MINIMIZING MULTIPLE WINDOWS AT ONCE

MINIMIZING MULTIPLE WINDOWS AT ONCE

If you have three or four open windows and want to minimize them all to the Dock at once, just hold the Option key and double-click on the title bar of any one of them and all open windows go to the Dock. Be careful when you do this because if you have 50 open windows, they’re all headed to the Dock in a hurry and there’s no real undo for this. Worse yet, you’ll eventually have to pull 50 very tiny icons from the Dock one by one. So make sure that’s really what you want to do before you Option-double-click.

OPENING DOCUMENTS BY DRAGGING THEM TO THE DOCK

Remember how back in Mac OS 9, if you have tore the Application menu off and had it floating around your desktop, you could drag-and-drop documents onto an application listed in the menu, and it would endeavor to open them? You can do the same thing now in Mac OS X with the Dock-just drag documents directly to an application in the Dock and if it thinks it might be able to open the document, the icon highlights, basically telling you to “let ‘er rip!”

STOPPING THE ICONS FROM MOVING

In the above tip (drag-and-drop to the Dock), showed how you can drag a document onto an application’s icon in the Dock. Sometimes, maybe trying to add the document to a folder in the Dock. When you do this, the Dock thinks you’re actually trying to add the document to the Dock itself, rather than dropping it on the folder, so it kindly slides the icons out of the way to make room for your document. If this happens to you, just hold the Command Key as you drag and the icons stay put, which enables you to drop the document into a “non-moving” object.

DRAGGING-AND-DROPPING TO THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE

You can use the Dock to open a document in the application of your choice rather than what OS X would open it in normally by default. Let’s say you make a screen capture using the standard Shift-Command-3 shortcut, and the resulting PDF file then appears on your desktop. If you double-click that file, by default, it’s going to open in Preview. As long as your Photoshop is in your Dock, you can drag the PDF screen capture from your desktop and drop it directly on the Photoshop icon in the Dock, and then Photoshop opens the document.

FORCING A DOCUMENT ON AN APP

Sometimes, docked apps don’t want to open your document, even though they may be able to, so you have to coax them to give it a try. For example, let’s say you created a document in WordPerfect for Mac a few years back. If you drag that document to Microsoft Word’s icon in the Dock, chances are it won’t highlight. If that happens, just hold Option-Command, then drag the document’s icon to the Word icon in the Dock, and you can force it to try open that document.

BRINGING HOME LOST SHEEP: FINDING DOCKED ORIGINALS

BRINGING HOME LOST SHEEP: FINDING DOCKED ORIGINALS

So you see the application’s (or document’s) icon in the Dock but you have no earthly idea where the app (or doc) really resides on your hard drive. It’s there somewhere but you really don’t know where and that scares you. To find where the docked application or the document really lives just Control-click on it in the Dock and choose Show in Finder. The window where it lives immediately appears on screen.

STOP THE BOUNCING. I BEG YOU!

When you launch an application, its icon begins to bounce incessantly in the Dock, in a distracting vertical Tigger-like motion until the app is just about open. I love this feature but then I enjoy having my cavities drilled. If you enjoy this animation as much as I do, you can turn it off by going to the Apple menu under Dock and choosing Dock Preferences. When the Dock preference pane appears, turn off the checkbox (it’s open by default) for Animate Opening Applications. Turning this off now can save you thousands in therapy down the road.

FREAKY GENIE EFFECT

There’s a little trick you can pull to make the Genie effect (the little animation that takes place when you minimize a window to the Dock) even freakier (we call it the “freaky genie”). Just hold Shift before you minimize the window and it puts the Genie Effect into a “super slo-mo” mode that looks kinda cool. I say “kinda” because this effect (like the Genie Effect itself) gets old kinda quick, but people who’ve never seen it before dig it. At least at first.

MAKING ONE ACTIVE AND HIDING THE REST

If you want to make just the application you’re working on visible and hide all the other running applications including any open Finder windows just hold Option-Command and then click on the application’s icon in the Dock. This is much faster than choosing your application, going under your application’s menu, and choosing Hide Others.

