Bring up "About this Mac…" from the apple menu, then click on the OS version number and it will cycle through some extra information including the serial number so you don't have to try to read the 2 point tall, minimal contrast serial number printed on the case.
Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks
31–40 of 85 posts
Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks
#32The first two are part of the reason why I hate using Windows at work.
The fact that you cannot drag files to their icons and have that file opened in the application seems like something out of the past.
To scroll a window in Windows, the window needs to have focus. To scroll a scroll pane in an active window, that pane needs to have focus -- it is maddening especially when hover events work for non-focused windows and panes.
I could go on and on, but this isn't a Windows hatefest.
Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks
#33A few I can think of: - Open the Apple menu. Now hold Shift. More menu options! Now try holding Opt. Even more menu options! This works for several Apple applications. - Hold Opt when clicking on a menubar icon for extra information. For example, holding Opt and clicking the WiFi icon in the menubar brings up the signal strength, IP address and other useful information. Likewise for the rest of the icons. - In Spotli…
Note: Your 5th trick only works if it's the only window opens. I tried Chrome and iTerm
Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks
#34The first two are part of the reason why I hate using Windows at work. The fact that you cannot drag files to their icons and have that file opened in the application seems like something out of the past. To scroll a window in Windows, the window needs to have focus. To scroll a scroll pane in an active window, that pane needs to have focus -- it is maddening especially when hover events work for non-focused windows…
I use spotlight for all kinds of math (12 / 4) * (44 + 35) etc
Command + c will copy the highlighted spotlight result.
Expose (show all windows) and drag and drop files to that window (i grab the file, while dragging show all windows by either a keybord key or hot corner and drop it to the new window)
Hold down command to move around background windows without giving it focus.
Ctrl + (arrows or numbers) to go to certain spaces.
While in spaces expose, hold down ctrl to move all of the windows of a certain application to another space.
Hold down a window's titlebar while switching spaces to move that window to the new space.
Drag folders that you frequent into the left side of finder. I have /private/etc in mine
Hold down command while clicking or pressing enter on a spotlight result will open its containing folder.
How did I forget about keyboard modifiers by holding down the alt key.
Drag a file/folder to terminal to get the path to that file printed in terminal. so I often type "cd " and then drag folder to get there
While switching apps via command+tab you can let tab go and either hide the application by pressing h or quit it by pressing q (I wish that you could minimize it by pressing m). You can also cycle backwards by pressing tilde (this only works if youre already command+tabbing) or shift+tab
* Gone from snow leopard, but i miss it* there used to be a keyboard shortcut (command, option, ctrl space) that opened a list of your last accessed files (i mistakenly found a bunch of porn website cookies on an intern's laptop once). This used to be useful to see which files you needed to upload /ftp.
Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks
#35Hold Ctrl-Shift while moving your cursor over the Dock to temporarily enable magnification.
Useful when your Dock is crammed with tiles.
Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks
#36I couldn't see it in that list, but my favourite can't-live-without shortcut is CMD + ~ to switch between windows of the same app (for example, if you have 10 textmate windows open it will flip between them). CMD + SHFT + ~ to go the other way.
Thanks for mentioning Cmd-Shift-~. It always annoyed me that pressing Cmd-~, releasing, then Cmd-~ again doesn't take you back to the first window (unlike Cmd-Tab). Now I can use this to go back.
Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks
#37What's even better is that many of the keyboard shortcuts are consistent across many applications. For e.g., Cmd-, opens Application Preferences.
Agreed. I miss that shortcut every time I use Windows or Linux.
Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks
#38"I love the fact that OS X will scroll the window that the mouse is hovering over, even if another application has focus. That way I can scroll an example that I am coding in TextMate without having to lose keyboard control on TM" This also happens on Windows (at least on Chrome) but Windows goes even further: you can click through a link or button on a non-focused window. On OS X, in order to follow a link or click…
Inconsistent click-through behavior is a major problem of OS X. (Gruber has written pages about it.) I don’t think it matters whether click-through is possible or not – your preferences will just depend on what you are used to – but the behavior should at least be consistent. In OS X, it is not.
Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks
#39A few I can think of: - Open the Apple menu. Now hold Shift. More menu options! Now try holding Opt. Even more menu options! This works for several Apple applications. - Hold Opt when clicking on a menubar icon for extra information. For example, holding Opt and clicking the WiFi icon in the menubar brings up the signal strength, IP address and other useful information. Likewise for the rest of the icons. - In Spotli…
That fifth trick is superb. Apps that don't reopen their closed main window when cmd-tabbed to drive me nuts (Mail especially, as there's no shortcut to open the message viewer).
Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks
#40The first two are part of the reason why I hate using Windows at work. The fact that you cannot drag files to their icons and have that file opened in the application seems like something out of the past. To scroll a window in Windows, the window needs to have focus. To scroll a scroll pane in an active window, that pane needs to have focus -- it is maddening especially when hover events work for non-focused windows…
I use spotlight for all kinds of math (12 / 4) * (44 + 35) etc Command + c will copy the highlighted spotlight result. Expose (show all windows) and drag and drop files to that window (i grab the file, while dragging show all windows by either a keybord key or hot corner and drop it to the new window) Hold down command to move around background windows without giving it focus. Ctrl + (arrows or numbers) to go to cert…
IMO Spotlight is the best example of minimalist software design.
In a single universal field you have instant: app launcher, calculator, dictionary, file search, email search, contact search.
My single best tip for Mac power-users: learn what you can do with Spotlight.
Edit: grammar