Finder Tips

1. Customizing the Finder toolbar

You can add applications, documents and folders to the toolbar in Finder windows. Just drag the item to the toolbar. In this picture, I've added System Preferences and Terminal to my toolbar.

3. What the Pictures folder is used for

Wondering what the Pictures folder is for? In the Screen Saver panel in System Preferences, you'll have noticed that one of the options is Custom Slide Show. The Pictures folder is the default place that Custom Slide Show looks for images to use as a screen saver (though you can choose any location you want).

4. Setting default applications for your files

In Mac OS X, files have a default application depending on their filename extension (like ".txt" or ".jpg"). However, if a file has a creator-code as in Mac OS 9.1, then it opens with the application which has that creator-code. You can only change the default application for files which have no creator-code. Files created with TextEdit, Preview or other Mac OS X applications won't have a creator-code, so you can use them to change the default application for any given filename extension. You change the default application for a given file by selecting the file, choosing Get Info from the File menu in the Finder, then selecting Application from the popup menu in the Info window. In the picture below, I'm going to choose the default application for a TIFF file.

You'll only be able to successfully change the default application if the new application you choose can natively deal with the appropriate type of file. As long as you have one file without a creator-code, you can just keep changing its filename extension, and use it to change the default applications for all the filename extensions.

5. When is an application not an application? When it's a package!

In OS X, some Carbon applications and also Cocoa applications are actually special folders, called Packages or Bundles. The actual application file is inside the folders, actually a few levels further down than the application you see in the Finder. To open an application as a folder, control-click on its icon in the Finder, and choose Show Package Contents. In the picture below, I'm opening iTunes as a folder. The folder name actually has the ".app" suffix, though the Finder hides it from you. The actual executable application code is in a file which is usually at this location:

    AppName.app/Contents/MacOS/AppName

6. Library, Library, and yet another Library

You'll have noticed that there are several Library folders on your Mac OS X boot disk. Library folders generally contain settings and configuration files; a lot like the System Folder on Mac OS 9.1 (but without the actual operating system). The Library folder at the root of your disk contains global settings; settings which apply to every user. This is the place to put fonts you want everyone to be able to use, and so on. The Library folder within your Home folder (its name is actually your shortened username you typed into the Assistant when you first installed Mac OS X, and it's the name you type to login) contains your own personal preferences, fonts, ColorSync profiles, keychains, your Mail email, screen savers, AppleScripts and more. That's the place to put items that only you should be able to use. The Library folder within the System folder at the root of your boot disk is for Mac OS X to use only. You shouldn't try to alter the contents of that Library folder.

This principle of having one global place and several user-specific places is the foundation of how OS X works. For example, the Applications folder at the root of the disk contains applications which everyone should have access to. If you have an application that only you should be able to use, create an Applications folder within your Home folder, and put the application there.

 Dock Tips

1. Snap-to-size when resizing the Dock

You probably know that you can drag the vertical line in the Dock (the separator between applications and other items) up and down to resize the Dock. But if you hold down the Option () key whilst dragging, the Dock will snap to tile-sizes which are whole multiples of 16x16. This will make sure your icons look good in the Dock.

2. Hide the Dock from any application

You can switch on the Autohide feature of the Dock from any OS X application. Just press command-shift-D (D), or choose Turn Hiding On from the Dock submenu of the Apple menu.

3. Wait for me!

Try this cool little Dock effect. Minimize a window in an OS X application (click the yellow "-" widget in the titlebar). The window will minimize into the Dock. Now, hide the application by choosing the Hide command from the application menu. Watch the window in the Dock whilst doing this. Wait for me!

4. Force a Dock application to open a dragged file

Sometimes you'll want to open a file with a certain application in the Dock, but that application won't automatically recognize the file's type. So, the application won't darken when you hold the file over it, and won't allow you to drop the file to open it in that application. However, if you hold down the command and option keys whilst dragging (++drag), you can force any application to try to open the file you're dragging.

 Misc OS X Tips

1. Selectable text in alerts, About boxes, and more

The Aqua interface guidelines say that any text which could be useful to the user should be selectable, so that it can be copied to the clipboard. Try selecting the text in error dialogs, or in the About window in applications. In the picture below, I'm selecting the text in an error dialog in the Finder.

