09 Using the Recycle Bin This learning module is entitled “Using the Recycle Bin.” This lesson discusses how the Recycle Bin is used for holding deleted files and folders and retrieving file and folder information after they have been deleted. It also discusses how the Recycle Bin affects the amount of available hard drive space on your computer. At some point, the time will come when you’ll want to delete a file or a folder. Now if your computer’s like mine, deleting unnecessary folders and files maybe a weekly task to keep it from getting cluttered. When you delete items, they are temporarily stored in the Recycle Bin. Think of the Recycle Bin as a virtual trashcan that manages your virtual trash. It can be a very handy tool, especially if you accidentally delete something. Let’s make sure we are on the Desktop. Press WINDOWS KEY+M to minimize all applications and put our focus there. Now your focus should be on the Desktop, where you will find the Recycle Bin. I’m going to press the letter R for Recycle Bin. Remember, if you have more than one item on your Desktop that begins with the letter R, you’ll need to press that key repeatedly until you hear “Recycle Bin.” jaws says: R. Recycle Bin. I’m going to open the Recycle Bin by pressing the ENTER key. jaws says: ENTER. Recycle Bin. List view not selected. JAWS announced a lot of useful information. First, JAWS read the title of the program, which is Recycle Bin. Second, the type of window control, a list view, was announced. We were next told the name of the unselected item in that list view, and the total number of items in that view. Finally, since Tutor Mode is still active, we were advised how to move around in this view. The Recycle Bin window has a title bar, a menu bar, and a status bar. The primary control in which you navigate in the Recycle Bin is the list view. If you need to refresh your memory on how to navigate in a list view, use the JAWS key command for screen sensitive help, INSERT + F1. Feel free to take a moment and stop the tape and listen to the information this keystroke will give you. Just for review, this help message will pop up on the screen, you can read it as you would a regular document with your arrow keys, previous and next word keystrokes, and copy and select text from this message to paste into other word processor files. Remember to press ESCAPE to close the screen sensitive help window and go back to the list view in the Recycle Bin. I’ll press INSERT+F1 now. jaws says: … The Recycle Bin occupies an adjustable amount of storage space on your computer. Therefore, you will not find every item you ever deleted here. Typically, ten percent of your drive space is reserved for the Recycle Bin. The Recycle Bin manages this space by operating on a first-in first-out basis. Once items are deleted from the Recycle Bin, they are permanently deleted and cannot be retrieved. If I wanted to delete a folder from the Recycle Bin, I could simply press the SPACEBAR to select this item, then I could use the DELETE key to delete it from the Recycle Bin. Because this is a list view, I could select specific groups of items to delete by selecting either a contiguous or non-contiguous group. You also have the option to delete all the contents at once. I will show you how to do this later in this lesson. You may recall, in the Windows Explorer lesson, I deleted a folder called “Text Manuals.” I’m going to press the letter T to move to the Text Manuals folder. T. Text Manuals. I can cut or copy this folder and paste it on my Desktop within the Windows Explorer program. I can also perform a right mouse click and open its context menu. A context menu is a specific menu for selected items. I’m going to restore this folder to its original location and this choice is found in the context menu. We will talk about two ways to open the context menu. First, you can use the Applications Key, discussed earlier, to open this menu. Remember that the Applications Key is the third key to the right of your spacebar on your typing keyboard. Applications context menu. To move through items, press UP or DOWN ARROW. Restore, E. JAWS announced context menu and the first menu item is the restore option. Before I explore this menu further, I want to show you a second technique to open a context menu. Press escape to clear the context menu from your screen. Now press shift + f10. jaws says… JAWS announced context menu and the first menu item is the restore option. Before I explore this menu further, I want to show you a third technique to open a context menu using the mouse. Let’s press the Escape key now to leave this menu. ESCAPE. Leaving menus. Text Manuals. My application focus, which is tracked by the PC Cursor, is back in the list view. By routing my JAWS Cursor or the mouse pointer to my PC Cursor, I can do a right mouse click and open the same context menu. I’m going to route my JAWS Cursor to my PC Cursor by pressing the JAWS keyboard command, INSERT+NUM PAD MINUS. Route JAWS to PC. Now the mouse pointer is focused on the Text Manual folder. Performing a right mouse click will open the context menu. I’m going to press the right mouse button, which is the ASTERISK key on the numeric keypad. The asterisk key is the third key from the right in the top row of the num pad. Right mouse button. Context menu. To move through items, press UP or DOWN ARROW. Restore, E. JAWS announced that I again opened the context menu and my focus is on the first menu choice, which is restore. I’m going to explore this context menu by pressing DOWN ARROW. Cut, T. And JAWS said, “Cut, T.” Selecting