Saturday, May 26, 2007
Exploding Menus & Pongy Savers★
Ever got really annoyed at anything in your menu bar? Such as the clock, airport or bluetooth icons? Or do you just want to reorder them - that bluetooth icon in the wrong place again? Great news, for all system menus, you can cmd+click & drag them around on the bar to your infinite tinkering pleasure.Chances are you probably knew about this already, but I just found out today, and I've been putting it to some good use! Doesn't seem to work with skype, adium, or MainMenu, but works with pretty much anything apple provided. Also works with SoundSource.
And for the ultimate in geeky screensavers, check out this fellow from Rogue Amoeba. Its a game of pong that keeps track of the time with scores. The left side wins every hour, and the right every minute. Creepy.
As per Mactake tradition ( and to completely eliminate any confusion whatsoever ) the Cmd key is highlighted below. I'm not being patronizing, I just find it helps ensure confidence if you're trying out a keystroke for the first time.
Labels: keystrokes, tips
★ 0 Comments. | By Skippy, Saturday, May 26, 2007 10:24 AM
Monday, April 9, 2007
Adding Quick Folders To Finder Sidebar★
If you're not familiar with Finder's trust old sidekick sidebar, then you need to read about the littlewhitepill. (Just click it to bring up the sidebar)
If you're in a folder and you want to add it swiftly to the sidebar, you don't need to navigate up a directory and then laboriously drag it over, just press Cmd+T, and it'll wizz over there automatically.
That's Cmd + T.
Happy Mac'ing!
Labels: keystrokes, tips
★ 0 Comments. | By Skippy, Monday, April 9, 2007 1:49 PM
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Capture Window Keystroke★
Firas, over at the maccast forums discovered a terribly useful keystroke to capture a specific window.Hit Cmd+Shift+4 ( for a selective screen capture ), then hit the spacebar.
The cursor will switch to a picture of a very outdated camera and the window its over will be highlighted. Click on any window and its capture will be saved as a png file to the desktop.Nifty huh!
Thanks to Firas over at:
http://forum.maccast.com/index.php?showtopic=2050&st=40
Also, the MacCast does a wonderful thread: 'The Ultimate Mac Keyboard Shortcut List". Its worth checking out and I'll be mining it for ideas from time to time (i'll always state i have).
Check this thread out at:
http://forum.maccast.com/index.php?showtopic=2050
Happy Mac'ing!
Labels: keystrokes, tips
★ 0 Comments. | By Skippy, Saturday, February 24, 2007 10:24 AM
Monday, February 19, 2007
More Keyboard Shortcuts★
What ho, I stumbled across some new keyboard shortcuts for tiger.Hitting F10 for expose all applications is great, you know, glossy and really slick. But if you're working late, pulling those early morning hours, all that expose flying around really, (and i mean really) can give you anything from epileptic seizures to aneurysms.
So for something that switches application windows on the fly without risking seizures, hit Cmd+`
Thats right, if you look at the picture below, the ` key I am referring to is highlighted along with the cmd key.
This will automatically do a no-nonsense switch to the next app window. Nifty!
At maccast.com they do a great thread for keyboard shortcuts, be sure to check it out! ( I might borrow some of my ideas from there from time to time, but i'll always state that i have ). Be sure to check it out!
Labels: adam-christianson, keystrokes, tips
★ 0 Comments. | By Skippy, Monday, February 19, 2007 8:21 PM
Friday, February 16, 2007
OSX's almost hidden grab and dictionary and front row keystrokes.★
We all know about Tiger's ever-so-buried Services menu right? Its incredibly useful if, perchance, you have the presence of mind to actually navigate to it which, I admit, is sometimes an effort for the best of us.
There are however some really useful functions in there, from summarize ( if you don't know what that is, you need to subscribe to Twit's MacBreak ), to the dictionary, google search and new sticky note maker.
Well believe it or not, Tiger has actually had built-in keystrokes for a lot of these actions from day one-and-a-half. Yup, I didn't believe it myself, at least not until I managed to co-ordinate my fingers and connect them with the keys to finally see for myself the truth.
There's a nifty, reliable keystroke to take a screen capture and save it to the desktop / copy to clipboard, you can also capture a selection as well. ( Command+Shift+3 for screenshot, or Command+Shift+4 for selection shot)
A handy nicely designed dictionary widget style popup can appear as you hold down the right keystroke and hover over words on the screen, which looks way better and even, dare I say, Cool:
All these keystrokes are listed in system preferences, keyboard & mouse, Keyboard Shortcuts. I mean, come on, who would have ever thought to look there? Now, if you want a list of all those handy keystrokes you just have to navigate to system preferences, click on the keyboardy button.... click on keyboard shortcuts.......
But I had a better way of remembering them, namely saving them as a sticky note on the dashboard and to save you the trouble of typing all the functions out, well:
Screen Shot
Cmd+Shift+3 (to file)
Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+3 (to clipboard)
Screen Selection Shot
Cmd+Shift+4 (to file)
Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4 (to clipboard)
Dictionary Lookup
Cmd+Ctrl+D
Front Row
Cmd+Esc
----
Easy copy and paste job now!
Labels: keystrokes, tips
★ 0 Comments. | By Skippy, Friday, February 16, 2007 11:46 AM
