Leopard Tips and Hints

[hevaKmaI]

Similar to the old lightswitch x program, now you can drag and drop to 'alt + tabbed' icons. Also while in 'alt + tab' mode, press 'q' to quit, 'h' to hide the application.

I don't think this is new, at least the 'q' and 'h' functions, these worked in tiger as well....I'm not entirely sure about drap and drop.

 

[Habakuk]

Well yes and no 😀 Holding down the Control key and clicking the Time Machine icon in the Dock creates a new incremental backup. We mistakenly thought it was the space bar but after your post we double checked and it's the Control key. Try that and it should work for you. It's already been verified by several other people at other Mac sites. We've changed our original post to reflect this change. Thanks

Nope. Sorry. Doesn't work here.

 

[charmin]

The 'Back Up Now' shortcut doesn't work?

Right-click or ctrl-click the Time Machine dock icon, and from the pop-up menu, select 'Back Up Now'.

I was confused while people were still saying it was the spacebar, but there shouldn't be any more cause for confusion.

 

[Habakuk]

The 'Back Up Now' shortcut doesn't work?

It works very well.

Right-click or ctrl-click the Time Machine dock icon,

This brings up the context menu. But it isn't enough. Here comes the important part:

and from the pop-up menu, select 'Back Up Now'.

I don't want to be nitpicking, but MyMac8MyPC didn't write this. The user wrote:

Well yes and no 😀 Holding down the Control key and clicking the Time Machine icon in the Dock creates a new incremental backup. We mistakenly thought it was the space bar but after your post we double checked and it's the Control key...

I was confused while people were still saying it was the spacebar, but there shouldn't be any more cause for confusion.

Okay, no more clearness on this 🙂

 

[snocat]

I don't think this is new, at least the 'q' and 'h' functions, these worked in tiger as well....I'm not entirely sure about drap and drop.

Oh sorry, I always have lightswitch installed so Im probably mistaken. But drag & drop on alt + tab is definitely new. This couldn't be done in previous OS X.

 

[TigerPRO]

The previous releases, if you accidentally dragged an item off the dock, you had four choices, three of them less than ideal:

• Drop it on the desktop. It will "poof" and be gone from the dock. 🙁
• Drop it on the menu bar. It will "poof" and be gone from the dock. 🙁
• Drop it back on the same side of the dock. It might end up in a different position. 🙁
• Drop it on the other side of the dock. It will return to the original position in the dock. 🙂

Under Leopard, they've fixed the menu bar case. So now your choices are:

• Drop it on the desktop. It will "poof" and be gone from the dock. 🙁
• Drop it on the menu bar. It will return to the original position in the dock. 🙂
• Drop it back on the same side of the dock. It might end up in a different position. 🙁
• Drop it on the other side of the dock. It will return to the original position in the dock. 🙂

Even in Tiger though, you could always hit escape to accomplish the same thing. That applies to dragging files too.

 

[TigerPRO]

does anyone know how to get Finder windows to automatically update alphabetically (while keeping a grid)? apparently you can't snap to grid and keep arranged alphabetically at the same time?

What do you mean? Aren't your icons in auto-alphabetical mode aligned to a grid?

 

[xenic]

mosaic screensaver + old tiger hack

the new (extremly cool) mosaic screensaver made me think of an old hack for tiger.

Try running

/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background

in a Terminal window while the Mosaic screensaver is your active screensaver and enjoy a neverending mosaic on as your desktop background 🙂

 

[QuarterSwede]

Mail has had the nickname addressee feature since at least 10.3 panther. I'm writing on 10.3 right now, so I'm certain. I click the To: address field, type "da" then it auto recognizes the nickname "Dad," and all I do is hit enter and it fills in the correct address.

That seriously never worked for me - so weird. I formatted my hard drive and did a clean install of Leopard and used a backup of my old address book from Tiger. At least it works now..

Another nice thing I noticed in Leopard is when you spell a password wrong in Safari and tell keychain to learn it, and then you re-type your password, keychain remembers the correct password and does not save the entry from the incorrect password.

I remember in Tiger's keychain I would have a certain website 5 times with different passwords I guessed. 🙂

Never worked for me in Tiger either. I know because I tried several times. My wife's name is Jennifer, Jennie for short and when I typed Jennie I would get nothing. But typing Jennif gives me the entry.

Now in Leopard I can type Jennie and it gives me the entry.

Bizzare kind of tip: if you shift-click a folder in the Dock, the resulting opening operation will happen veeeeery slowly.

Why, I wonder? 😕

This was put in for Jobs originially. He wanted to show off expose animations in Panther (?) at a WWDC so the engineers put in the Shift (Shift+F9).

Try Shift+F12 (Dashboard) or Shift+F8 (Spaces).
____________________________________________

Spaces tip:

When using Ctrl+arrow keys, to move to a catty-cornered space hit the key to the side of the screen that doesn't have a space.

Ex. Top Right to Bottom Left
Ctrl+Left arrow

Ex. Bottom Left to Top Right
Ctrl+Right arrow

*I don't know how this works with more than 4 spaces.

 

[Habakuk]

Spaces tip:

When using Cmd+arrow keys,

On my machine it's ctrl+arrow. But I've learned that Cmd+arrow goes back and forth in Safari
🙂

to move to a catty-cornered space hit the key to the side of the screen that doesn't have a space.