this item would remove the Text Manuals folder from the Recycle Bin and temporarily place it on the clipboard. I’m going to press the DOWN ARROW key to move to the next menu item. Delete, D. JAWS spoke, “Delete, D.” If I select this item, the Text Manual folder will permanently be removed from the Recycle Bin. I’m going to press DOWN ARROW one more time. Properties, R. JAWS announced, “Properties, R.” If I select this item, the computer would display important information about this selected item, such as the type of file, size, and the date it was created and deleted. I want to restore this file to its original location. I’m going to press my DOWN ARROW key once to return to the restore option. Restore, E. You want to be careful when restoring a selected group of files and folders. If there is another file on your computer containing the same name as the file you wish to restore, the computer will stop you, and ask whether you want to replace it. If the computer does not find a duplicate, it will simply restore the file to its original location and the focus will return to the list view. I’m going to press ENTER to restore the Text Manual folder. ENTER. Leaving menus. Text Manuals. My focus has returned to the list view. There was no other folder called Text Manuals so the computer simply restored it. I can empty the entire contents of my Recycle Bin all at once. When you do this, remember there’s no way of retrieving those items because the Recycle Bin is the last stop for these items before they are permanently deleted from your computer. The menu choice to empty the Recycle Bin is located in the file menu. I’m going to open the file menu by pressing the key combination of ALT+F, as in file. ALT F. Menu active. Empty Recycle Bin. To move through items, press UP or DOWN ARROW. B. JAWS announced the first menu choice, which is, “Empty the Recycle Bin.” If I press ENTER or B now, the entire contents of my Recycle Bin will be deleted. A safety feature has been written into this program, because the computer will stop you to confirm your deletions. Depending on what items are in your Recycle Bin, such as system, hidden, or read-only files or programs, the computer will stop you and verify that you do actually want to delete those items. If you don’t want to delete those items, tab to the “no” button when you get that message and press ENTER. I’m going to empty the Recycle Bin now by pressing the ENTER key. ENTER. Leaving Menus. Confirm multiple file delete dialog. Are you sure you want to delete these eleven items. Yes button. To activate, press the SPACEBAR. ALT+Y. jaws says… The focus has been placed back in the Recycle Bin window, yet there are no items in the list view because we deleted them. We’re finished working in the Recycle Bin, so I’d like to exit the program. To close the Recycle Bin window, I can press ALT+F4 now. My focus has returned to the Desktop and the Recycle Bin is still selected. You can adjust the settings for the Recycle Bin, such as the amount of storage space and other options by opening the Recycle Bin properties dialog. To open the properties dialog, I can press the windows key combination ALT+ENTER now. jaws says: ALT ENTER. Recycle Bin properties dialog... In this group of radio buttons, the “use one setting for all drives” is checked. This group of radio buttons allows me to either assign storage space for each drive on my computer, or globally assign the same percentage for all my drives. The “use one setting for all drives” is checked. I’m going to press the TAB key to move to the next control in this dialog. jaws says: TAB. Do not move files to the Recycle Bin period. Remove files immediately when deleted check box not checked. To check, press SPACEBAR. ALT+R. This check box is not checked. Checking this option would bypass the Recycle Bin every time an item is deleted. I’m going to leave this unchecked because having the opportunity to retrieve items from the Recycle Bin is a nice safety feature, just in case something is accidentally deleted. I’m going to press TAB to move to the next control. TAB. Maximum size of Recycle Bin left paren percent of each drive right paren. LEFT right slider. Ten percent. To decrease or increase, use the arrow keys. ALT+M. This control allows us to adjust the percentage of drive space the Recycle Bin occupies. The default is ten percent. If I wanted to adjust this percentage, I would operate this slider by pressing the right arrow to increase the percentage or the left arrow to decrease the percentage. Once again, to get help on how to handle a control in Windows, use the JAWS keystroke INSERT+F1. I’m not going to make any changes here and I’m going to press TAB to move to the next control. jaws says: TAB. Display delete confirmation dialog box. Check box checked. To clear checkmark, press SPACEBAR. ALT+D. The display delete confirmation dialog box is checked by default. If you choose to turn off this feature by unchecking this check box, you would not receive the delete warning dialog. I’m definitely going to keep this check box checked because I want that warning message. I’m going to press TAB again to move to the next control. jaws says: TAB. Okay button. To activate, press SPACEBAR. We landed on the okay button, but since I didn’t make any changes in this dialog, I’m going to press the ESCAPE key. jaws says: ESCAPE. Desktop. List view. Recycle Bin. Five of thirteen. To move to items, use the arrow keys. This ends our discussion of the Windows Recycle Bin. In our next lesson we will guide you through using the Windows FIND command.