2. Help Tags, and how to make them appear quickly

In OS X, Balloon Help has been replaced with Help Tags; little yellow "tool tips" which give help, or show the full text of an item which has been abbreviated. This is particularly useful in the Finder, since the Finder shows even fewer characters than it did in OS 9.1. The Help Tags appear if you hover over an abbreviated item for a few moments. However, if you hold down the option key () whilst hovering the mouse over an item, the Help Tag will display immediately. This can be very useful when you're looking at multiple files whose names are all abbreviated, as in the picture below.

3. Switch applications whilst dragging

OS X gives you a new and extremely useful ability: you can switch applications whilst dragging. Try dragging some text from a window in Internet Explorer, and whilst still dragging, press the command-tab shortcut to switch applications, then drop the text into the other application. This can be very useful for copying URLs into email messages, or adding attachments to email messages. This will also work with other kinds of dragged data; not just text.

[Thanks to my friend Paul Bradforth for pointing out that the OS X Finder still supports clippings!]

4. Drag from Mail, TextEdit, and other apps

It doesn't at first seem that Mail, TextEdit and some other OS X applications allow you to drag text, but actually you can: just select the text, then click and hold for a moment before dragging. You'll then be able to drag the text as normal. This general principle is worth trying for any type of data, when it seems that the application won't let you drag. See tip 3 above for more about dragging data between applications in OS X.

5. Use TextEdit to view your local web pages (yes, really)

TextEdit is actually a very basic WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML viewer, as well as a plain and rich text editor. Just try opening an HTML file with it. You can even click on links to open other pages in TextEdit.

6. Where are those icons?

As mentioned in the Finder Tips section above, an OS X application isn't always what it seems - it may actually be a special folder, called a package or bundle. With Mac OS 9 (and earlier), you could always be fairly sure that an application's icons were stored inside the application file itself, but with packages that's not the case. To find the icons, just look in the Resources directory within the package. Using TextEdit as an example, you'll usually find an application's icons in ".icns" files in this location:

TextEdit.app/Contents/Resources/

You can view all those icons using "icns Browser", which is installed with the contents of the Developer CD included with Mac OS X.

 Classic Tips

1. Browse instead of dragging

When trying to drag files from the OS X Finder into Classic applications, or sometimes even when trying to drag files onto the Dock icon of a Classic application, you'll run into problems - anything from cosmetic glitches to the Classic app crashing, to the entire Classic environment crashing. Instead, browse for the files to open, probably using the Open command in the Classic application's File menu.

2. Hide the Dock

It's best to hide the Dock when working in Classic applications, since it's not transparent over those applications (any part of a Classic application which is behind the Dock will be solid white). For the same reason, if you're running Terminal and you have a shell window open in front of a Classic application, it's best not to have the window set to be translucent - it'll just show solid white behind it. See the Unix/Terminal Tips section below for how to make your Terminal windows translucent.

3. Open Carbon applications in Classic

Some Carbon applications can run in the Classic environment (via CarbonLib), and it can be useful to see how your application looks under both OS 9.1 and OS X if you're a developer. If your application can run in the Classic environment, there will be a checkbox called "Open in the Classic environment" in the Finder's Get Info window when your application is selected. Just select your application in the Finder, choose Get Info from the File menu, and check the checkbox. Now when you launch your application, it will open in Classic.

 Unix/Terminal Tips

Note: These tips apply to the Terminal application in OS X. You can find it in the Utilities folder, which is inside the Applications folder at the root of your OS X boot disk.

1. Holy Transparent Terminals!

You can make the Terminal window translucent. Simple type this command into a Terminal window, and press return:

    defaults write com.apple.terminal terminalopaqueness 0.75

You can replace 0.75 with whatever percentage opaqueness you want. 1.0 is completely opaque (solid, not translucent at all). I recommend between 0.5 and 0.75 for a good effect. Also, if you need to have that funky 'green text on black' effect, use the Terminal Preferences (available from the application menu in Terminal) to change the default colours. Open a new Terminal window to see your changes.

