AUTOMATICALLY ADDING FILE EXTENSIONS

AUTOMATICALLY ADDING FILE EXTENSIONS

Sharing your files with someone using a PC? Make sure you name the file “Don’t you wish you had a Mac. Txt” or something like that (kidding). Actually, if you’re sharing files with a PC, you can ask Mac OS X to automatically add the three-letter file extension to your file name every time you save a file. Just go to the Finder menu, choose preference, click on the Advanced icon, and select the Show All File Extensions checkbox.

HOW TO BE SELECTIVE WITH EXTENSIONS

In Mac OS X, every file has a three-letter file extension (like PC files do), but by default, Mac OS X hides those three-letter extensions. In the previous tip, I showed you how to make those three-letter extensions visible all the time, but what if you just want to see the three-letter extensions for an individual file or two? If you want to see these extensions (perhaps if you’re designing Web graphics and want your files to have the . gif and .jpg file extensions visible), you can do that when you save each file. In the Save dialog, you’ll notice a checkbox called hide Extensions, which is on by default. Just turn that checkbox off, and the appreciate file extension is added to the file, In some applications, you may see a checkbox for append extension instead. In the case, make sure the checkbox is on to show the extension.

SPEEDING THROUGH YOUR SYSTEM PREFERENCE

When you’re in the system preference dialog. There’s a superfast way to quickly get to the individual preference pane you want. Just type the first letter of the preference, then hit the Spacebar. This not only selects the preference it opens that pane as well. This my friends, is one juicy speed trick!

SAVING TIME IN THE “GO TO THE FOLDER” DIALOG

Once you enter a path in the Go to the folder dialog of a Cocoa app, that last path stays in memory (thanks to panther’s auto-complete feature), so if you want to get back to that same folder, don’t press the “/” (slash) key when you’re in the Open dialog. Instead, press shift-command-G; that way, when the Go to the folder dialog appears, the last path you entered is already input for you, saving you the trouble.