SNAPPING DOCK SIZES

In a previous tip, I showed how you can resize the Dock by clicking-and-dragging on the divider line, but if you hold the Option key first and then start dragging, the Dock “snaps” to some preset sizes. Who chose these preset sizes? Probably Apple’s software engineers but some feel the presets were secretly designated by high-ranking governments officials in yet another attempt to exert more “Big –Brotherly” control over our otherwise mundane lives. Personally, I tend to think it was Apple, but hey, that’s just me.

FORCE QUITTING FROM THE DOCK

FORCE QUITTING FROM THE DOCK

If you’re running an application in Mac OS X and for some reason, it locks up or crashes, you can easily force quit the application by Control-clicking on its icon in the Dock, and a pop-up menu appears. Press the Option key, and you see the menu item called Quit change to Force Quit. Click that and it force quits the application. Also, if you’re a longtime Mac user, you might be afraid to force quit an application because back in Mac OS 9, force quitting was an absolute last resort in hopes of saving an open document. If you were lucky enough to get force quit to work without locking up the machine (believe me it was luck force quitting in Mac OS 9 and earlier usually brought the whole machine down), all you could really do was restart anyway but at least you got to save your document. Mac OS X is designed to let you force quit then continue to work, so don’t be hesitant to use this feature.

GETTING RID OF EXTRA WINDOWS WHILE YOU WORK

If you have a few Finder windows open, they can be really distracting when you’re working in another application-you always see them floating around in the background. Well, you can hide all those messy windows without ever leaving your current application, Just Control-click on the Finder icon in the Dock and choose Hide from the pop-up menu. All those windows are instantly hidden from view. Want to hide everything but those windows? Control-Option-click on the Finder icon and choose Hide Others.

WHY SOME ICONS WON’T LEAVE THE DOCK

A couple of icons live in the Dock and Apple thinks that’s exactly where they belong, so they won’t let you pull them out of the Dock. Apple figures you’re always going to need the Finder (and the Trash) and they won’t let you remove the icon of any application that is currently running (after all, if they did let you remove the icon, how would you get back to the application? It would just run forever, kind of like a Flying Dutchman). So in short, don’t waste your time trying to drag those puppies from the Dock-they’re stuck there (for your protection).

CLOSING A FINDER WINDOW IN THE DOCK

If you’ve minimized a Finder window to the Dock, you can actually close that window without having to maximize it first (saving untold time and keystrokes). Just click-and-hold on the minimized Finder window in the Dock, and choose Close from the pop-up menu. That’s it-it’s closed, just as if you had maximized it and clicked on the red Close button.

KEEPING A RUNNING APP IN THE DOCK AFTER YOU QUIT

KEEPING A RUNNING APP IN THE DOCK AFTER YOU QUIT

If you’re running an application and you say to yourself, “You know, I use this app a lot,” you can keep its icon in the Dock so next time, it’s just one click away. Just Control-click on the app’s icon in the Dock and choose Keep In Dock. Of course, there is another way. A cooler way. An “I don’t need no stinkin’ pop-up menu” way. Just click on the running application’s icon, drag it away from the Dock, pause a second, and then drag it right back. It’s really no faster, but it makes you look less pop-up menu codependent.

UNLOADING THE DOCK

If you have a few apps running and you like to keep things uncluttered and organized by minimizing document windows on the Dock, it doesn’t take long before your Dock gets pretty crowded. If that’s the case, here’s a tip that might help you bring some welcome space and order back to your Dock: When you’re switching from one application to the next, hold the Option key before you click on the new applications’ icon in the Dock. This hides all the Dock icons for minimized windows from the application you just left, and helps unclutter the Dock. When you switch back to that application later, its minimized windows reappear in the Dock.

GETTING RIGHT TO THE FILE YOU WANT

If you’ve parked a folder full of files in the Dock, you don’t have to open the folder to get to a particular file. Instead, just click-and-hold on the folder for a moment, and a pop-up list of all the files in that folder appear (that’s not the trick). Once that menu opens, on your keyboard, just press the first letter(s) of the file you want and that file is instantly highlighted-all you have to do is press Return to open the file.

