the os x tips thread

[Pitch Black]

Sorry, gonna bend the rules of the thread title here... an awesome non osx audio tip.

SoundSource lets you switch audio hardware from your menu bar and provides quick shortcuts to Audio and MIDI prefs.



http://www.rogueamoeba.com/freebies/

Nice. Do you feel it's safe enough to have running when you do a gig?

Totally. Been running it forever.

[oblique strategies]

Sorry, gonna bend the rules of the thread title here... an awesome non osx audio tip.

SoundSource lets you switch audio hardware from your menu bar and provides quick shortcuts to Audio and MIDI prefs.



http://www.rogueamoeba.com/freebies/

Nice. Do you feel it's safe enough to have running when you do a gig?

Totally. Been running it forever.

Wunderbar! Thanks.

[oblique strategies]

Here's another little helper CAPS Warn
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/21425/caps-warn

"CAPS Warn is a Preference Pane that provides:
A) on-screen indications of when the Caps Lock, Shift, Control, Option, or Command keys are pressed (or stuck on by Sticky Keys)

or B) warnings that: 1) you have turned on the CAPS Lock and/or 2) you have typed a specified number (default 5) of keys with the SHIFT key (or Sticky Keys SHIFT) or CAPS Lock.

CAPS Warn warns you regardless of what application you are typing into."

Especially nice if you use keyboard mappings with Live.

I have a nice RED arrow in my menu bar that is easy to notice informing me of my caps status.

[oblique strategies]

along similar lines is dark adapted:

http://www.aquiladigital.us/darkadapted/

This is really nice for fine tuning the brightness of the screen (in addition to it's night vision modes).

[fishmonkey]

just ran into this free little system pref pane which helps with locating the mouse pointer, especially handy if you've got big screens and lose the cursor a lot...

http://www.2point5fish.com/index.html

[Jekblad]

save about a million seconds a day by launching apps from spotlight.

command+spacebar opens spotlight. Type "live" and hit enter, and live is opening. Pretty soon you just have to hit the "l" key as it sort of learns your behavior.

in system prefs you can choose what spotlight searches first, select apps and then folders can be useful to search as well. That way if you don't know the name of the file or live set you're searching you can type the folder it might be in and search manually there.

[weeddigger]

I love the monochrome screen tip... Amazing...


Anyhow...


(Cmd + R) does a screen refresh when on Safari....

(Cmd + T) opens a new tab in Safari

(Alt + Cmd + =) Combines all your Safari windows and seperates them by tabs.

You can then cycle through your tabs by hitting (Shift + Cmd + ] ) or (Shift + Cmd + [ )

[taoyoyo]

save about a million seconds a day by launching apps from spotlight.

command+spacebar opens spotlight. Type "live" and hit enter, and live is opening. Pretty soon you just have to hit the "l" key as it sort of learns your behavior.

in system prefs you can choose what spotlight searches first, select apps and then folders can be useful to search as well. That way if you don't know the name of the file or live set you're searching you can type the folder it might be in and search manually there.

... Similar to this one, there is a free application called 'QuickSilver' that on the click of a hot key (I use option-tab) allows you to launch apps, find folders and search through them, whilst also allowing you to do finder-type functions with files that you find (such as delete, move, copy, rename, open with etc).

It learns what you type/use too like Spotlight so I can not even look at the screen whilst typing 'option-tab, lv, enter' and opening Live. ('Logic' is 'l' at the moment!). Can't live without it!

http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/w ... uicksilver

[taoyoyo]

I love the monochrome screen tip... Amazing...


Anyhow...


(Cmd + R) does a screen refresh when on Safari....

(Cmd + T) opens a new tab in Safari

(Alt + Cmd + =) Combines all your Safari windows and seperates them by tabs.

You can then cycle through your tabs by hitting (Shift + Cmd + ] ) or (Shift + Cmd + [ )

... Thanks for those last two!

[Jekblad]

dude i tried so hard to get into quicksilver, but it never clicked. can you give a workflow example where it pwns spotlight?

[taoyoyo]

dude i tried so hard to get into quicksilver, but it never clicked. can you give a workflow example where it pwns spotlight?

Not really. I got into using Quicksilver before Spotlight got enhanced in Leopard and by that time it had clicked with me. I don't use it for anything spectacular, mainly just app launches and opening folders, wouldn't really call myself a power user.

[re.mark]

To rearragne the Icons in your MenuBar (top right) simply press CMD and click and drag to a new position. Similar the the dock, CMD and dragging off the menu bar removes the icon altogether.


my new menu bar: feat:
iStatPro RAM meter, CPU meter / Spaces / Bluetooth / Airport / SoundSource (Replacing the rergular Audio Monitor) / Power / iStatPro calender/clock (replacing the osx clock as its smaller and cleaner imo) funfun

[Bokonon]

>>come on... pick a fight

Ok - in XP I can tell the cursor to jump to the default button a dialog, an option which improves workflow considerably. On a Mac - you have to pay a 3d party developer $20.00, for the same functionality.

The default button in a dialog is highlighted blue, meaning you just press return and it presses it for you - if you want to press another button (like "don't save" or "cancel") then press cmd then the initial letter of the button you want to press.

Unless you meant something else.

In terms of productivity and workflow:

http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/w ... uicksilver
http://cocoaapp.com/products/dockables/
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14352

For explaining and communicating:
http://www.jingproject.com/
http://boinx.com/mousepose/overview/ (not free - only one, really good if you do any demonstrating)
http://www.2point5fish.com/

UI Tweak
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16577

[muthafunka]

If you're a compulsive list view user who uses the arrow eys to navigate a lot, CMD plus down arrow is the same as a double click. Simple but lovely.

Slightly OT, but who misses the pre-Leopard window audio preview functionality? Yes you can click the little arrow but can no longer scroll through a file, and if you use the space bar to quick-preview the file with scrolling you're locked to that, as soon as you try and click somewhere else the preview disappears. Dealing with lot sof audio files this is one the biggest FAILS for me with Leopard.

[forge]

I use Cmd + ` a lot to toggle through open windows for the application

I find it a lot quicker than Expose - just Cmd + tab to choose the App, then cmd + ` to find the window

I used to use spaces with ctrl + 1,2,3,4 to choose them, and assigned certain apps to spaces, but in the end I find cmd + tab quicker

I also use it to see if I have any mail (I used thunderbird with no irritating notifications) and you can then press ESC to cancel the cmd+ tab from switching apps - fortunately tab, ` and ESC are all next to each other