Mac OS X Hints

Rob Griffiths is the creator of the Mac OS X Hints site, a database of over 3,500 tips on using OS X.

Introduction How This Book Works Some Experience Required Aboutdegree Thesedegree Arrows Gaffes and Goofs Some Groundwork Chapter 1: Designing Your World Startup and Shutdown 1-1 Keyboard Login 1-2 Automatic Login 1-3 The Listless Login 1-4 The Silence of the Startup Items 1-5 The Login creen "Billboard" 1-6 Quick Restart, Shut Down, and Log Out 1-7 Restart, Shut Down, or Sleep Keystrokes 1-8 Restart/Sleep/Shut Down Dialog Box Display and Sound 1-9 Opening Sound and Displays Panels 1-10 Changing the Alert Volume 1-11 The Volume-Changing Click 1-12 Resolutions You Never Knew You Had Window Tricks 1-13 Maximizing Windows 1-14 Insta-Closing Multiple Windows 1-15 Moving Background Windows 1-16 Bringing Program Windows Forward 1-17 Three Scroll Bar Stunts 1-18 Double Arrows on Both Ends Menulets 1-19 Menulet Basics 1-20 The Secret Eject Icon 1-21 Changing the Time and Date Menulet Setting 1-22 Saving Memory 1-23 Printer Sharing 1-24 System Maintenance 1-25 Apple Help Chapter 2: The Finder and Desktop Finder Basics 2-1 The Status 2-2 The Status Bar in Narrow Windows 2-3 Insta-Sort 2-4 Search Results 2-5 Erasing Disks 2-6 Window Size and Location 2-7 List View 2-8 Column View 2-9 Resizing the Columns 2-10 Viewing Full File Names 2-11 More Icons in a Column 2-12 A Second Line of File Info 2-13 Window Backgrounds 2-14 Making Column View Speedier 2-15 Previewing Multimedia Files 2-16 Get Info vs. the Inspector 2-17 Temporarily Overriding "Snap to grid" 2-18 Custom Icons 2-19 Nixing Zoom Effects 2-20 A Quit Menu in the Finder 2-21 Showing Hidden Files 2-22 Printing Finder Windows I 2-23 Printing Finder Windows II 2-24 Printing Finder Windows III 2-25 Undo 2-26 Open Files from the Trash Navigating the Finder 2-27 Keyboard Shortcuts 2-28 The Multibutton Mouse 2-29 Secrets of the Scrolling Mouse 2-30 Scrolling Diagonally 2-31 Canceling a Drag-and-Drop 2-32 Opening the Home Folder 2-33 Jumping Directly to Folders Aliases 2-34 Aliases by Dragging 2-35 Finding the Original 2-36 An Alias of Your Home Folder The Finder Toolbar 2-37 Removing or Shrinking the Toolbar 2-38 Customizing the Toolbar vi table of contents 2-39 Folders on the Toolbar 2-40 Heavily Used Toolbar Icons 2-41 The Permanence of Server Icons Working with Files and Folders 2-42 Copying by Dragging 2-43 Copying by Pasting 2-44 Copying System Folders 2-45 Spring-Loaded Folders 2-46 Return of the Pop-up Windows 2-47 A System-wide, Spring-Loaded Toolbar Icon 2-48 Renaming Files Without Delay 2-49 Weird Sorts 2-50 Editing Multiple File Names 2-51 Folder Action Scripts 2-52 Renaming System Folders 2-53 The Return of Labels 2-54 Unused Languages: Your Free Megabytes Desktop Interior Design 2-55 Changing the Screen Behind theLogin Window 2-56 Screen Saver as a Desktop Background 2-57 Extra-Large Desktop Icons 2-58 Screen Saver as the Finder Background Chapter 3: The Dock The Dock Makeover 3-1 Adding Icons 3-2 Removing Icons 3-3 Resizing the Dock 3-4 Hiding the Dock 3-5 Moving the Dock to the Side 3-6 The Top-Mounted Dock 3-7 Changing the Minimize Animation 3-8 Pinning the Dock to a 3-9 Differentiating Hidden Programs 3-10 Adding Quit to the Dock's Finder Icon 3-11 Hide Commands on the Dock Working with the Dock 3-12 Keyboard Combos 3-13 Switching Applications while Dragging Icons 3-14 Single-Window Minimization 3-15 Minimizing All Windows 3-16 The System-Navigation Folder 3-17 Activating the Screen Saver 3-18 Recovering from a MicroDock 3-19 An AppleScript to Restart the Dock Random Acts of Coolness 3-20 The Colored Poof 3-21 The Customized Trash Can 3-22 Supersizing Magnified Dock Icons 3-23 Minimizing and Maximizing in Slow Motion 3-24 Killing the Dock Chapter 4: Programs Managing Programs 4-1: Hide Others I 4-2: Hide Others II 4-3: Leave Your Programs Open 4-4: Switching Programs 4-5: Bouncing between Two Programs General Productivity 4-6: Open and Save Dialog 4-7: Shortcuts in Open and Save Dialog Boxes 4-8: Keystrokes for Save Sheets 4-9: Is That Document Saved? 4-10: Creating PDF Files 4-11: Creating a Software Library 4-12: Dragging and Dropping Text 4-13: The Script Menu 4-14: Capturing Screenshots 4-15: Reassigning Documents to New Parents 4-16: Text-Box Selection Tricks Printing, Fonts, and Text 4-17: Custom Print Settings 4-18: Previewing Fonts 4-19: Install Windows Fonts Without Conversion 4-20: Unicode Characters 4-21: The Character Palette 4-22: New Spelling Words 4-23: Changing the Spell Check Language Classic 4-24: Printing on Unsupported Mac OS X Printers 4-25: Opening Mac OS 9's a Menu and Control Panels 4-26: Web Sites That Work Better in Classic 4-27: Sharing Settings between Classic andMac OS X Programs 4-28: Speeding the Opening of Classic 4-29: Speeding Your System with Two Mac OS 9 Folders 4-30: Running Classic from a Disk Image Troubleshooting 4-31: Memory Leaks 4-32: Trashing Preferences 4-33: A Separate Account for Troubleshooting 4-34: The System Build and Serial Numbers table of contents vii Chapter 5: System Preferences System Preferences 5-1 Alphabetizing Preference Panels 5-2 System Preferences from the Dock I 5-3 System Preferences from the Dock II 5-4 Customizing the Toolbar 5-5 Resizing Toolbar Icons 5-6 Adding Separators and Spaces to theToolbar 5-7 Eliminating the Toolbar 5-8 Removing Preference Panels 5-9 Renaming Long Preference Pane Names 5-10 Renaming the System PreferenceCategories Accounts 5-11 Limiting Account Privileges Date & Time 5-12 Setting the Time 38 5-13 Exiting Military Time 5-14 The Menu bar Calendar Desktop 5-15 The Desktop Picture 5-16 Adding New Picture Folders Keyboard 5-17 Keyboard Navigation of Your Mac 5-18 KeyboardPower in Windows and Dialog Boxes Screen Effects 5-19 The Instant iPhoto Screen Saver 5-20 Your Own Screen Saver Folders 5-21 From Screen Saver to Desktop Picture