FOLDERS TO ADD TO YOUR DOCK

Adding folders to your Dock can be a real timesaver, and two of the most popular folders to add to the Dock are your Home folder and your Applications folder. Another thing you might consider, rather than putting your entire Applications folder on your Dock, is to create a new folder and put in it aliases of just the applications and system add-ons (such as the Calculator, etc.) that you really use. Then, you can access these by Control-clicking on the folder in the Dock, and a pop-up list appears that looks a lot like the Apple menu from OS 9.

FREAKY MOVIE DOCK TRICK

FREAKY MOVIE DOCK TRICK

This is one of those “show off your Mac” tricks that really amaze people but outside of that I haven’t found a real use for it. You start by opening a Quick Time movie, hitting the play button and watching it for a second or two. Then, click the yellow center button in the title bar to shrink the movie to the Dock (it appears down by the Trash). Here’s the cool thing: you’ll notice the movie continues to play even while in the Dock. You can even hear the audio! Only ants can really enjoy it at this size (in fatc ants love this effect because to them, they’re seeing your movie on the “big screen”) but the naked human eye can see the movie too.

YELLOW MINIMIZE BUTTON TOO SMALL? TRY THIS?

Sometimes, hitting that tiny middle yellow button (to minimize your current window to the Dock) is tricky, especially if you’re using a Titanium PowerBook or Cinema Display set at its native resolution, in which everything is smaller than a gnat’s nose. If you’d like something bigger to aim at than that tiny yellow button, go under the Apple menu, under System Preferences and click on the Appearance icon and then click on the checkbox for Minimize when Double Clicking a Window Title Bar. Now, you can just double-click anywhere on the window’s title bar and that window immediately minimizes to the Dock, just as if you had clicked the tiny yellow button. Of course, you could skip the clicking altogether and press Command-M but that just seems like cheating, doesn’t it?

AUTOMATICALLY HIDING THE DOCK

The smaller your screen, the more important the ability to hide the Dock from view becomes (as you might imagine, this is a very popular feature for PowerBook users). Basically, with this feature active, the Dock hides off screen and only reappears when your cursor moves over the area where the Dock used to be. It kind of “pops up” so you can work in the Dock until you move away, and then it hides again. To turn this Dock feature on, go under the Apple menu, under Dock and choose Turn Hiding On. If you think you might use this function often, you’ll probably want to memorize the Turn Hiding On/Off shortcut which is Option-Command-D.

EJECTING MEDIA FROM THE DOCK

Although Panther makes ejecting removable media (like CDs, DVDs and FireWire or USB drives) incredibly easy thanks to the little Eject button that appears  beside media icon in the Sidebar of every Finder window, many longtime Mac OS X users still prefer to use the Dock for ejecting media (it’s called “old dog/new tricks” syndrome). If you’re one of those (an old dog), you can drag the disc (or drive) icon to the Trash icon in your Dock, and as you approach the Dock, you see the Trash icon change into an Eject button. When you drop your CD/DVD/FireWire drive icon on the Eject button it erases the contents of your drive. Kidding! Just a joke. Actually, of course, it ejects your disc/CD/DVD or unmounts your FireWire /USB drive.

THE GIANT APP SWITCHER DOES MORE THAN JUST SWITCH

THE GIANT APP SWITCHER DOES MORE THAN JUST SWITCH

In a previous tip, I mentioned that holding the Command key, then pressing the Tab key, brings up a giant Dock-like window with huge icons in the center of your screen, where you can cycle through your open apps (using the tab key, the Arrow keys or clicking with your mouse). But, there’s more to it than that-you can quit any currently running app by cycling to it, then pressing the letter “q” (don’t let go of the Command key; keep holding it while you press the letter “q”). Still holding the Command key, press “h” to hide the highlighted app.