2. Say goodbye to typos (or maybe "goodbey")

When you're typing commands or file-paths into a Terminal window, you can press the tab key to autocomplete what you're typing. If more than one possibility exists, the Terminal will list all the possible terms. If you're typing a path and you need to get a quick listing of the current directory, just press control-D (D).

3. Read the Fine Manual!

If you're not sure what a command does, you can look up the electronic manual using the man command. For example, if you wanted to know what the ls command does, you'd type this into the Terminal window and press return:

    man ls

When a manual is being displayed, often it won't all fit onto the screen at once. Press return to show one more line at a time. If you want to get back to the command prompt without having to go through the entire manual entry, just press enter or escape instead of return.

4. Let the uptime wars begin

If you'd like to know how long your computer has been running since the last restart or boot, just use the uptime command in a Terminal window. You'll see something like this:

    12:05AM up 8:19, 1 user, load averages: 0.84, 1.30, 1.26

The first item is the current time, as defined by your system clock. The next item "up" is how long your system has been running since the last boot. Then you see how many users have logged in during that time. Finally, you see the average system load (the load on the processor) over the last 1, 5, and 15 minutes respectively.

In the Unix world, it's quite common for people to brag about their uptime. See how long you can leave your Mac OS X system running without a reboot, and let me know. I'll post the best times here.

5. More typing shortcuts

You can define typing shortcuts (called "aliases" in Unix, but not to be confused with aliases in the Finder) to help you quickly type the commands you commonly use. You can see what aliases are currently defined by using the alias command in a Terminal window. To add your own aliases, you need to create a file on your disk in a specific location. It has to be a plain text file, so you should use TextEdit and make sure it's set to make plain text files (you choose this in the preferences in TextEdit). Create a file called "aliases.mine" in this location:

    (Your home folder)/Library/init/tcsh/aliases.mine

This means that you make a plain text file called "aliases.mine", within a folder called "tcsh", within a folder called "init", within the "Library" folder which is in your Home folder. In that text file, you put one alias definition on each line, in the following format. As an example, if you want to type "te" to launch TextEdit (which would normally require that you type "open /Applications/TextEdit.app/"), then you'd put this entry on a line of its own in your "aliases.mine" file:

    alias te 'open /Applications/TextEdit.app/'

Make sure you have a return at the end of each line, and that the file is called exactly "aliases.mine" (not "aliases.mine.txt"). Next time you launch Terminal, you can use the alias command to see your aliases, and you should see your new te command in there. You can then type te and press return to lauch TextEdit.

6. Llist that directory (no, that's not a typo)

You'll have noticed that there are several useful aliases defined for you already. One of them is ll. It lets you get a detailed listing of the current directory. By default, the current directory is your home directory, so if you just type ll and press return, you'll get a listing of the items in your home folder. You can also type any directory after the ll command to list that directory. Note that you use a / to mean the root of the disk, and you can use ~ instead of the path to your home directory. So, if your login name was "johndoe", and thus the name of your home folder was "johndoe", all four of these commands are equivalent:

    ll

    ll ~

    ll ~/

    ll /Users/johndoe/

The ll command is actually a shortcut for a more complex command based on the ls command. So, to find out more about what to do with the ll command, you'd actually look up the manual for the ls command. As described above, you'd look up the manual for the ls command by typing man ls and pressing return.

7. Run several instances of an application simultaneously

As we said above in the Finder Tips section, some OS X applications are actually folders, and the actual executable application file is a few levels down inside that folder and its subfolders. Read that section above, or this tip may not make sense. If you know the full path to the actual executable application file, you can launch multiple instances of that application. So, you can two copies of TextEdit running at once, without needing to duplicate the application on your disk. In the case of TextEdit, the executable file is at this location:

    /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit

So, to launch a new instance of it, we'd just use this command in a Terminal window:

    /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit &

Note the "&" after the path. This will launch a new instance of TextEdit. You can repeat the command several times (in the Terminal window, you can press the up arrow key repeatedly to cycle through past commands) to launch several instances of TextEdit.

Got some tips I haven't included here? Tell me and I'll include them here, with proper credit.