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- dev0kan, on 11/20/2007, -2/+94Article contents:
It’s been almost a month since Leopard was officially released, and in that month we’ve had some time to play with the OS and get to know it. Here are the Top 15 Leopard Hints we’ve come across this past month (in no particular order).
Collect all windows in one Space
When you are in the birds-eye view of Spaces (F8 by default) press the ‘C’ button to collect all open windows into a single space with a nice effect. And if you hold down shift when you hit the ‘C’ key, it will happen in slow motion.
Zoom PDFs and Images in Quick Look
If you are browsing PDFs or images in Quick look mode, there is a fast and easy way to zoom in. Simply option-click the window and it will zoom in, and shift-option click and it will zoom out. Alternatively, you can hit Cmd = to zoom in, or Cmd - to zoom out.
Enable the Path Bar in the Finder
Go to the view menu in the Finder and click View Path Bar to see the hierarchy of where your file is. You can also control-click or right-click on any of the folders in the path bar, and perform actions on them.
Quickly send a window to a Space
Leopard supports “bumping” your windows to other Spaces. Simply drag your window to the edge of your screen, and wait a second. The window will fly over to the adjacent space.
Address Book Effects
Now Address Book has the ability to add effects much like Photobooth. Simply click the edit button for one of your contacts, click the pictures, and then click the little “swirl” style button. This allows you to apply many different effects to your photos.
Quickly access System Profiler
When diagnosing someone’s mac, you want to get to System Profiler as fast as you can. A little shortcut is to hold down the “option” key on the keyboard while pressing the Apple in the menu bar. The ‘About This Mac’ will turn to ‘System Profiler...”.
Add a ‘recent things’ stack to the Dock
You can add a recent applications or documents stack to your dock very easily. Just pop open terminal and enter:
defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’
Then simply do a KillAll Dock command to reset your Dock, and your new stack will be there. Right-click it to set what you want it to have recent-things of.
Auto Remove Printer after Print
One of my pet peeves with Leopard is that the Printer will not automatically quit after it prints. Well, all you have to do is right click on the printer icon in the dock, and hit the “Auto-Quit” option. This will automatically quit the printer after a print job is complete.
Disable Spotlight from the menu bar
If you want to get rid of Spotlight from the menu bar, simply open terminal and run:
sudo chmod 0 /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app
To re-enable it you just have to run:
sudo chmod 755 /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app
Permanently Delete files from Time Machine Backups
While navigating Time Machine, go to the present view, and click the little gear icon in the toolbar of the Finder while you have the file you want to delete selected. Simply click the option to Delete all Time Machine backups of this file, and the file will be gone forever.
Quickly enable or disable sharing for a folder
If you want to quickly share a particular folder with someone on your local network, click the folder, and hit Cmd-I to bring up the “Get Info” window. From there, simply checkmark the “Share Folder” button, and others will be able to access it over the network.
Unlearn words from the Dictionary
Words that you have added to the system dictionary such as “Yurechko” can be unlearned easily in Leopard. All you have to do is right-click on the word that you want to unlearn, and click the unlearn button. This only works in some applications.
Use Expanded print Dialog by default
Leopard comes with a very handy expanded Print View which allows you to see previews of what you are printing (very handy for printing websites), however, you always have to click the little arrow button to view it. It you want this expanded view to be the default, simply open Terminal and run:
defaults write -g PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE
If you want to set it for all users, run:
defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE
Switch to lowercase labels in the Finder’s sidebar
Many people don’t like the capital letters in the Finder sidebar. In order to change these to lowercase, navigate to
/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/
Duplicate the LocalizableCore.strings file for backup, and then edit lines 50 to 53 to make them lowercase.
“SD5" = “Devices”;
“SD6” = “Shared”;
“SD7” = “Search for”;
“SD8” = “Places”;
Save the file and the open the Terminal and type: ‘killall Finder’
See detailed Airport information
Leopard’s wifi capabilities have been dramatically improved. Now, it is even easier to get more information about the access point you are connected to. By option-clicking on the wifi menu bar item, you can see the MAC address, channel, signal strength (RSSI), and even the transmit rate. very handy for mobile users. - iNunchuk, on 11/20/2007, -3/+20Forget Leopard hints, here's a universal hint - do not submit stories to digg that have been powered by wordpress, or have ***** servers.
- philo23, on 11/20/2007, -1/+14wow, already down for the count..
- jamie06260, on 11/20/2007, -4/+16Hint #16... diggproof your site.
- vault, on 11/20/2007, -2/+14Path Bar is pretty handy...can't believe I never noticed that's an option.
- Sairynn, on 11/20/2007, -0/+6On a Macbook Pro F8, F9, and F10 control the keyboard backlight.