THE HIDDEN DOCK PREFERENCES SHORTCUT

A quick way to get to the Dock’s preferences is to go under the Apple menu, under Dock, and choose Dock Preferences, but I think you’re ready for the absolute fastest way there is to access the Dock prefs. This tip is so shrouded in Dock secrecy, I don’t think even Apple knows it exists (of course they do, but I doubt they’d admit it without administering some sort of “truth serum”). Just Control-click on the divider line on the right side of the Dock and a pop-up list of Dock preferences is right there, just once click away.

INSTANT DOCK RESIZE

If you want to make the Dock larger o smaller, there’s a slider in the Dock preference pane, nut you don’t have to use it. Ever. That’s because you can simply put your cursor right over the divider line on the right side of the Dock (the one that separate your apps from your folders and Trash) and your cursor changes  to a horizontal bar with two arrows: one facing up and once facing down. When it does that just click-and-drag your cursor upward to make the Dock bigger or downward to shrink it.

FOR THOSE WHO DON’T WANT TO “HIDE”

If the Dock seems to be in your way a lot but you don’t like the whole “hiding –the –Dock” thing try setting the Dock to its smallest size (so you can barely notice it’s there at all). Then, turn on Magnification and set it to a pretty large size, so when you scroll your mouse over the tiny Dock, the icons jump up in size so you can see what’s what. You can turn Magnification on by going under the Apple menu under Dock and choosing Turn Magnification On.

DRAGGING FROM THE DOCK, NOT TO IT

DRAGGING FROM THE DOCK, NOT TO IT

We’re always talking about dragging files and folders to the Dock, but in Panther, you can now drag from the Dock (out to your desktop or to an open window) by first holding the Command key, then dragging. Want to make an alias of a Dock icon? Just hold Command-Option and drag the docked file to the window you want and it creates an alias. In fact, most of the things you can do within a window (copying a file, creating an alias, etc.) can be done from the Dock , as long as you start with the Command key.

ACCESSING SYSTEM PREFERENCES DIRECTLY FROM THE DOCK

Want a quick way to access your System Preferences? The next you have the System Preferences open, don’t close or quit; instead, press Command-H to hide the preferences. Now, when you want a particular System Preferences, just click-and-hold on the System Preferences icon in the Dock for a moment and a pop-up list of your System Preferences appears. Choose the one you want from the list, and that panel then appears on screen. Very convenient.

KEEPING AN EYE ON THINGS, LIVE FROM THE DOCK

Do you like to know what’s going on “under the hood” of your Mac (stuff like your CPU usage, disk activity, memory usage-you know, total geek stuff)? If you do you can keep an eye on things right from within the Dock using Mac OS X’s Activity Monitor. It’s found in the Applications folder, under utilities. Once you find it, drag it into your Dock icon then click on it to launch it. Once it’s launched, click-and-hold for a moment on its Dock icon menu item. This is where you choose which activity you want to monitor from its live Dock icon. Choose it, and a live graph appears in the Dock that’s updated dynamically as you work.

THE ONE-CLICK TRICK TO MOVING THE DOCK

THE ONE-CLICK TRICK TO MOVING THE DOCK

So you’re working in a program like Final Cut Pro or iMovie which takes up very vertical inch of the screen and when you go to adjust something near bottom the Dock keeps popping up. You could move the Dock to where it’s anchored on the left or right side of the screen but that just feels weird. But what if you could move it temporarily to the left or right and then get it back to the bottom when you close Final Cut Pro, in just once click? Here’s how: Hold the Shift key, click directly on the Dock’s divider line (on the far right side of the Dock), and drag the Dock to the left or right side of your screen. It moves over to the side. Then, once you quit Final Cut, just Shift-click on that divider line and slam it back to the bottom (dag it back to the bottom). A draggable Dock-is that cool or what!

WHAT’S WITH THE QUESTION MARK?

What does it mean if you see a large question mark icon in the Dock? I have no idea. That’s why there’s a question mark there. No one knows, not even Apple (kidding). What it means is that you deleted the original of whatever was in the Dock. For example, if you put a Dock icon for Microsoft Word in the Dock, but then deleted Word from your hard drive, the next time you click on that icon in the Dock, you’d see a question mark. So what do you do? Just drag it right off the Dock and it’s gone forever. No questions asked.

