Three Things...

[chelsel]

1) Is it possible to make the Save As & Print dialogs float/moveable... they seem to be glued to the application that opened them... frequently covering important information underneath the dialog.

2) Is there a Windows XP Start menu equivalent via third party software, or any way of accomplishing Start menu functionality in the OS. I want to group related programs in a hierarchy accessible via a menu. Starting Finder, Choosing Applications, and hunting for an app is slow... after one week my Dock already has over 30 items in it... a little organization is in order! I tried Quicksilver but it's inadequate for obscure programs I might not even remember the name of..

Finally,

3) Can I remap Home and End to work like they do on a Windows machine, go to the start and end of a line... I'm a programmer so I do a lot of line based editing, not entire document based editing. I would do things the "Mac" way... but personalization is the name of the game for me

Thanks!

Cliff.

 

[shawsinio]

Hmm, not sure about number 1.

For question 2 though, you could drag the actual applications folder to the far right part of the dock by the trash. Then when you right click it, the applications will display in a column more like a start menu, which you can then scroll through.

For 3, the command button (apple sign) plus the right arrow should take you to the end of the line.

Hope that helps a bit.

shawsinio

 

[chelsel]

Dragging the applications folder to the Dock works fairly well... is it safe to reorganize the Applications folder to a friendlier structure, like:

Applications
Business Applications (Word, Excel, Quickbooks)
Internet Applications (Firefox, Opera, Mail, Safari)
Programming (Eclipse, Vim, dbVisualizer, etc.)
Multimedia (Itunes, GarageBand...)
Utilities (you get the picture

Or could this lead to problems in the future, with for example Software Update?

Thanks!

 

[mkrishnan]

It will screw up software update. It was the first thing I did and regretted after switching.

What you can do is make an alias applications directory, though, with whatever hierarchy you want. For instance, create the subfolders you mentioned in the application directory inside your home directory. That application directory should be empty right now. Then drag the applications into those folders while holding cmd (apple) and option -- you'll see the pointer change to a curvey arrow. These are alias / link files just like in Windows.

You can then make whatever hierarchy you want, put that Applications folder in the right side of the dock, and you should have what you want safely.

I do this (but with my standard Applications folder).

 

[invasian]

for number 2, i recommend using quicksilver...it is essentially an application launcher on speed...just invoke, type in a few letters of the app name and boom, start...same thing with folders and other stuff...it's very handy once you get used to it

 

[chelsel]

mkrishnan: thanks, that approach should work pretty well. Is there any way to put the shortcut to my homebrew start menu in the menu bar... perhaps egads, replace the Apple icon just kidding... but anywhere on the menu bar in the upper left would be fantastic, you know, Fitts Law and everything.

Cliff.

 

[mkrishnan]

If you want it in the Apple menu, then you might try Fruitmenu, XMenu, or ClassicMenu (not sure that last one runs in Tiger or on Intel macs, though).

 

[chelsel]

Now that's what I call a real "Mac Genius" .... thanks

Cliff.