- swingerbone, on 11/20/2007, -0/+5In the Keyboard and Mouse Preference Pane you can select the checkbox under Keyboard that uses the Function keys as standard Function keys so the keyboard backlight, volume and brightness features require the fn key to be pressed and the Expose and Spaces keys work without the fn key.
- Rupan, on 11/20/2007, -0/+5Love the hierarchy view in finder it was the one thing that always pissed me off. Not as good as explorer but much much better than not.
- topher2889, on 11/20/2007, -1/+6on a macbook F8 by itself is the spaces shortcut
- captainchris, on 11/20/2007, -0/+4hint 16: turn off your imac's screen quickly using exposé. in system preferences, select exposé then choose a screen corner to 'sleep display'.
- ivanomak, on 11/20/2007, -0/+4Another hint - if you want to use time machine to its full capability and FileVault is on, disable FileVault before installing Leopard. If your home folder is encrypted, Time Machine will not be backing it up.
- ElectroBot, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3Does anyone know how to disable Thumbnails in Finder.
They're starting to drive me nuts. I've got quite a few movies/tv shows/clips and whenever I move them to a new folder, or restart my MacBook, or reconnect to a network share with them, they have to be recreated. Besides, if I try to edit any file name in the folder where the thumbnails are being generated, Finder decides to steal focus after it creates every thumbnail. Its damn annoying and I prefer not having thumbnails so I know whether I have video files or images (for instance) just by looking at the icon (Quicktime or JPG). - SweetChinMusic, on 11/20/2007, -3/+6Oh my God it's down already.
- M4cb0y, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3"The remaining files should be aptly named and can be located in the Library, particularly /Library/Application Support/, /Library/Caches/, and /Library/Preferences/. Some applications (ie. Thunderbird) will create their own database files in /Library/ itself."
Yes, and AppZapper just automates that.. It doesn't make any "system modifications," it just removes all the extraneous files that an app left behind..
From their website, "Applications install preferences, caches, and other support files throughout your computer that take up space and generate clutter. Deleting these by hand every time you delete an app is a pain."
Hmm.. that sounds like _exactly_ what you just said can be removed. I don't know how you got the impression that AppZapper is somehow a "scam" ..
Here's what came up when I tried to "zap" iTunes: http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/4328/picture8cx1. ...
Looks fine to me.. I don't see how that would break anything.
Oh, and here's X11:
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/5526/picture11t ...
Could you explain to me how removing those files would do "more harm than good"? - themuffinman, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3How is that not useful?
- jvq1958, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3Same as windows as it turns out. Slight amplification on windingeagle's comment - Select the file or group of files you want to copy, command "c: to copy, cursor in the window you want the files, command "v" to paste.
- harmonyx, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3That's pretty simple.
Go to the view menu, select Show View Options (or just pressed CMD-J)
click on the checkmark beside show icon preview to turn the thumbnails off. - jasonpoon, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2The "Recent Items Stack" is great. Although I can't use the beautiful stack drawer icon with this kind of stack...
Anyway, can I increase the number of items inside? Like 15 recent items instead of 10 only. - OutlawSamurai, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2Actually, it's just "F8". If a key has another behavior (like keyboard backlight off), then that's the key's normal property, and it requires the Function (Fn) key to be pressed in order to actually get Function 8. So, just saying "F8" without saying "Fn" is valid; this is how it is for keyboard shortcut documentation.
- stephdau, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2The option-click on the airport menu for extended info is the golden nugget for me.
A friend of mine used to say: "command and/or option click on all menus at least once in all apps, and you shall find enlightenment". Right he was. - Windingeagle, on 11/20/2007, -1/+3You simply hit the apple key and "x" to cut "c" to copy and "v" to paste.
- davedelong, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2Hold down control and then flick your mouse's scroll wheel, and your entire screen will zoom in and out. It's very very useful for individual pixel manipulation but you don't want to find the control to zoom the picture.
- Rupan, on 11/20/2007, -2/+4Have you tried AppZapper? It is the "Uninstaller Apple forgot in OS X" removes all traces of an app.
- hypermite, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2in System Preferences > Appearance, you can set the number of recent applications to 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 50. This affects both the Apple Menu > Recent Items menu and the stack in your dock.
- theutopian, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2I remapped the keyboard and made, I think, F11 the spaces key because it wasn't being used by anything.
- inactive, on 11/20/2007, -1/+2It's spelled "you're": you + are = you're.
- inactive, on 11/20/2007, -1/+2Yes, because a truly "elegant" and "innovative" and "user-friendly" UI relies on hidden, secret menus and controls that aren't marked as such on the screen.
- AndrewWiggin, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1I wanted to do the recent files in the dock trick, but it didn't work for me. I typed the whole thing in and double checked it, then used KillAll Dock and it restarted the dock and nothing happened. Anyone figure this out?
