server Creating files In the Virtual Desktop environment, you can create and edit files in: Microsoft Photo Editor NJ Star Chinese Word Processing (faculty and students enrolled in an NMH Chinese Language course) Geometer s Sketchpad Graphical Analysis Grade Quick (faculty) Microsoft Access, Excel, Front Page, PowerPoint, Word SWIS To start a program that doesn t have a desktop shortcut, choose Start > Programs for a complete list of those available.

3 Editing files If you want to revise a file, choose the File > Open command in your program of choice. The program will automatically offer you the documents in your My Documents server file. You can also open documents on your local hard drive by choosing the Client icon that designates your local hard drive (see Your Stuff above) and navigating to them. Saving files Use the programs available in the Virtual Desktop environment just as you would a program running on your local computer. When you save new work or use the File > Save As command, the program may automatically offer to save it to your My Documents folder on the server. You can also save to your local computer by choosing the Client icon that designates your hard drive see Your Stuff above and navigating to the folder you want to save the document in. You cannot save your work to your Virtual Desktop because to do so would use too much program-running server space (as opposed to file-saving server space) and make your Virtual Desktop run much more slowly. See the section below on Toolbars for a way to make your files available on your desktop nonetheless. Printing Before you can print on a network printer in the Virtual Desktop environment, you have to connect to it. At the Virtual Desktop, click on Start > Teacher Printers A Find Printer window appears. There should be a list of all the printers on the network at the bottom but if not, choose the Browse button and they will appear.

4 Find the printer you want to use. (Note they have new, logical names.) Right click on its name and choose Connect. That s it you re ready to print on that printer! If you want to add another printer, repeat the above step. Click on the X button to close the Find Printer window when you re done. After you have added printers, you can print as usual by choosing File > Print in whatever program you re using. Copying Files From time to time when you re off-campus, you ll want to copy files from your local hard drive to the server. This used to be impossible, but with Virtual Desktop, it s easy. When you re signing in to the Virtual Desktop, make sure to give the server Full Access to your local computer. Open your stuff folder (see above). Click on the Client icon where the files you want to copy are, then navigate through your hard drive s structure until you find the file or folder you want to move to the server. Right click on the file or folder you want to move and choose Send to > My Documents. Because My Documents is your server folder, your file or folder will be copied to it. Toolbars The toolbar feature of Windows 2000 makes it easy to customize your work space. Your Virtual Desktop already comes with one toolbar the My Documents toolbar with the contents of your server folder listed in it. Toolbars are dynamic when you add a folder or file to your My Documents folder, it immediately shows up on the My Documents toolbar on your Virtual Desktop. So, if you like to have documents on your desktop, just save them to the My Documents folder. You will see them on your desktop in the My Documents toolbar. Toolbars give you quick access to files, folders, even web addresses that you use frequently. Making a toolbar You can make toolbars of any folder you can navigate to on the server or your local hard drive. Right-click in an empty part of the Windows bar at the bottom of the Virtual Desktop ( the one with the Start button in it), then choose Toolbars > New Toolbar. right-click here

5 The New Toolbar window appears. Navigate to the folder you d like to have appear on your Virtual Desktop its name will appear in the Folder line and press OK. The new toolbar will appear as part of the Windows toolbar. You can check its contents by clicking the» to the right of its name. new toolbar click for contents grab here Or, you can detach it from the Windows bar and have it float on your desktop by grabbing (click and hold) the vertical line to the left of the name and moving it to a good location on your desktop. new toolbar detached Web Toolbars Using the same commands, you can make a webpage toolbar by writing a webaddress in the bottom of the New Toolbar window. Remember, it will first appear as part of the Windows make sure to type the toolbar, but you can detach it (see above). Keeping a web window open uses lots of internet resources (bandwidth) so use this kind of toolbar sparingly. Clicking on links in the toolbar changes the content of the toolbar window. Unlike your browser, though, the toolbar has no back button. address toolbar Address Toolbar You can create a toolbar in the Windows bar into which you can type web addresses for quick internet access. Just choose Toolbars > Address. When you type an address into this toolbar, your browser starts automatically. This toolbar remembers all of the addresses you ve typed into it until you close it (see below). Closing Toolbars To eliminate a toolbar, click the x in the top right corner. If you want to use this toolbar again, you have to recreate it following the steps outlined above.

6 When you re done Always close the Virtual Desktop by choosing Start > Logoff. This gives the server a chance to save the changes you ve made to your desktop configuration. Jessica Mix Barrington 14 March 2003