Know Your Mac – Top Ten Secrets of a Power User
“Wow! You’re really good with computers!” – when this compliment comes from a non-techie, it really means, “You’re a bit of a geek, but would you mind if I rang you the next time my computer eats my term paper?” Here are 10 tips to help you become a Mac power user.
Use Script Menu as an Application and Document Launcher
OS X comes stocked with over 300 ready to run AppleScripts. To access these, open up AppleScript Utility (in Applications/AppleScript/AppleScript Utility.app) and check “Show Script menu in menu bar.” You’ll notice a little script icon appear from where you can run any of Apple’s scripts. But even better, you can drag the alias of any file, folder or application into your script folder (in user/Library/Scripts) and launch it from your menu bar. I keep an alias of my todo.txt and a few often accessed folders here for quick mouse access.
Set a Text to Speech Shortcut
Leopard comes with Alex, a new voice for reading text. Alex is a huge improvement over any Tiger voice, and I constantly use him (it?) to proof blog posts have Daring Fireball articles read to me while I do the washing up. Set up a shortcut to invoke Alex through System Preferences >> Speech (I use Control + Option + S – it hasn’t conflicted with anything yet). If you’re not sure how to set up the shortcut, this post goes into it in more detail. And if you haven’t heard Alex yet, have a listen below. He’s quite impressive.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Add a Folder to the Dock and Set its Appearance
The first thing I like to do after a fresh install is drag my Applications folder into the dock. By default, however, what you’ll see in your dock is the first application in your Applications folder (mine is 1Password; yours may be Address Book). Change this by right clicking on the icon in the dock. Check ‘Display as Folder’ and ‘View Content as List’ and the folder will look and act like it should. Of course, you can put any folder in your dock – Documents, Movies or maybe a temporary folder of files that you’re currently working on.
Set Hot Corners
Hot corners allow you to attach actions to the corners of your screen that can be accessed by dragging your mouse cursor to an extremity of your screen. To set up Hot Corners, go to Exposé and Spaces in System Preferences (Applications/System Preferences). Click on the Exposé tab and select your actions from the drop down menus.
Set and Disable Startup Items
There are certain apps on my Mac that I need to be running at all times when I’m working. An easy way to make sure they’re ready to go when you need them is to have each one automatically launch when you boot your machine. To set this up, open System Preferences and navigate to Users. Click on the ‘Login Items’ button at the top of the pane and add or remove apps at will using the ‘+’ and ‘-’ buttons.
Set or Change Keyboard Shortcuts for Any Menu Item
Don’t like the keyboard shortcut for a menu item in some app? Want a shortcut for an action that doesn’t have one assigned? No problem. Open Mouse and Keyboard preferences in System Preferences and click on the Keyboard Shortcuts tab at the top of the window. From here you can change any shortcut assigned to a menu item on your Mac. If you want to add a new one, click the ‘+’ button at the bottom of the window, select your application and manually type in the menu item (making sure to spell it exactly the same way as it appears in the menu of the app). Double click on the shortcut section beside the item and set whatever you like.
Set ‘Always Open In Icon, List, Etc View’ for Any Folder
I like to have certain folders open in specific views. For instance, I want my Applications folder to open in List view. To make this the default view of the window, set the window to List view and right click on the column title bar at the top of the pane. Select Show View Options and set your folders defaults (if you want the view to be the system wide default, click “Use As Default” at the bottom of the pane; to have the preference apply to only your chosen window, make your selections and close the pane by clicking the red close button).
Search For a Specific Preference in System Preferences
Despite the prevalence of the search box at the top of the System Preferences window, it’s something I didn’t notice for a long time. Start typing the preference you’re looking for in the box and your options will take on a subtle glow. It’s really quick way to find a specific preference if you forget which category it’s located in (as I often do).
Add Applications and Files to Finder Toolbars
Most people know that you can customize the toolbar of applications by right clicking on some neutral space and selecting ‘Customize Toolbar.’ With Finder windows, however, you’re able to add almost anything you like to the toolbar for one click access. An application, document, picture, AppleScript – use your imagination and your Finder toolbar will become far more useful.
Utilize Spring Loaded Folders
If you use Drag and Drop to move files and folders around on your Mac, Spring Loaded Folders will make your life easier. If you want to drop a file into a subfolder that isn’t visible but whose parent folder is, simply begin dragging your file and hover over the parent folder for a moment. The directory will ‘spring’ open and you’ll have access to its contents. If your target folder is even deeper, repeat the process until you see it and release your file. It’s a quick way to access the depths of your filesystem if your rely on the mouse to move files around.
Do you mess with the defaults of you Mac? What are your favorite tricks and shortcuts? I’ve only scratched the surface here, so let me know in the comments what you think!
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:16 am
There’s one secret I have been seeking for months now that (as far as I know) no one has ever published. In Finder, when you know that some file is a plain text file but does not have a standard .TXT or similar extension, is there any way to force Quick Look to display it anyway, without first going through the hassle of renaming it to have a .TXT extension? Normally Quick Look just displays a useless icon if it does not recognize the extension.
September 14th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Hi Jack,
Quick Look can be temperamental! .TXT extensions have always worked for me, but other formats have their moments when they won’t load. I can’t understand why. Sometimes a restart helps, but that’s quite annoying!