- inactive, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1What are you talking about? The treeview mode has always been there. It is the best option; and yes it sucks compared to Explorer.
But finally, after all these years, they let you put the goddamned PATH on the screen (but turned off by default, of course). - inactive, on 11/21/2007, -0/+1Well, duh... The first thing I tried was to reinstall X11 off the Leopard DVD, which said it was already installed and refused to do anything. The second thing was to format the drive.
- marquezda333, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1The site is under maintenance :(
- RiotOfWords, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1I did the same
- supermanred, on 11/21/2007, -0/+1Thanks, some great info there. I have to say that the manually adding the "recent things" icon to the dock is buggy, which is probably why Apple left it out for now. I find if you switch it to the wrong thing it can lock up the dock, sometimes killing the dock or relaunching it will work other times you need a full (gulp!) reboot. I'll stay away from that one, going for a record uptime here!
Thanks again, the zoom in preview (quick look) is what I wanted and couldnt figure it out on my own. They should add zoom icons.... - MonkeyFarts, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1The lower case in the Finder sidebar is one that I found on my own a little while ago (which was a pretty painstaking task), and I used the following from Mac OSX Hints to do the same in iTunes:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060 ...
Overall it looks *way* better to me than all capitals does, but this leaves three capitalized sidebars left: the sidebar in Mail.app, the sidebar in the bookmarks view of Safari, and the sidebar in the open/save dialogues. Does anybody know how I can modify these sidebars to make them lowercase as well? I can't for the life of me find the files that need to be edited. - mk2ja, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1I don't think thats quite what the author was referring to. I think he meant that, if you can't read the text in a PDF, then you should Option+Click and it'll zoom in, just like clicking Zoom In while viewing the PDF in Preview.
Of course, the special zoom trick isn't working for me, so I really can't say from experience. Not sure what the problem is. - inactive, on 11/20/2007, -2/+2Top 1 hint for me, set up Time Machine immediately after installing. I've had nothing but problems with Leopard so far, particularly where apps just stop working, and there's no way to fix it other than reinstalling the entire system (or restoring from a backup). In particular, iTunes and X11 don't allow you to reinstall when they get damaged somehow, because they just say it's already on your system, and there's no repair option.
- bigmc, on 11/21/2007, -0/+0Recent stack is not working for me. I am getting following error.
-bash: syntax error near unexpected token `}'
_____________________________
Add a ‘recent things’ stack to the Dock
You can add a recent applications or documents stack to your dock very easily. Just pop open terminal and enter:
defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’ - razmech, on 11/20/2007, -1/+1In Tiger, you can change the number of recent items that are preserved by going to "Appearance" in System Preferences. I'm not sure if it's the same on Leopard and even if it is, it is for the recent items in the apple menu and I only assume that it would also effect this "Recent Items Stack" trick
- theWrkncacnter, on 11/20/2007, -3/+2Dugg for using the Terminal
- inactive, on 11/20/2007, -2/+1"Zoom PDFs and Images in Quick Look" == You can simply tap the SPACE BAR to /zoom in/ and tap again to /zoom out/. Fast!
- everythingmacs, on 11/20/2007, -2/+0What is everyones opinion of Leopard so far. I want to upgrade soon, not that I won't but what does everyone think? Is it as good as we thought it was going to be? http://www.everything-macs.com
- HerrEisenheim, on 11/20/2007, -5/+2You should never use AppZapper. OS X does not need an uninstaller for most apps. If applications follow the Apple HIG, then there is no need for an uninstaller. Simply trash the app file. The remaining files should be aptly named and can be located in the Library, particularly /Library/Application Support/, /Library/Caches/, and /Library/Preferences/. Some applications (ie. Thunderbird) will create their own database files in /Library/ itself. None of these files *need* really to be removed. Sometimes you may have to delete a .plist file from /Library/Preferences/ to restore the application to defaults, but that's about it. Applications which make system modifications almost always have uninstallers. In these cases, using something like AppZapper can cause more harm than good.
iTunes and X11 can be reinstalled using the Leopard DVD if they need to be. You should not attempt to remove these kinds of things with AppZapper.
The program is more or less a scam to prey on those who have moved to Windows and think they "need" an uninstaller because they don't realize that the entire application is contained in the .app file. - thosemoose, on 04/17/2008, -6/+1link's dead.
- ispshadow, on 11/20/2007, -6/+1Can someone give me the hint for using Cut/Paste for files like in EVERY other major operating system?
I have Leopard installed and I think it's great. But seriously, why should I drag everything? If I have a whole section of mp3s I want to cut and then drop in another folder, I have to drag them? This is absolutely insane to me. - websyndicate, on 11/20/2007, -8/+1That was a quick we need a mirror
- RoamShell, on 11/20/2007, -8/+1Buried for more than a couple "tips" being disguised as "command line workarounds". I never knew that you couldn't remove spotlight from the menu bar. Weird.
