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Do You Really? (Tiger features)

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iMacZealot

macrumors 68020
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Mar 11, 2005
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I was wondering if you actually use those big features in System 10 updates, such as Spotlight, Expose, etc. Do you really use them? Can you live without them?

I know I can't live without my Dashboard. It saves me a trip from weather.com and dictionary.com. Plus, I like this widget called SysStat that tells how much CPU usage you're using. Very Cool. I can't live without Expose, either, although I've been using systems 9.1 and 10.1 more recently and I've learned to live without it. I'm starting to use Spotlight more, although I could probably live without it. I could live without iChat, but I prefer iChat over AIM.

Well, enough about what I do, what can you live (or not live) without?
 
iMacZealot said:
I was wondering if you actually use those big features in System 10 updates, such as Spotlight, Expose, etc. Do you really use them? Can you live without them?

I know I can't live without my Dashboard. It saves me a trip from weather.com and dictionary.com. Plus, I like this widget called SysStat that tells how much CPU usage you're using. Very Cool. I can't live without Expose, either, although I've been using systems 9.1 and 10.1 more recently and I've learned to live without it. I'm starting to use Spotlight more, although I could probably live without it. I could live without iChat, but I prefer iChat over AIM.

Well, enough about what I do, what can you live (or not live) without?
Click to expand...
There's a similar thread in the Mac OSX forum here. That being said, I use dashboard and spotlight. Really, both because I'm too lazy to go about everything manually.
 
devilot76 said:
There's a similar thread in the Mac OSX forum here. That being said, I use dashboard and spotlight. Really, both because I'm too lazy to go about everything manually.
Click to expand...

oops. Sorry!
 
Exposé is wicked useful, a welcome departure from the various half-baked virtual screen hacks. Something like it was needed years and years ago.

Spotlight gets used all the time here. All those ancient files i've been lugging around over the years are actually useful now because I can find what's in them.

Dashboard is cute, but it's just a fancy Web browser. I use it here and there, but wouldn't miss it if it suddenly went away in the next release.

The revised Finder since Panther: hated it at first, but wouldn't want to go back now.
 
Expose and spotlight are great, dashboard just duplicates my safari bookmarks.

Just found the photo edit options in preview, simple but nice for a quick crop. Is that a new feature?
 
I can't live without expose. Every time I'm at a Windows system, I miss expose sorely.

Dashboard is great, I use it frequently throughout the day, although I don't have that many widgets. If it suddenly goes away, I won't go jump off a bridge or anything.

Spotlight, well I do use it, but I don't really use the new features Spotlight brings, I just use it the same way I used the Find function in previous OS X versions.
 
I use Spotlight everyday. Being someone who always goes back through old emails, I find it so so easy now.

Automator I use too. Mainly for the easy picture file resizing workflow. Saves heaps of time and very easy.

Dashboard I use the most. It's my TV Guide, Dictionary, RSS Newsreader, Calculator and System Overview info in one place. I love it. I use it a lot more than I thought I would.

I also use Expose heaps. I didn't use it a great deal when it came with Panther but I've grown to live by it. If only for the F11 (everybody hide) function.

I even use the Ctrl-Cmd-D dictionary function too. I love Tiger. Best OS to date!
 
Expose is a must...though I also do a lot of CMD-Tabbing.

Automator has made my lack of Apple Script knowledge disappear. I use it for all kinds of repetitive tasks--recently used it to convert a bunch (200+) of documents to PDF and combine them so that I could search them all at once. This is a task I never would've tackled before.

Dashboard -- semi-useful, but mostly eye-candy. The accuweather.com info for the Boston area is really crappy, I think. Although, I'm unimpressed with forecasts here in Boston anyway (I FEEL like Houston and Austin, my previous homes, had a better grip on the weather...perhaps the weather is just easier there...hot and humid...all day).

Spotlight -- I think it requires some more tweaks...it's not as useful as Quicksilver was for me...but I no longer use quicksilver, just because I only used it for searches (though I did have one very useful trigger setup) and Spotlight does the same thing but in a more exhaustive and purty way. Plus, I just like to use what the OS offers on its own.

What exactly is "revised" in Finder? Looks and feels like the same ol' Finder...this is the one area where I really think the folks at Apple should concentrate--Finder is (and always has been, even in Panther) sluggish for me on my iBook. Of course, it feels (and has always felt) zippy on the iMac G5.
 
I use Command-TAB alot more nowadays ever since I hid my Dock, to free up more screen real-estate. When you're working with HD, even a 30" Cinema Display can be too limiting.

Spotlight's also something I use on a daily basis. Miss it everytime I have to use Panther.
 
Expose, Expose, Expose!!

I use Expose so much that I even hit alt-right mouse button (the shortcut I have assigned in my Mac) on my Windows Laptop when I want to change screens.

Dashboard is useful, but I'm still not that addicted to it. I use mostly the calculator and the calendar.
 
My dashboard is very useful for things I used to waste time on (uploading pictures to imageshack, tinyurl, checking gmail, etc..)

Expose is a must... Middle mouse button is all windows and I slam my mouse to the top right for desktop view, very convenient.

Spotlight is useless

That is all
 
Like most other people have said... I can't live without Expose. I have mine set up on hot corners and when I'm on other computers I find myself flicking the mouse over to the corner of the screen only to realize that nothing happens.