In any case, you can search Quick Look Plugins List and QLPlugins for ways to extend Quick Look beyond the modest file types that Apple included with the app.
Good luck with those text files!
Peter
September 16th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Of course, the ultimate power user’s toy is the Terminal. If you take the time to learn Unix, you can do things like batch file renames. Plus, you’ll get access to some very powerful scripting tools.
September 17th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Jack,
You might be able to set the UTI type of the file to plain text. Not sure exactly how you might go about that but it could be a place to start.
September 17th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
im really surprised that noone has talked about using the ROOT account. Although i think that may even be above the “power user” scope of this article, you can screw stuff up if you dont know what your doing.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:18 am
i’m surprised nobody ever talks about the inbuilt zoom feature (ctrl+scroll up-down / right click+scroll wheel) cause i only discovered it by accident but find it quite useful. has it been around that long?
September 19th, 2008 at 12:48 am
@warren – running in pure root is over my head! I’m certainly the one who would “screw stuff up” if I tried it. Maybe the title should be “Secrets of a Power Gooey User.” My combo of familiarity, keyboard shortcuts and AppleScript works for me, but I’m always impressed when I watch terminal freaks work. If you’re running as root, you’re seriously rocking. (Maybe you could recommend a link for those who don’t know about the root experience?)
@Salil – I have my Zoom feature turned off because, like you, I discovered it only by accident and had no idea what was going on! If you want to enable zoom, go into System Preferences under Universal Access. You’ll see ‘Zoom’ spelled out in huge letters – just click the ‘On’ preference check box. By default, holding down control and scrolling in (with a trackball on a mouse or with two fingers on a notebook) will magnify the screen area around your cursor. Scroll back to get back to a normal state.
I personally don’t find it very useful, but I can see how it would be to some.
Great comments! Cheers, everyone.
September 20th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
There’s really no reason even for most power users to log in as root in the GUI. If you really are doing something that requires root it’s better to use sudo in the terminal. If you don’t know how to do that, then the chances are excellent that you shouldn’t, or at least that you shouldn’t on a computer that you care about before backing everything up… ;-)
September 21st, 2008 at 12:01 am
Oh, and while we’re mentioning underutilized power tools… Automator can be loads of fun and a real help with productivity. The learning curve isn’t very steep either.
Find it in your Applications folder and play around a bit.
September 28th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
There’s no need to use root unless you come up against something that can’t be done because permission is denied and you don’t want to/shouldn’t change permissions.
It’s quite weird, I don’t really consider myself a power user by any means, and I don’t really think these tips are indicative of a power user – certainly one who uses some of OSX’s less obvious and more useful features, but not power. In my mind, a power user has a library of apple scripts, automator actions and awk scripts so that they barely even have to touch the keyboard any more!
December 1st, 2008 at 1:17 pm
how to be a mac power user: Stop using macs.
January 4th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
As I turn off my computer overnight and for a large part of the day, I have been using Anacron to run automatic OS X 10.5.x maintenance in the past. The results could be checked in file /var/log/ where the daily out, monthly out and weekly out run times appeared.
When I have downloaded the latest Anacron 3.3 it told me:
“This version has been updated with a Universal binary for both PPC and Intel architectures. It will run on Leopard (MacOS 10.5), but is not needed because the Leopard launched will correctly run skipped events when the machine is next awake.”
As Anacron 3.3 stopped running, I have completely uninstalled it in accordance with Anacron’s instructions but I can’t find any records of Leopard’s running automatic maintenance in /var/log/ .
Does that mean that the maintenance is not running or that it is no longer listed in /var/log/? Is it listed anywhere at all?
Wacek
January 4th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
As I turn off my computer overnight and for a large part of the day, I have been using Anacron to run automatic OS X 10.5.x maintenance in the past. The results could be checked in file /var/log/ where the daily out, monthly out and weekly out run times appeared.
When I have downloaded the latest Anacron 3.3 it told me:
“This version has been updated with a Universal binary for both PPC and Intel architectures. It will run on Leopard (MacOS 10.5), but is not needed because the Leopard launched will correctly run skipped events when the machine is next awake.”
As Anacron 3.3 stopped running, I have completely uninstalled it in accordance with Anacron’s instructions but I can’t find any records of Leopard’s running automatic maintenance in /var/log/ .
Does that mean that the maintenance is not running or that it is no longer listed in /var/log/? Is it listed anywhere at all?
March 20th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
As I always launch the same programs when I come into work I have made a really simple applescript that will launch them for me in the morning and then one that will quit them all at the end of the day. Simply open up the Applescript Editor and, for launching, use:
tell application “application name”
activate
end tell
for example:
tell application “Mail”
activate
end tell
to quit use:
tell application “application name”
quit
end tell
Simply put those lines in for every application that you want to launch or quit, respectively, and then choose File –> Save As –> and save it as an application. You can then drag it to the dock and launch/close everything with one click.
I also map network drives and other such customizations, but that might be getting a little too in depth for most new to applescript.
April 30th, 2010 at 7:05 am
“Mac power user.”
Oxymoron.
REAL power users just plain don’t use Macs. Largely because Macs do next to nothing a power user would actually want.
Up there with “real geeks don’t buy Apple.” It just doesn’t occur.