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does anyone use services?

P

powerofthekiwi

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 18, 2004
60
0
Does this wonderful little addition (here since the original OS X) have any real use? I consider myself a fairly proficient user yet I have never had a need or read an article on how to make these useful.

Anyone use them to speed up their productivity? How?
 
Services is the best kept secret in OS X. Not all apps support it though. I use it sometimes but I wouldn't say it makes me more productive.
 
About the only time I actually use them is to Mail an item I've selected. Honestly, I prefer the Windows approach of having these things accessible via right click. Yes, yes, of course they should be in the Services menu on top as well. But it'd be a heck of a lot easier to just right click on something to do something to it.
 
jsw said:
About the only time I actually use them is to Mail an item I've selected. Honestly, I prefer the Windows approach of having these things accessible via right click. Yes, yes, of course they should be in the Services menu on top as well. But it'd be a heck of a lot easier to just right click on something to do something to it.
Click to expand...

I can agree. Unless something is right at ur fingertips at all times and doesn't require an extra step or two, you won't use it in normal or main workflow all the time.

For me it's like docks. I wanted to have multiple docks that I could put anything I want in them and access them anytime I want. I didn't want all these apps and files in the main doc cause that would just be too confusing and insane. I wanted them in separate docks and those docks available at all times instead of using a dock switcher. Too me, that was just too much of a hassle and slowed down my work flow. I found Dock-It and it has done all that I wanted it to.

All that to say, yes, services is not quite that bad, but still much of a hassle and not the best for good workflow. just mho
 
I use (I think it's in services) the "send file to bluetooth device" menu option frequently. Then again I use it from the keyboard (apple option b or something like that, my fingers know what it is).
 
I don't think I've ever really used it for anything useful. I do use one of the commands sometimes though. If you have something highlighted and then do shift-command-L, it will open up a new window and does a Google search with it. Nice, but otherwise I rarely use it.
 
makes me wonder if it is possible to get the services menu in your right/control-click menu or even better a contextually sensitive one... hummm

anyone heard of this being done before?
 
Santiago said:
I make frequent use of WordService, a free little services-based program to reformat text, capable of uppercasing, lowercasing, removing quotation levels, stripping line breaks, and other useful functions.
Click to expand...

Unuzeer fute-a fur VurdSerfeece-a -- mekes Serfeeces fery useffool. I elsu use-a Serfeeces fur cupyeeng text frum veb peges durectly tu un i-meeel oor TextEdeet ducooment. I elsu hefe-a a Serfeece-a instelled thet cunferts text in uny eppleeceshun tu Svedeesh Cheff deeelug. I'd cell thet indeespenseble-a!
 
You forgot the Bork bork bork. :D

I keep forgetting Services is there, personally. I think it's one of those things that you have to make a specific effort to learn, but after you do it's possilby quite a productivity enhancer. Now and then I'll see various articles around the Mac web about how Services are an often-neglected tool, but they're written by the same types who'd have detailed memory allocation techniques back in the OS 9 days.
 
I use the start speaking text service, it's very good to proof read any papers you have written because when you hear a voice speak what you have written out loud, you can catch a lot of grammatical errors.
 
yes, i use them quitea bit. very handy. i mostly use it from Safari, > Send to a new docuement in TextEdit, or whatever that TextEdit service is.:p

i think some where there is a 'summarise' service? i haven't used it, but i imagine it would be useful for someone working on assignments, essays etc? ;)

i'm going to try and make an effort of use Services more when i can...
 
Services would be much more helpful if they were included in the mouse right click menu (or control click for the single button mouse people).
 
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