Oh, and buried for a link that is nowhere near digg-resistant (and definitely not immune) - monkx, on 11/20/2007, -10/+2It’s been almost a month since Leopard was officially released, and in that month we’ve had some time to play with the OS and get to know it. Here are the Top 15 Leopard Hints we’ve come across this past month (in no particular order).
Collect all windows in one Space
When you are in the birds-eye view of Spaces (F8 by default) press the ‘C’ button to collect all open windows into a single space with a nice effect. And if you hold down shift when you hit the ‘C’ key, it will happen in slow motion.
Zoom PDFs and Images in Quick Look
If you are browsing PDFs or images in Quick look mode, there is a fast and easy way to zoom in. Simply option-click the window and it will zoom in, and shift-option click and it will zoom out. Alternatively, you can hit Cmd = to zoom in, or Cmd - to zoom out.
Enable the Path Bar in the Finder
Go to the view menu in the Finder and click View Path Bar to see the hierarchy of where your file is. You can also control-click or right-click on any of the folders in the path bar, and perform actions on them.
Quickly send a window to a Space
Leopard supports “bumping” your windows to other Spaces. Simply drag your window to the edge of your screen, and wait a second. The window will fly over to the adjacent space.
Address Book Effects
Now Address Book has the ability to add effects much like Photobooth. Simply click the edit button for one of your contacts, click the pictures, and then click the little “swirl” style button. This allows you to apply many different effects to your photos.
Quickly access System Profiler
When diagnosing someone’s mac, you want to get to System Profiler as fast as you can. A little shortcut is to hold down the “option” key on the keyboard while pressing the Apple in the menu bar. The ‘About This Mac’ will turn to ‘System Profiler...”.
Add a ‘recent things’ stack to the Dock
You can add a recent applications or documents stack to your dock very easily. Just pop open terminal and enter:
defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’
Then simply do a KillAll Dock command to reset your Dock, and your new stack will be there. Right-click it to set what you want it to have recent-things of.
Auto Remove Printer after Print
One of my pet peeves with Leopard is that the Printer will not automatically quit after it prints. Well, all you have to do is right click on the printer icon in the dock, and hit the “Auto-Quit” option. This will automatically quit the printer after a print job is complete.
Disable Spotlight from the menu bar
If you want to get rid of Spotlight from the menu bar, simply open terminal and run:
sudo chmod 0 /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app
To re-enable it you just have to run:
sudo chmod 755 /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app
Permanently Delete files from Time Machine Backups
While navigating Time Machine, go to the present view, and click the little gear icon in the toolbar of the Finder while you have the file you want to delete selected. Simply click the option to Delete all Time Machine backups of this file, and the file will be gone forever.
Quickly enable or disable sharing for a folder
If you want to quickly share a particular folder with someone on your local network, click the folder, and hit Cmd-I to bring up the “Get Info” window. From there, simply checkmark the “Share Folder” button, and others will be able to access it over the network.
Unlearn words from the Dictionary
Words that you have added to the system dictionary such as “Yurechko” can be unlearned easily in Leopard. All you have to do is right-click on the word that you want to unlearn, and click the unlearn button. This only works in some applications.
Use Expanded print Dialog by default
Leopard comes with a very handy expanded Print View which allows you to see previews of what you are printing (very handy for printing websites), however, you always have to click the little arrow button to view it. It you want this expanded view to be the default, simply open Terminal and run:
defaults write -g PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE
If you want to set it for all users, run:
defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE
Switch to lowercase labels in the Finder’s sidebar
Many people don’t like the capital letters in the Finder sidebar. In order to change these to lowercase, navigate to
/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/
Duplicate the LocalizableCore.strings file for backup, and then edit lines 50 to 53 to make them lowercase.
“SD5" = “Devices”;
“SD6” = “Shared”;
“SD7” = “Search for”;
“SD8” = “Places”;
Save the file and the open the Terminal and type: ‘killall Finder’
See detailed Airport information
Leopard’s wifi capabilities have been dramatically improved. Now, it is even easier to get more information about the access point you are connected to. By option-clicking on the wifi menu bar item, you can see the MAC address, channel, signal strength (RSSI), and even the transmit rate. very handy for mobile users. - zaxer, on 11/20/2007, -9/+0"Once in Spaces hitting C and move all opened apps to the same space" is not really useful but It sure is an eyecandy
- clickmyface, on 11/20/2007, -11/+1whoops, coulda been good maybe. http://www.duggmirror.com
- clickmyface, on 11/20/2007, -12/+1whoops, coulda been good maybe. http://www.duggmirror.com ... NOPE, didnt get it in time.
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