So, you have a document already open and you’d like to use the same file in another program. For example, you have an image open in Preview and would like to insert into a email message as attachment.
The usual way would be, to locate it in Finder and drag it onto the composing window or use the Attach button in Mail (even slower).
Away with that - proxy icons come to rescue you.
Quick Look is great - click a file in Finder and press the space bar and you’ll see a preview of the file - without having to open any application.
To quickly open a file, that you’re previewing, double click anywhere on it’s Quick Look window and the file will open in its application. Just as you would double click it in Finder.
This will close the Quick Look window and open the file in its assigned application.
This makes up a nice workflow…
Do you remember those old days, when you had a dictionary and a thesaurus on your shelf, waiting for you to grab them and look up stuff. Then the internet came along and Wikipedia did all that away. Now correct writing as well as looking up meanings is a matter of using a search engine.
Don’t get me wrong, Wikipedia is great but there is a real dictionary that is at your hand, right there on your Mac. What about a quick look at a word? What about a quick substitution for that word, in order not to use it again in two straight sentences?
Meet Dictionary - Mac OS X’s dictionary application. It includes a thesaurus, a special Apple-related dictionary and it can even look up stuff on wikipedia (directly from the application itself - without the website).
Everybody uses Finder, the file browsing application of Mac OS X, a lot. Let’s look at some handy shortcuts to speed navigation up a little.
Previously we looked at how we can find menu items only by their name with the help of the search feature of the Help menu item, available in every application.
Today we will find out how we can use a feature of Butler to imitate us, pressing keys on the keyboard. Doing so, will allow us to open menu items that you can’t create a shortcut for, using the built-in methods of creating keyboard shortcuts, described in this post.
Previously we looked at all the information Mac OS X provides us in the Get Info window.
As you might have found out, if you have multiple items (files and/or folders) selected, Get Info will open up a separate information window for every item selected. Look at this post on selecting items in Mac OS X.
While it might be handy to have an information window for every item (for side-by-side comparison) it can be a pain in the neck if you want to find out congregated information such as total file size of all items.
In programs with a lot of functions in the menus (e.g. Adobe Photoshop) the menus can get pretty big. Even though you know what you’re looking for it can be quite a task to actually find what you’re looking for.
Well… no more thanks to a new feature of Leopard.
Mac OS X does a great job of providing you with information on the files on your hard drive. Today we will look at how to show all kind of information on your files.
Opening a file in Finder is pretty simple…if you know, how to do it. Especially switchers try to use the enter/return key. But this will only let you rename the file, instead of opening it.
While in Finder, press either command-down arrow or command-O. Both keyboard shortcuts work equally well, use the one that is more comfortable to you.
Command-down arrow will also open folders, so you can drill down a folder structure, using this keyboard shortcut. Command-up arrow will let you go to the parent directory of the current file or folder.
Take a look at this post, to review the special keys on your Mac keyboard.
If you want to shut down or restart your Mac the confirmation dialog can be quite nagging. As you bring up the Apple menu, hold down the alt/option key.
This will shut down your Mac as you click on the menu item. Note, that the three dots after disappear as you press alt/option, indicating that it’s a direct command (i.e. no dialog is following when picking this menu item).