Spotlight is becoming more and more of a can't-live-without feature. Sometimes I still find myself searching through folder upon folder only to realize, what the heck am I doing? and hit option-space and find what i had just spent 4 minutes looking for in about 3 seconds.

I've pretty much stopped organizing my documents, I just dump them all in one folder now, knowing that Spotlight will find whatever I'm looking for.

Dashboard is very useful, I probably use it 3 or 4 times an hour when I'm on my PB. I don't think I'd go as far with Dashboard though, its cool but I would be ok without it too.

But Expose and Spotlight are pretty much indispensible now.
 
iMeowbot said:
Dashboard is cute, but it's just a fancy Web browser. I use it here and there, but wouldn't miss it if it suddenly went away in the next release.
Click to expand...

While Dashboard widget's guts are just made up of HTML, CSS and Javascript... the usefulness of it is much more than a fancy web browser to me.

Pressing one key to be able to check the weather, or do some math with a certain calculator is very convenient. Much more so than having to launch a separate app, or browser window to look something up.

I use Spotlight daily as well... haven't given Automator a try yet though.
 
I like Expose, but with my Apple Keyboard, I have a bit harder time hitting the right function keys. I used it more, when I had my PC keyboard, which had the function keys separated into groups of four, and I could easily find the expose set. See, my keyboard is also up and under my desk, and I don't actually see it, when I'm typing. I'm not saying it is hard, for me to use expose. It is just I'll hit the application expose button sometimes, instead of the all windows, or clear to show the desktop one.

However, F12 is a little easier, for me to find, and I love the widgets. I had a nice setup of widgets a while back, about ten, and I used them all. However, it ate up too much memory. Now I try to stick with my package tracker and stock widget. I bring others up as needed. However, I hate having to go down to the "X" to open new widgets. Should be an easier way to get to the widget dock.

Spotlight, surely I search for something daily. I think I use Spotlight technology the most inside my mail application. I'm always searching for emails going back years even, and I don't have to go digging in mailboxes to find them. It really is magic.

Automator I use whenever I need to rename a few dozen images.

The new dictionary I use all the time too. I think it is obvious! The Tiger features have become a key part of our daily computing experience.
 
powerbook911 said:
I like Expose, but with my Apple Keyboard, I have a bit harder time hitting the right function keys. I used it more, when I had my PC keyboard, which had the function keys separated into groups of four, and I could easily find the expose set. See, my keyboard is also up and under my desk, and I don't actually see it, when I'm typing. I'm not saying it is hard, for me to use expose. It is just I'll hit the application expose button sometimes, instead of the all windows, or clear to show the desktop one.
Click to expand...

I think you should get the Apple Pro Keyboard. It only has 15 Function keys, but they're separated into groups of 4, plus the Pro Keyboards had smoother edges. Another thing about the Pro Keyboard was that it came in both black and white.

Just a thought.
 
I have Expose and Dashboard mapped to three of the buttons on my mouse--that's how often I use them. Being able to see all the windows in the current app without even moving my hand is so useful it's not even funny.

Spotlight, ironically, I could live without; it's utility is obvious, but personally I've always used very descriptive filenames, so where I used to just do a quick command-F to find titles things containing whatever, I now have to wait for Spotlight to spin up my second drive and go through it's brief pause while it loads the index when I do the first search. It's great when I don't remember the details about something, but I miss the simplistic filename-only Find of 10.3 (and OS9--the interim OSX releases didn't have as good of one).
 
Dashboard and Automator are what I use in Tiger most often.

My mother loves Dashboard. If she needed a number from Yellow Pages, she'd generally call and try discussing things with a call centre far far away that didn't understand local spellings or pronunciations. She could never remember web addresses or be bothered bookmarking those things. With Dashboard, it's just there for her. Her location is pre-set and off she goes...
 
Expose: Useful, but I can work without it.

Dashboard: Gimmicky.

Spotlight: I like how command-space is compared to command-f. I don't like how the results list grows and things shift. That annoys me when I find something and then the list shifts just as I try to click on it.

Automator: Very useful when I need it. Don't need it that often though. Missing some things I would like.

I like how Apple is exploring how to improve user interfaces. I mean some of these things aren't really necessary to me, but other users seem to like them.
 
Don't really know how much of a feature this is but Tiger seems to have a better implementation of the Eject iPod task. In Panther I'd usually get a dialogue box about how the iPod was in use but now I only get that when it's actually relevant.

Otherwise, I'm loving Spotlight, Exposé and Dashboard. I know they're a little gimmicky and we survived perfectly well without them pre-Panther/Tiger but to be honest, they make the computer experience that little bit easier for me. :)
 
Exposé is a thing of beauty and like others have said when I'm at work on my XP box I find myself thumbing for the non-existing buttons on my mouse that work non-existing functions I use all the time at home.

Spotlight I use but would have a lot more use for at work, where I don't have it. :(

Dashboard I use all the time but for stuff that I could easily use Safari bookmarks for. That said it's there instantly again without moving my mouse.

Automater I'm meaning to try but haven't got round to it yet.

The spell-checking on the fly in web forms like this is a great feature too.
 
mpw said:
The spell-checking on the fly in web forms like this is a great feature too.
Click to expand...


Yeah I forgot about that. Awesome. When was that introduced?

Oh also, I use the dictionary quite a bit too. It's just so easy to hover the curser over a word and quickly hold down CONTROL-COMMAND-D. :)
 
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