CHANGING APPS IN A BIG WAY

In Panther, if you don’t feel like moving your cursor all the way down to the Dock to change applications, you can easily rotate an open application to the front by pressing and holding Command tab. This brings up a large transparent Dock-like window in the center of your screen, with huge icons showing just your open applications. To switch to another application, keep holding the Command key and press either the Tab key, the Arrow keys on your keyboard, or click on the icons with your mouse. Also, you can press the Home key to jump to the application on the far left, or the End key to jump to the app on the far right. Want to cruise through the applications in this window in reverse (from right to left?) Just press Shift-Command-Tab.

THE TWO-BUTTON MOUSE EXPOSÉ EXPERIENCE

THE TWO-BUTTON MOUSE EXPOSÉ EXPERIENCE

If you’re using a two-button mouse, you can access a new world of Exposé functionality that dare not speak its name. For  now my friends, you can use the second mouse button to invoke your favorite Exposé mode. Have you got more than two buttons? Four perhaps? The, go under the Apple menu, under System Preferences, and click on Exposé. If your “rich-socialite multi-button mouse” is connected, you’ll see a new Mouse section has been added to your Exposé preferences that enables you to assign various Exposé functions to your various buttons.

ACCESSING ONCE-HIDDEN WINDOW FEATURES

One of the many little tricks Mac OS X “power users” had up their sleeve was that they used contextual pop-up menus to access features and functions that many users didn’t even know existed. One reason for its obscurity was that it employed the very least-used of all Macintosh keyboard modifier keys—the Control key. To get to these contextual menus, you’d Control-click on a file, a folder, a window, etc., and up would pop this list of things you could do. (You could also right-click a two-button mouse, but of course, Apple hadn’t made a two-button mouse.) Well, Apple must have realized that only a privileged few were taking advantage of these contextual menus, so they added an Action button in the default toolbar of Finder windows. Click on a file, click on this Action button, and you get a contextual menu of “hidded” commands. Feel the power!

MOVING THAT WINDOW FROM ANY SIDE

If you’ve used a previous version of Mac OS X (a non-Panther version), you probably got used to the fact that you could only move a Finder window by clicking on the title bar—there was no place to click and move a window on the sides or bottom. In Panther, one of the advantages of the new brushed metal interface is that it has thin metal sides, so now you can grab a window by the top sides, or bottom to move it where you want it.

SWITCHING APPS WHITHIN EXPOSÉ

Once you have Exposé invoked (you pressed either F9 or F10), you can toggle through your open applications and Finder windows by pressing the Tab key. Press the Tab key once, and the next open application, and its miniaturized windows, comes to front. Press Tab again, it goes to the next open app. Want the previous app? Press Shift-Tab.

QUICKLY CYCLE AMONG WINDOW VIEWS

You can quickly cycle among the three window views (Icon, List, or Column) by pressing Command-1, Command-2, and Command-3, respectively (which means, press them with respect).

NARROWING YOUR TOOLBAR SEARCHES

If you use the Search field that appears in the top-right corner of the Finder window’s toolbar, you have a little more control over your search than you might think. For example, if you click-and-hold on the little Magnifying Glass icon that appears at the left of the field, a pop-up menu appears, enabling you to choose exactly where you want to search, potentially speeding up your search by letting you narrow (or expand) where you want the Search field to search.

ONE-CLICK LONG-FILE NAME FIX

If you’re working in a window set to Column view, you’re going to run into this all the time—files with long names have the end of their names cut off from view, because the column isn’t wide enough. That doesn’t sound like that big of a problem, until you start working with more descriptive file names. Luckily, there’s a quick fix: Just double-click on the little tab at the bottom of the vertical column divider bar, and the column expands just enough so you can see even the longest file name of any file in that column.

EXPOSÉ BUTTON TIPS

In an earlier tip, you can invoke the cool Exposé feature by pressing F9, F10, or F11. For example, if you press and release the F9 key, Exposé freezes the thumbnails in place, and continues to freeze them until you either click on a window or press F9 again. This is ideal for when you’re not sure which window you want so you need time to look around. However, if you press and hold F9, Exposé only stays active as long as you hold the button down (or until you click a window, whichever comes first), which is perfect for when you just want to look at something quickly, or you know exactly which window you want to jump to.

