Comments on: OS X Hidden Gems

By: Pooley

Pooley — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:59:54 +0000

does anyone know how to get rid of that annoying little blimp whenever I change the audio volume using my keyboard?

By: itguy51

itguy51 — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:05:29 +0000

The dark dot means that the current open window has unsaved changes if anyone wants to know

By: Taiga07

Taiga07 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:29:16 +0000

Cmd + Shift + Y places selected text into a new Sticky Note

By: Wikisnoodle

Wikisnoodle — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:12:48 +0000

Great list. (Tip 1) If you tab your way around window and dialogue box features, you can use ctl+F7 to toggle between (a) tabbing around all features (à la Windows) and (b) text boxes and lists only. (Tip 2) 10.6-only, I think – Application/Dock Exposé is available in cmd+tab: make sure you have several windows open in, say, Finder, press cmd+tab, highlight Finder, keep cmd down and click up or down arrow key, use all arrow keys to navigate and return/enter to ‘open’ highlighted window. Who needs the Dock? :)

By: Jose

Jose — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:16:47 +0000

I don’t know what I’d do w/o Launchbar. The most useful app on my MBP without a doubt.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:21:51 +0000

That should be just Ctrl-Command-1/2/3/4/5/6 – see the View > Arrange By menu.

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By: mac | Goto Folder im Apple Save Dialog | macfidelity

mac | Goto Folder im Apple Save Dialog | macfidelity — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:18:39 +0000

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By: william

william — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 06:30:25 +0000

A couple of other things to add about this. It’s great if you need a quick calculation and you don’t want to take your hands off the keyboard. Command+Spacebar opens spotlight. Just type the calculation and wait (don’t press return or enter). Then to get back to typing, press the escape key twice and you’re right back where you were in mid-sentence with your hands still on the keyboard.

By: william

william — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:45:11 +0000

Command+Asterisk is the shortcut to a system wide service to “Get result of Applescript” in the Services menu. When you activate it, you’ll see the Application’s menu (e.g. TextEdit) flash briefly. It should work in any app that uses the standard Cocoa text interface. It doesn’t understand math the same way the Spotlight shortcut does (e.g. put 5! in spotlight and it will come up with 120, but this script apparently doesn’t know how to recognize a factorial).

Whole books have been written about Applescript and Services, so if you find something like this convenient, you may want to look into Snow Leopard’s greatly overhauled Automator, Applescript and Services menu features and see if you can make a tool for yourself.

By: william

william — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:18:14 +0000

5/2 … results in 2.5,
5/0 … results in divByZero,
3+2*5 … results in 13,
(3+2)*5 … results in 25,
5! … results in 120,
cos(1) … results in 0,
tan(pi) … results in 0,
sin(pi/2) … results in 1,
pow(2,3) … results in 8,
sqrt(121) … results in 11,
log(1000) … results in 3,
exp(1) … results in 2.718281828,

Most of these are similar to abbreviations for functions you’d find in excel or numbers. Spotlight appears to know to ask the calculator app (or a built in library) for the result if it fits a certain format. Taking an exponent in Leopard was pow(10,2) but in Snow Leopard a simpler form is 10^2. Haven’t found the right format for taking the modulus (remainder after division) of two numbers or easily converting between two bases (eg. hex and decimal). Definitely handy for a quick result if your desk calculator isn’t out at the ready.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 03:01:52 +0000

I knew all these gems except for the one about the airport. Thanks for sharing.

By: peter

peter — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:16:33 +0000

Command-A gets you to Apps, Command-H gets you Home, and Command-U goes to Utilities.

And the same shortcuts work in the Finder, except hold down the Shift key too so it’s Command-Shift-A for Apps, Command-Shift-H for Home, Command-Shift-U for Utilities.

Just discovered Command-Shift-I for iDisk, Command-Shift-O for Documents!! Awesome.

By: Scolron

Scolron — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:29:03 +0000

shift-option-cmd escape forces shut down of the front most app.

By: Aidan

Aidan — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:12:29 +0000

Command+Space to bring up Spotlight, then try typing in “2+2″ or whatever. Calculator will pop up as the first result and display both the equation and the answer.

By: Aidan

Aidan — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:11:51 +0000

Try this: Open a terminal. Type “sleep 3 && killall Dock”. Hit return, then quickly Shift-Minimize the window. Enjoy.