Post your favorite Mac tip

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Since I'm new to Macs all those fun little tips are still fun to discover. Post your favorite tip here. Don't be shy!

I'll start...

1) The ctrl+2finger trackpad zoom is very cool.

2) Right-clicking on MacBooks and MacBook Pros = awesome!
- System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Place two fingers on trackpad and click button for secondary click.
- Thanks, and +1 rep, to StrechR for making my day with this one.

Add YOUR favorite tip!
 
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My favorite tip (especially for LONG forum posts) is "Summarize"...

Click/highlight the text in a post or news article....

Now click Safari.. Services.. Summarize.

Viola! You now have the short version of the post/story... You can use the slider to shorten or lengthen the summary.

It's like.... MAGIC!!!! Mac-Magic!!!!
 

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i like how you can add apps and tasks to the finder toolbar (i've got get info, new folder, and renamer4mac app added between the standard buttons and the spotlight box).
 
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My favorite tip (especially for LONG forum posts) is "Summarize"...

Click/highlight the text in a post or news article....

Now click Safari.. Services.. Summarize.

Viola! You now have the short version of the post/story... You can use the slider to shorten or lengthen the summary.

It's like.... MAGIC!!!! Mac-Magic!!!!

Love that one.
 
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My fave would probably be the famous "cmd+shift+3/4" for a screen capture/capture selection.
 
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My favorite tip (especially for LONG forum posts) is "Summarize"...

Click/highlight the text in a post or news article....

Now click Safari.. Services.. Summarize.

Viola! You now have the short version of the post/story... You can use the slider to shorten or lengthen the summary.

It's like.... MAGIC!!!! Mac-Magic!!!!

Hey that is great! Thanks!
 
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cmd + comma = opens Preferences dialog box on any Apple program.

cmd + click window title = pop-up shows folder path
 
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awesome thread :) very useful!

my contribution is apple + space for spotlight :)
 
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How about APPLE+F to "Find" a word or phrase on a page...
 
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More app oriented I suppose, but one of the little things that make the whole Mac experience just that much more cool:

With iChat: you can set it such that when a particular buddy signs on you can have Speech speak a bit of text; for example when my wife signs on I have the cylon voice say "Your wife is now online."

Hightlight the buddy, select Buddies -> Get info and you'll launch a pane where you can set what speech and what sound to play when the buddy signs on.

Also in terminal.app, you can use the 'say' command to have it speak pretty much any text that comes after the command. Useful for scripts that take awhile to run to have the script announce its completion.
 

cwa107


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I like how you can drag a file over to a folder, hold the file there for a second or two and it opens the folder, continue holding it over one of the subfolders and it will open the subfolder (and it will continue to dig into the folder structure until you release the mouse button).

My other favorite is to drop your Applications folder onto the right-side of the dock (nearest the trash can). Then, you can right-click on the Applications folder to get a "Start menu" containing all of your programs.
 
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I like how you can drag a file over to a folder, hold the file there for a second or two and it opens the folder, continue holding it over one of the subfolders and it will open the subfolder (and it will continue to dig into the folder structure until you release the mouse button).

My other favorite is to drop your Applications folder onto the right-side of the dock (nearest the trash can). Then, you can right-click on the Applications folder to get a "Start menu" containing all of your programs.

Instead of right-click you can also just click-hold for the list to "pop-up"

I also like the spring-folders!
 

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Instead of right-click you can also just click-hold for the list to "pop-up"

I also like the spring-folders!

Even better +rep!! :)
 
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Also in terminal.app, you can use the 'say' command to have it speak pretty much any text that comes after the command. Useful for scripts that take awhile to run to have the script announce its completion.
This never occurred to me! Now my forehead is flat from hitting it.
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by walkerj View Post
Also in terminal.app, you can use the 'say' command to have it speak pretty much any text that comes after the command. Useful for scripts that take awhile to run to have the script announce its completion.
This never occurred to me! Now my forehead is flat from hitting it.
Nice! And you can change voices too, either by going to System Preferences > Speech to change the default voice, or if you're in Terminal or Script Editor by using: say "Hello" using "<voicename>".

I spent waaaay too much time playing with this last night. :mac:
 
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Even cooler is if you hit the space bar once after cmd+shift+4 .

Awesome! I love it!

My shortcut contribution would be Sizzlin' Keys used in conjunction with iTunes.

Also, I just this instant, by accident, learned about the "alternate keyboard" (i.e.: alt+w=∑ or alt+6=§). Is there a complete listing of that keyboard anywhere on the net?!
 
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Is there a complete listing of that keyboard anywhere on the net?!
Inside your computer.

Go to International in the System Preferences and click on the Input Menu tab, then on Keyboard Viewer. A flag of your keyboard choice of language will appear in the menu bar if it isn't there already.

Go to the flag and choose Show Keyboard Viewer. Choose a font and press Option. Shift-Option gives even more characters.

I may not be remembering correctly, but some pre-OS X fonts may have had choices under the Control key. None seems to now, but I didn't check them all (I have old fonts in the OS 9 partition). Maybe they were pre-TrueType bitmaps.

A shareware app and onetime pre-OS X staple (when it was free), PopChar, makes the process easier.
 

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