EXPOSÉ MOUSE TIPS

If you have a multi-button mouse, it opens a new world of Exposé functionality, and that Exposé responds to how you press the keys that invoke it. Here’s a cool Exposé tip that lets you switch from one application to another with just one click (rather than two). Click whichever mouse button you assigned to the F9 function (all windows), then keep holding down the mouse button and release it over the window of the application you want to switch to—it’s super fast, because it’s just one click.

EXPOSÉ SHOW-OFF TRICK #2

EXPOSÉ SHOW-OFF TRICK #2

After you show your friends Expose, give them the “instant replay” to really seal the deal. Hold the Shift key, press F9 and it  gives you a slow motion version of the Expose effect which reminds your friend again of how cool you’ve become. (This hold the Shift key slo-mo effect works in other places. Try minimizing a window to the Dock holding the Shift key. Again, totally for show, but “the show must go on.”)

GETTING A CLEAN SHOT AT YOUR DESKTOP WITH EXPOSÉ

Besides miniaturizing your Finder and application windows, Exposé has another feature that you may find even more useful- - when you press F11, all of your open windows (in every application and the Finder) instantly “get out of the way” giving you a clean view of your desktop. A perfect example of when to use this is when you’re working in your e-mail program, and you want to attach a file that’s on your desktop. Instead of leaving your Mail app and going to the desktop, just press F11. With everything moved out of the way (as long as you hold F11), click-and-hold on the file you want, then release F11. You’re now back in your Mail app, you can just drop the file in your Mail window as an attachment. Try it once. Love it forever!

USING EXPOSÉ WITHOUT PRESSING A BUTTON

You don’t have to use F9,F10, or F11 to invoke Exposé. Instead, many people prefer to simply move their cursor to the corner of their screen to have Exposé “do its thing.” So, which corner of the screen does which Exposé feat of magic? That’s up to you. You set your “hot corners” for each of Exposé’s modes by going under the Apple menu, under System Preferences, and choosing Exposé. In the Active Screen Corners area, you’ll see a small preview of your screen with a pop-down menu beside each corner. Just choose which Exposé mode you want assigned to each corner from these different Exposé keyboard shortcuts (rather than the standard F9,F10,or F11 variety).

CREATING YOUR OWN DEFAULTS FOR FINDER WINDOWS

CREATING YOUR OWN DEFAULTS FOR FINDER WINDOWS

Want to create your own custom default settings for new Finder windows? It’s easy: Start by closing every Finder window, then press Command-N (the OS X shortcut for New Finder Window). Set up this window the way you want it (you can choose to show or hide the Sidebar and the toolbar, view by list, the size of the window, even position it on screen where you want all new Finder windows to open). Then, close that window. That’s it – you set your prefs. Now, when you open a new Finder window (not a new folder, a new Finder window), it opens using the scheme you just put in place. It’s all about you, isn’t it? (Note: If you set it to open List of Icon view, make sure that the Open New Windows in Column View checkbox in the General Finder Preferences is turned off.)

CUTTING THROUGH THE WINDOW CLUTTER USING EXPOSE

It’s not only arguably the coolest feature in Panther, it’s probably the best thing that happened to any OS since icons. It’s called Expose and when you invoke it, it instantly shows you miniature versions of every open window in the Finder and all open applications. That way, you can instantly click and go right to the windows you want. Here’s how: Open a few Finder windows, then open a couple documents in an application. Then, press the F9, and every window temporarily miniaturizes. Click on the window you want-it comes to the front, and everything else returns to normal.

UNCLUTTERING JUST YOUR CURRENT APPLICATION

If you’re working within an application (like Photoshop), Exposé works there as well, it’s just a different shortcut. For example, if you’re working in Photoshop and have eight or nine photos open, their windows are stacked with one overlapping another. Just press F10 and Exposé miniaturizes each of those nine windows within Photoshop so you clearly can see each photo to get right to the photo you want. Using F10 only affects the current application , whereas F9 miniaturizes every window in every application, including the Finder.

