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What is this feature?

U

UntidyForest

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 8, 2015
1
0
I just visited a news site while my attention was divided between my laptop and TV. I did *something* that I can't figure out and as a result saw a feature I've never seen before. One of the lead stories on the site had a native looking OSX pop-up animate out of it, which contained a visual preview of the story page. At the bottom was an Add to Reading List button.

I like the idea of getting previews without having to visit pages, so I'd love to know what the heck I did to invoke this. I have no idea if it was a key I hit or some kind of click.

EDIT: I clicked around a little more and now I see it's part of the improved look-up feature. I had no idea it did anything but looking things up.

My first post ends up pointless. Sorry.
 
Last edited:
UntidyForest said:
I just visited a news site while my attention was divided between my laptop and TV. I did *something* that I can't figure out and as a result saw a feature I've never seen before. One of the lead stories on the site had a native looking OSX pop-up animate out of it, which contained a visual preview of the story page. At the bottom was an Add to Reading List button.

I like the idea of getting previews without having to visit pages, so I'd love to know what the heck I did to invoke this. I have no idea if it was a key I hit or some kind of click.

EDIT: I clicked around a little more and now I see it's part of the improved look-up feature. I had no idea it did anything but looking things up.

My first post ends up pointless. Sorry.
Click to expand...

Your post wasn't pointless, you may very well have taught someone else about a feature they knew nothing about :)
 
It's a OS X feature that has been there for some time. I first noticed it using Mavericks.

To get a preview like you described just click/tap with three fingers on a link and it will open a little window. If you do a three finger click/tap on a word you get the dictionary with definition.

With 2015 rMBP 13" with Force Touch. Just force click a link and you get the same.
 
colonel179 said:
It's a OS X feature that has been there for some time. I first noticed it using Mavericks.
To get a preview like you described just click/tap with three fingers on a link and it will open a little window
Click to expand...

Using Mavericks 10.9.5 with safari 7.1.6 on this 2013 iMac - the 3 finger tap on a link does not open a little window - it just opens a dictionary look up.
 
Thank you for that. I'm not sure that I ever knew it existed. It seems a bit hit and miss with a trackpad (sometimes the link just opens anyway) and I can only get it to work on my iMac. It won't work at all on the MacBook but it's quite a useful feature when it does work.
 
interstella said:
Thank you for that. I'm not sure that I ever knew it existed. It seems a bit hit and miss with a trackpad (sometimes the link just opens anyway) and I can only get it to work on my iMac. It won't work at all on the MacBook but it's quite a useful feature when it does work.
Click to expand...

Strange, it works all the time for me on my MacBook. I use the three-finger tap all the time for the lookup feature and so far it seems to work consistently with URLs.
 
Oh wow. QuickLook for links! I was a late updater to 10.10.3, and I'm still figuring out the new featured and getting used to things like the new look of the dictionary pop-out. This is definitely a super useful Safari-only feature. Thanks for sharing!
 
ardchoille50 said:
Your post wasn't pointless, you may very well have taught someone else about a feature they knew nothing about :)
Click to expand...
Certainly taught me. I knew about the three-finger tap for definitions, but not for this. This seems like a very useful feature that I'll be able to use multiple times per day, so I appreciate this post quite a bit!
 
UntidyForest said:
I just visited a news site while my attention was divided between my laptop and TV. I did *something* that I can't figure out and as a result saw a feature I've never seen before. One of the lead stories on the site had a native looking OSX pop-up animate out of it, which contained a visual preview of the story page. At the bottom was an Add to Reading List button.

I like the idea of getting previews without having to visit pages, so I'd love to know what the heck I did to invoke this. I have no idea if it was a key I hit or some kind of click.

EDIT: I clicked around a little more and now I see it's part of the improved look-up feature. I had no idea it did anything but looking things up.

My first post ends up pointless. Sorry.
Click to expand...

Your post most certainly was not pointless! I never knew about this feature.
 
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