Menu

The menu bar at the top of the screen lets you perform, among others, the following functions:

Get information about your computer
Hide and unhide windows
Launch applications
Shut down your computer
Search in application menus
Search for documents and folders on your computer
Open folders at certain paths
Perform calculations
See date and time

Getting computer information

Select “About This Computer” from the “System” menu.

Managing windows

Select “Hide all” to minimize all windows to the Dock.

Select “Unhide all” to get all windows back on screen.

Launching applications

Select an application from “Applications”, “Utilities”, or “Preferences” in the “Applications” menu.

A quicker way to launch an application is to press Alt+Space, enter a few characters of the application name, select one of the matches from the list, and press the Enter key.

Shutting down

To shut down your computer, select “Log Out” from the “System” menu, then click “Shut Down”. You can also choose “Restart” if you want to restart your computer, or “Log Out” if you would like to log out of the current graphical session.

Searching in application menus

Click on “Search” in the menu bar, or press Command+Space. Then enter a few characters of the menu entry you would like to execute, select one of the matches from the list, and press the Enter key.

Searching for documents and folders on your computer

Click on “Search” in the menu bar, or press Command+Space. Then enter a few characters of the document or folder name, select one of the matches from the list, and press the Enter key.

Opening folders at certain paths

Click on “Search” in the menu bar, or press Command+Space. Then enter / or ~ followed by a folder name, select one of the matches from the list, and press the Enter key.

Performing calculations

Starting with helloSystem 0.8.2, you can perform calculations using the Menu. Click on “Search” in the menu bar, or press Command+Space. Then enter a mathematical statement like 2+2 or sqrt(2). The result of the calculation will be shown in the menu. See these examples for the type of calculations that can be performed.

Date and time

Date and time in your current timezone are displayed at the right hand side of the menu bar.