EXPOSÉ SHOW-OFF TRICK #1

Showing off Exposé to a friend or co-worker who uses a PC is more than a blast, it’s your duty, because even Windows XP still has nothing like it. But if you really want to be a major hambone, before you press F9 to invoke Exposé, start a QuickTime movie clip, have a DVD playing, or have iTunes playing a song and click on the visualize. When you press F9, the QuickTime clip (DVD, iTunes, etc.) keeps playing even when miniaturized.

THE JOY OF SPRING-LOADED FOLDERS

THE JOY OF SPRING-LOADED FOLDERS

There was a Mac OS 9 feature called spring-loaded folders that longtime Mac users liked pretty well. That is until Apple left it out of the original version of Mac OS X, and then it was as if spring-loaded folders were the most critical single feature ever. Luckily, it made its triumphant return in Jaguar, and it works better than ever. It’s designed to let you quickly navigate through a number of folders without having to waste time opening them one by one. Here’s how to use it: Just drag an icon over a folder, hold it there for a moment, and the folder automatically pops open to reveal its contents. If there’s another folder inside that folder, hold it over that one and it too pops open. If you change your mind, just move your icon out of the window, and all the folders automatically close themselves in a hurry. You can control the amount of time that it takes for a folder to “spring open” by going under the Finder menu and choosing Preferences. If you’re not sure how much delay you should choose, try Medium. If you want a particular folder to spring open quicker, just press the Spacebar while your icon is hovering over the folder, and it opens immediately.

HIDING THE ICONS IN COLUMN VIEW

When you’re viewing a Finder window in Column view, you might find it looks cleaner (and less intimidating) if you turn off the tiny little icons that appear before each file’s name. To do that, make sure you’re viewing a window in Column view, then press Command-J to bring up the View Options. In the View Options dialog, turn off the check box for Show Icons, and the little rascals are hidden from view, leaving you with a cleaner, less cluttered Column view. The downside? With the icons turned off, it’s not easy to tell a folder, from a hard drive, from a file but it sure is a fun diversion on a boring day.

HOW TO TELL IF SNAP TO GRID IS TURNED ON

If you’re wondering whether you have Snap to Grid turned on for a particular window, just look in the bottom left-hand corner of the window. If Snap to Grid is turned on for that particular window, you’ll see a tiny grid icon. If keep Arranged By Name is turned on, instead you’ll see four tiny evenly spaced folder icons.

HOW TO SEE IF YOU CAN WRITE A FOLDER

Mac OS X has a level of security called “Permissions” and if a network administrator set up your Mac, chances are there are certain folders you’re not allowed to save your files into. How do you know if you have permission to write to a particular folder? In Icon or List view, where the icons are pretty large, it’s easy-if you can’t write to it, the icon has a red circle with a dash inside of it. However, when you’re looking in Column view, since the icons are so small, it’s not as obvious, but if you just click on the folder and then look in the bottom left-hand corner of the Finder window, you’ll know. If you see a Pencil icon with an “oh no you don’t” line through it, you don’t have permission to write to that folder. This is why so many network administrators one day wind up having an “accident.”

CLOSING MULTIPLE WINDOWS

CLOSING MULTIPLE WINDOWS

You can close all of your open desktop windows by either Option-clicking on any window’s Close button, or pressing Option-Command W.

CONTROLLING WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DOUBLE-CLICK A TITLE BAR

If you want to minimize all of your open windows, Option-double-click on any title bar. As cool as this sounds, this “double click to minimize” feature drives some people crazy, because they’re constantly minimizing windows when they just meant to move them. If that sounds like you, go to the System Preferences, under Appearance, and turn off Minimize when Double Clicking a Window Title Bar.

