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List of hidden OS X features, tips and tricks

apple.stackexchange.com

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Re: List of hidden OS X features, tips and tricks

#41

Post by tehwalrus »

visagi wrote: post #30
sgt wrote: post #11

Not a hidden feature - but what confuses some of my family members is that if they install an app in OS X, they click on a downloaded dmg (or it auto-opens), and they get this Finder window opening, without "Applications" visible. Initially they just ran the application like this, as if it was installed. However, I've explained that it needs to be moved to "Applications". This is difficult, seeing that if one clicks…

The applications folder is in the dock by default.

I just always drag to the dock Applications folder, I've never messed around opening a Finder window.

Re: List of hidden OS X features, tips and tricks

#42

Post by prof_hobart »

scrrr wrote: post #21

Sometimes Stackexchange sites will close a thread, because it's "not a question". Sometime's they won't. Nitpicking, but this is not a question. (Still great answers, though.)

Do you mean the title?

Because the first line of the main body "Do you know any hidden or little-known nice feature of Mac OS X?" certainly looks like a question to me.

Re: List of hidden OS X features, tips and tricks

#44

Post by morsch »

Neat. I didn't know Apple still did this. Mac OS 7 and 8 hat tons of useful hidden features and modifiers. Having a keyboard key modify basic actions is such a benevolent way to increase productivity for power users without harming newbies. It's also fairly easy to add.

I don't understand why Linux desktops apps don't do this more often. Or maybe they do and I just don't know where to look.

Re: List of hidden OS X features, tips and tricks

#46

Post by josteink »

m-r-a-m wrote: post #40
bornhuetter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Patent free is what I'm calling hopeless. The ideology behind Ubuntu is the free software movement. I'm not sure that "Patent free" even is an ideology. > Uh, no. Unless by "years" you mean "decades". About 10? That's years, not decades. Even 5 years ago they were well under 5% weren't they? I'm glad to hear that OSX suits you, that's fine. What I object to is you calling Ubuntu a hobbled experience. Personally I f…

> What I object to is you calling Ubuntu a hobbled experience. I might be wrong, but I think he's talking about a future in which Canonical is forced to remove features from Ubuntu due to patents. Whereas Apple would just pay the licensing fees. I don't see this happening because software patents don't exist in most of the world. The worst thing that could happen is they wouldn't be able to sell phones in the U.S. an…

> Whereas Apple would just pay the licensing fees.

More like Apple would be the one firing the lawsuits.

I find it troublesome to see so many otherwise talented hackers chop off their own feet by supporting the top company fuelling the patent-war and undermining the software-industry as a whole.

Re: List of hidden OS X features, tips and tricks

#47

Post by JeffJenkins »

I was just playing around with option+menu bar items and discovered that notifications can be disabled by option-clicking the notification center icon on the far right in Mountain Lion.

Then if you click to open notification center there is text which says that notifications will turn back on tomorrow and a toggle to turn them back on now

Re: List of hidden OS X features, tips and tricks

#48

Post by tommi »

JeffJenkins wrote: post #47

I was just playing around with option+menu bar items and discovered that notifications can be disabled by option-clicking the notification center icon on the far right in Mountain Lion. Then if you click to open notification center there is text which says that notifications will turn back on tomorrow and a toggle to turn them back on now

Nice shortcut! Thanks.

Re: List of hidden OS X features, tips and tricks

#49

Post by interpol_p »

dsego wrote: post #15

don't know about hidden, but really useful is a three finger tap on a word to open a small dictionary popup.

This was one of the feature that made me get my first Mac back in 2002. You could easily tell apps that didn't use OS standard controls (e.g., Firefox) because they didn't support the dictionary lookup.

At the time it was ctrl+cmd+D while hovering over a word with the mouse cursor (you can still trigger it this way now).

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