Ex. Top Right to Bottom Left
Cmd+Left arrow

Ex. Bottom Left to Top Right
Cmd+Right arrow

That's because the left and right arrow keys are going through all spaces when you hit them numerously. At the end or beginning of a line (in the grid) they return to the next or previous line. The up & down keys however travel only through their row.

*I don't know how this works with more than 4 spaces.

Yes it does.

 

[Sky Blue]

This was put in for Jobs originially. He wanted to show off expose animations in Panther (?) at a WWDC .

It was in OS X loooooooonnngggg before panther.

 

[LimeiBook86]

It was in OS X loooooooonnngggg before panther.

Yup, since the very beginning. 😀 There's a video of a very early OS X version running and Jobs showing off everything in slow motion. Also the dock didn't have sections, (like applications on one side, folders on the other) he mixed applications and files throughout the dock.. 😉

 

[Macnoviz]

Yup, since the very beginning. 😀 There's a video of a very early OS X version running and Jobs showing off everything in slow motion. Also the dock didn't have sections, (like applications on one side, folders on the other) he mixed applications and files throughout the dock.. 😉

although he did have a different way of turning it on or off, and it was never intended as a real feature in OS X, but I'm glad they did it this way.

 

[torpy]

Finder now updates hard-disk space on the desktop in realtime!

Before when you deleted something and emptied trash to reclaim space it did not show up under the desktop hard-drive icon. Now it does!

Love this feature, always thought it was a bit weird that that didn't auto-update..

 

[Cybix]

Anyone notice the theming in Terminal? and the Tabs? I guess it's not real theming, but it's pretty neat, and the window grouping of pre-defined terminal settings, etc.

nice for the terminal hackers out there 🙂

Also, thanks to everyone who has supported www.leopardtricks.com slowly getting there!

 

[xUKHCx]

Finder FTP now supports uploading(?)

Just connected to my uni account via connect to server from the finder and it let me download and upload. I'm pretty sure that when doing this in Tiger it didn't work on the upload side of things. But then again the last time i tried was 5 months ago so the uni could of changed their end as well. Is anyone else seeing this.

 

[trainguy77]

Finder FTP now supports uploading(?)

Just connected to my uni account via connect to server from the finder and it let me download and upload. I'm pretty sure that when doing this in Tiger it didn't work on the upload side of things. But then again the last time i tried was 5 months ago so the uni could of changed their end as well. Is anyone else seeing this.

Yeah tiger didn't support uploads.

 

[davidChief]

I might be in a minority here, but I love the new Finder. It's the first version that I actually find usable.

I've set it up a bit like Windows - 32x32 icons, tight spacing. Everything in one window.

The networking is so much easier. Connecting to Windows shares works beautifully.

The only thing missing is some indication of the path i.e. Macintosh HD > Library > Fonts. Any way to turn that on?

 

[davidChief]

Here's another question... I am a big fan of doing stuff using the keyboard. I am pretty fast that way and I know lots of shortcuts. Navigating around the Finder works quite nicely and the new space bar quicklook preview works nicely. But to actually open a file, it still needs an Apple+O which is not as fast as return key on Windo$e 🙂 Is there any other easy way to open a file... or a hack?

 

[oceanmonster]

I might be in a minority here, but I love the new Finder. It's the first version that I actually find usable.

I've set it up a bit like Windows - 32x32 icons, tight spacing. Everything in one window.

The networking is so much easier. Connecting to Windows shares works beautifully.

The only thing missing is some indication of the path i.e. Macintosh HD > Library > Fonts. Any way to turn that on?

yes with the finder pulled up go to view and show path bar. It even supports drag and drop!

 

[TBi]

But to actually open a file, it still needs an Apple+O which is not as fast as return key on Windo$e

I never got this behavior. Of all the things i'd want to do with a file, opening definately ranks first, checking properties would be next and changing the name is well down the list.

 

[davidChief]

yes with the finder pulled up go to view and show path bar. It even supports drag and drop!

Thanks. That works pretty nicely.

 

[davidChief]

I never got this behavior. Of all the things i'd want to do with a file, opening definately ranks first, checking properties would be next and changing the name is well down the list.

Well, these keyboard assignments go back to Mac OS 6 (perhaps even further back). Keyboard shortcuts were initially not something Apple cared much for because the Mac was all about a new invention called the mouse. Twenty three years later, we all love using the mouse but keyboard is faster and easier for certain things, for experienced users.

Unfortunately keyboard shortcuts is still one area where Windo$e is better, and faster to use. There are a lot of handy shortcuts in Win that Mac has no equivalent for.

Perhaps there is a hack out there somewhere for this?

 

[QuarterSwede]

Unfortunately keyboard shortcuts is still one area where Windo$e is better, and faster to use. There are a lot of handy shortcuts in Win that Mac has no equivalent for.

Perhaps there is a hack out there somewhere for this?

You should be able to add them in System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts Tab > "+" button.

 

[un1ty]

Just found one I haven't seen mentioned anywhere. When you go to Address Book and drag a picture into a contact, there's a swirly button you can click. There are PhotoBooth type of effects you can add to your contact pictures. I haven't seen some of these effects in PhotoBooth or anywhere else.