Mac OS X: New Discoveries

Not a Mac User? Scroll down a bit to read my other new posts.

The thing I really like about working in OS X is discovering new tricks or shortcuts or just the feeling of “wow, I didn't know that.” And while these things may be well documented or known to others for sometime, they're just great discoveries.

  1. Want to quickly review a group of photos using Preview? Drag multiple jpegs, for example, to the Preview icon and unlike the old days, they don't all open in separate windows. Instead, they open in one preview document with a “shelf” of thumbnails you can quickly navigate through and click on to see the image in the full size window.
  2. If someone sends you and image or other document as an enclosure and you're using Mail.app, simply control-click and hold (or right button if you're using a two button mouse) and choose “open with” from the contextual menu and a list of applications compatible with the file type pops up. Simply choose the application (even Photoshop Actions can be chosen) you'd like to view the file or document and open it!
  3. Ever have an application hang and you need to force quit? Instead of command-shift-escape and choosing the application, then closing the force quit window, simply click and hold the application icon in the dock. You'll get a message saying application not responding or other and the option to force quit without any other mouse clicks. Simply, click and hold on any active application and look at the options you get. Great in IE to navigate through multiple windows.