WINDOW HOUSEKEEPING TIPS

If it looks as if someone tossed a grenade into your Finder window, scattering your icons everywhere with seemingly no rhyme or reason, you need an icon housekeeper. You have two different “housekeeping” choices, but once you make your choice, your windows almost straighten themselves. (1) Make sure your window is in Icon view, and then go under the View menu, choose Show View Options, and click on Snap to Grid. Now, when you move an icon around, it snaps to an invisible grid, which helps keep things organized as you work. (2) If you’ve got a “Monica Gellar” complex about keeping things in order, instead of choosing Snap to Grid, turn on the checkbox for Keep Arranged By, and select Name from the popup menu just below it. This snaps your files and folder icons to a grid alphabetically from left to right, top to bottom neatly in row. Any time you move a file, create a folder, add a new folder, it automatically “straightens itself up”.

SAVING TIME WHEN CHANGING VIEWS OF MULTIPLE WINDOWS

Back in previous versions of Mac OS, every time you wanted to adjust the View Options for a window, you had to open the View Options dialog. So, if you wanted to adjust 10 windows, you had to open and close View Options 10 times. It was mind-numbing. Now, in Mac OS X, you can leave the View Options dialog box open the whole time, and adjust as many windows as you want. You can click on the window whose settings you want to see in the View Options, make your changes, close that Finder window, then click on the next window and make changes there-all without ever closing the View Options window. The View Options window always stays in front.

THE WINDOW NAVIGATION TOOL BORROWED FROM PHOTOSHOP

If you use Photoshop, you’re probably familiar with one of it’s tools called the Hand tool that lets you move the image around by clicking-and-dragging within in the image. Well, believe it or not, Mac OS X has very similar tool. While in Icon or List view, just hold Option-Command and click within an open space in your window and you can move up/down and left/right in any window that has scroll bars.

DON’T LIKE LABELS? TRY COMMENTS INSTEAD

DON’T LIKE LABELS? TRY COMMENTS INSTEAD

If you’re not a big fan of labels (color-coding files and folders by adding a ring of color around their name), you might want to try adding a comment instead. A comment is like your own personal note added to a file or folder. These comments are visible in Finder windows set to List view. To add a comment to a file, just click on the file you want to add a comment to, and then press Command-I. The Info window appears. Click on the right-facing gray triangle to the left of the word Comments to reveal a field for entering your personal notes. Just click in this field and start typing. When you’re done, close the window. To see your comments when in List view, you first have to change a preference setting to make the Comments column visible. Make sure you’re viewing your window in List view, and then press Command-J to bring up the View Options dialog. In the section called Show Columns, turn on the checkbox for Comments. If you want every window in List view to show comments, make sure you check the All Windows button at the top of the dialog.

ADDING A PHOTO AS YOUR WINDOW’S BACKGROUND

As long as your Finder window is in Icon view, you can add a photo as its background. You do this by going under the View menu, under Show View Options, and in the Background section (at the bottom of the dialog), choose Picture. Click on the Select button and the standard Open/Save dialog appears, where you can choose which image you’d like to have as the background of your window. Click Ok and that image then appears. Note: This works only when viewing the window in Icon view. If you change to List view, the image is no longer visible.

REARRANGING THE HEADERS IN LIST VIEW

Just click directly on the header named Size and drag it horizontally along the bar until it appears right after Name. You can do the same with the other headers-move them where you want them. There’s only one you can’t move-the Name header. It’s stuck in the first position.

SPEED TIP: NAVIGATING WITHOUT THE MOUSE

If you’re looking for a faster way to navigate within Finder windows while you’re in icon view, try navigating using just your keyboard. Just as in previous versions of the Mac OS, you can use the Arrow keys on your keyboard to move from icon to icon., but you can also look inside folders by holding the Command key and pressing the Down Arrow key on your keyboard. To go back up a level, press Command-Up Arrow.

JUMPING RIGHT TO THE FILE YOU WANT

Just as in previous versions of the Mac OS, if you’re in a Finder window and type in the first letter of the name of the file you want-it jumps to that file. Well, if that’s the only file that starts with that letter. If there are more than one file with the same first letter, try typing the first two letters.) Also, once you select a file, if it’s not the one you want, you can jump to the next file (alphabetically) by pressing the Tab key. (Note: The Tab key shortcut doesn’t work in Column view. Use the Down Arrow key instead.)