Most of CDU works automatically. Some features of CDU can be accessed through the CDU menu and others are adjusted using the QuickConfigure and Fine-Tune Control Panels. These are all discussed below.
Some of the automatic features are readily seen. For example, every entry in the menu bar has an underlined letter. Press Control-Shift followed by one of these letters to select a menu. (Use “A” for the Apple menu.) You can navigate through any menu or any dialog box this way.
The CDU display next to the Balloon Help icon shows the amount of free space on your hard drive.
Some other features are automatic but not immediately visible. For example, the screen dimmer automatically starts protecting your monitor after thirty minutes of system inactivity.
CDU Menu
Click on the CDU display at the right side of the menu bar to show the CDU Menu. Select Hot Key Summary to see all of the currently defined key combinations. For example, typing Shift-Command-Option-L immediately dims the screen.
Select Configure CDU to get the CDU control panel, described in the next section. The control panel allows you to adjust all of CDU’s settings. When the CDU control panel is in the Fine-Tune mode, you can choose a panel directly from the Panels submenu under Configure CDU. There is no submenu when the CDU control panel is in the QuickConfigure mode.
 
Select Color Scheme and choose one of the submenu items (like Spring) to alter the colorization of the entire desktop. You can return to the standard setup at any time by selecting Normal.
Select Sound Level to adjust the Mac speaker volume and Monitor to adjust the color depth of the monitor. Choosing more colors will make your screen look nicer, but will also make your Mac run slightly slower than if it were running in black and white.
Select Printer to switch between multiple printers on a network and/or to switch ports for serial printers.
To enable or disable File Sharing, choose Turn File Sharing On or Turn File Sharing Off. Using this menu item is the same as selecting the standard Apple Sharing Setup control panel and pressing Start or Stop under File Sharing, but saves you the time in doing it.
Control Panels
There are two control modes in CDU, QuickConfigure and Fine-Tune. QuickConfigure provides a simple summary screen to configure CDU’s most important features. Fine-Tune allows you to make more extensive adjustments. When you are using either control mode you can move to the other by clicking the Fine-Tune button (the hat with the propeller) in the lower left corner of the panel.
To open the control panel, select Configure CDU from the CDU menu. If you close the control panel while you are in Fine-Tune mode, the Configure CDU line in the CDU menu will be hierarchical, so you can return directly to any one of the individual Fine-Tune subpanels.
You can also open the control panel by double clicking the CDU control panel inside the Control Panels folder in your System Folder.
QuickConfigure
QuickConfigure Check Boxes
Use the check boxes to enable and disable CDU’s features. To enable a feature, click the check box so it is checked. To disable a feature, click the check box so it is unchecked. To enable or disable a feature in all the Sets, change it in one set first. Then press command-option while clicking in the box again to “punch through” this setting to all the sets. This technique will work for all the adjustable parameters in the control panels.
 
The Screen Dimmer Slider
The Screen Dimmer Slider in the CDU’s QuickConfigure mode adjusts the time it takes before the screen dimmer activates. You can slide the slide bar, or click on the numbers to the right of the bar and type in new values.
Security
To enable Security, type your password into the New Password and Verify fields. When you start up your Macintosh, you will be asked to enter your password.
The message (“Tag”) and address information you entered when you installed CDU will also be displayed. To change the message, choose Configure User from the User pop-up menu.
Fine-Tune Mode Button
To fine-tune CDU’s features, press the Fine-Tune mode button in the lower left corner of the control panel. In the Fine-Tune mode, the left side of the control panel is a scrolling list of icons. To adjust a setting, click on the appropriate icon on the left; the panel on the right will display the controls for that feature.
To return to the QuickConfigure mode, press the Fine-Tune mode button again. The Fine-Tune mode is discussed in the next section.
Hot Keys Summary Button
To display a list of all the hot keys and their actions, click the Hot Key Summary button to the right of the Fine-Tune mode button. This button is always available whether in the QuickConfigure or Fine-Tune mode.
User and Set Pop-up Menus
Sets store all of the adjustable settings of CDU in easily selected groups. Click on the Sets pop-up button to switch Sets. This pop-up also gives you selections that allow you to create a new Set, copy (clone) a Set, or remove a Set. The User pop-up works in the same manner.
Fine-Tune
The Fine-Tune Control Panel lets you adjust all of the parameters of CDU.
To open the Fine-Tune Control Panel, select Configure CDU from the CDU menu by clicking on the CDU Display in the menu bar. If the Quick-Configure Control Panel appears, click on the Fine-Tune button in the lower left corner of the panel. You can return to QuickConfigure by clicking on the button again.
When you close either Control Panel, CDU remembers the mode you last used and will open to this the next time you select Configure CDU from the CDU menu. Moreover, if you left CDU in Fine-Tune mode, Configure CDU will be a hierarchical menu, allowing direct access to all of the panels in the Fine-Tune Control Panel.
As the CDU control panel opens, the window on the left has a double border and contains eight visible icons (and four more icons can be seen by scrolling down using the scroll bar). Click on each of the icons in the left hand panel and the large right-hand window changes. You can move among the icons using the keyboard arrow keys or clicking-and-dragging the cursor around with the mouse.
The panel on the right displays the controls associated with the selected icon. Use the Tab key to cycle through all of the adjustable items for each icon and to jump from window to window.
To enable or disable any individual feature, click inside the slide switch icon in the upper right corner on the right side: beside Off to disable a feature, beside On to enable it. This has the same effect as selecting or deselecting the check boxes on the left edge of the QuickConfigure panel.
