What’s up, Dock?
I have so many things in my OS X dock that the icons are tiny. I use
the dock so much that it has become second nature, so I was surprised
when I talked to a customer who had upgraded to OS X and confessed to
never using the dock at all. In fact, he asked me how to get rid of the
dock entirely. I am not going to talk about eliminating the dock, but
rather about how the dock is a useful tool.
When you install a fresh version of OS X or get a new machine, you will
find the following icons in your dock:
1. Finder 2. Mail (if there is a red number on the Mail icon, it means
you have new messages) 3. Safari 4. iTunes 5. iMovie 6. Sherlock 7.
QuickTime Player 8. System Preferences 9. Dock Separator (a thin white
line) 10. URL icon (this is set to go to Apple’s OS X Product page, but
you can set it to be any URL; see below) 11. Trash
Deleting Items from the Dock
One thing to keep in mind is that removing items from the dock does not
delete them. Dock items are merely pointers or shortcuts to the
original item. To remove an item from the dock, grab it with your mouse
and drag it onto the desktop. Poof! In a cloud of smoke, it is gone. If
you do not want any of the default applications in your dock, just pull
them out without any concerns about losing the applications — they will
still be in your Applications folder.
The Thin White Line
The dock separator is the demarcation line between applications and
files, folders, or minimized windows. If you add a document to the
dock, it will be to the right of the separator if you use a horizontal
orientation for your dock or below if you use a vertical orientation.
If you try to place a file into the wrong section of the dock, it will
not accept it, likewise dragging an application to the wrong place will
not work.
Adding Items to Your Dock
This is the easy part. If you want to add almost anything to the dock,
all you have to do is drag it there. Whenever you open an application
that is not in your Dock, it will appear there temporarily while you
are using that application. Should you want to add that item to your
dock, there is a shortcut. Find the open application’s icon in your
Dock, hold your mouse button down, and choose “Keep in Dock.”
I added my hard drive to the dock. I can easily access files,
applications, and folders on my drive by holding down the Control key
and clicking on the icon of the drive in the dock. It displays the
hierarchical pop-up menu that you might have been familiar with in Mac
OS 9. This works with my whole drive, but also works if you put just a
folder in the Dock.
Mousing Around in Your Dock
With rumors of Apple developing a two-button mouse coming and going, I
thought it would be good to point out the versatility of a
single-button mouse and your keyboard in controlling your dock. Here
are some mouse-click-and-keyboard combinations that work with the dock.
First, some definitions so we are all talking about the same thing:
Mouse Click: a click and quick release of your mouse button
Mouse Press: a click and hold of the mouse button
Mouse Drag: no that’s not a mouse dressed up in opposite-sex clothes,
but rather moving your mouse while you hold down the button
If you press and hold the Control key while clicking your mouse button,
you have just performed a Control-click.
When the name of a key or keys precedes the word “click” and they are
connected by hyphens, that means you should press and hold those keys
before you click, then release them after clicking. So if you see
“Option-Control-press,” you would press and hold both the Option and
Control keys and, while still holding them, press and hold the mouse
button. Some of the combinations below do not use the mouse.
Mouse Clicks and Key Combinations for the Dock
* Mouse Click Clicking on an item in the dock brings the item forward
or opens it if it is not already open. It also brings minimized windows
out of the dock.
* Control-click Reveals the contextual menu for that item. Menu
choices vary per application or file. When used on the dock separator,
it reveals the dock preferences. There you can turn magnification and
hiding on or off, change the position of the Dock on screen, and change
the minimization effect. Choose Dock Preferences to see more options.
* Command (Apple or Clover leaf key)-click Shows you the location of
the original item in the Finder.
* Control-Option-click Force Quit replaces Quit in contextual menu.
Menu choices vary per application or file.
* Command-Option-click Hides other open items, in addition to click
action. This one is particularly handy if you have a lot of windows
open and want to “hide others” to work on a particular application.
* Press Reveals contextual menu for item. Menu choices vary per
application or file.
* Option-press Force Quit replaces Quit in menu, in addition to press
action.
* Shift-click This one is pretty cool. It applies to minimized windows
only. The item is de-minimized in slo-mo. You can see items minimized
in slow motion by pressing Shift while minimizing.
* Shift-drag When used on the dock separator, it changes the dock
position on screen (left, bottom, right).
* Option-drag When used on the dock separator, it resizes the dock to
common icon sizes (128 by 128, 64 by 64, 32 by 32, 16 by 16).
* Command-Option-D Hides or shows the dock. This is the equivalent of
choosing Dock from the Apple menu and then Turn Hiding On or Turn
Hiding Off from the submenu.
Moving Items Around in the Dock
You can drag items into any position you want in the dock as long as
they are on the proper side of the dock separator.
Bouncing Icons in the Dock
Just like a child waving his or her hand in class for attention, an
application will bounce in the dock if it requires your attention.
Got any other handy tips on using your dock? Send them to me and we’ll
publish them in a future issue of Kibbles & Bytes.
+————————————————–+
Grabbing Screen Shots and Making PDFs
One of the handiest features of Mac OS X is the ability to quickly make
PDF files from almost any application. We use this frequently to send
copies of invoices or purchase orders from our accounting system.
Making a PDF file is as easy as choosing the Print command and
selecting PDF. But how do you make a PDF file of a screen shot?
All screen shots are saved as PDF files on your desktop. If you want to
use the screen shot in a document instead and use the clipboard, modify
the following options by holding down the Control key along with the
other keys (got enough fingers?).
* To take a picture of the whole screen, press Command-Shift-3.
* To take a picture of part of the screen, press Command-Shift-4, then
drag to select the area you want in the picture.
* To take a picture of a window, the menu bar, the dock, or another
area, press Command-Shift-4, then press the Space bar. Move the pointer
over the area you want so that it’s highlighted, then click. (If you
decide you want to drag to select the area, press the Space bar again.)
If you press Command-Shift-4 and decide you don’t want to take the
screen shot, press the Escape key to, well, escape.
The Grab application in your Utilities Folder also can be used to make
TIFF files of screen shots.
To make a TIFF of a window using Grab, launch Grab and select “Window”
under the “Capture” menu item. You will then be presented with a dialog
box that allows you to “Choose Window.” If you click on the Choose
Window button, your icon will change to a camera. Once you click on the
window you want to capture, it creates a TIFF of that window. Make sure
you have your window in the shape and with the content you want before
you select “Choose Window.”
To make a TIFF of your entire screen using Grab, launch Grab and select
“Screen” under the “Capture” menu item. You will then be asked to click
outside of the dialog box to capture your screen image. You can choose
from several pointer designs to have a pointer at a particular location
in the screen shot. You choose your pointer in the Grab Preferences.
That pointer will be in the screen image at the spot you click to
create the image. Choosing “Timed Screen” will give you 10 seconds to
rearrange stuff before taking the screen shot. This is particularly
useful if you want to show a menu in the screen shot. In this case,
during the 10 seconds, click on the menu you wish to display and hold
the mouse button down until the screen shot has been taken.
To make a TIFF of a selected portion of your screen using Grab, launch
Grab and select “Selection” under the “Capture” menu item. This will
give you a selection tool that will draw a red box around whatever you
wish to capture and will create a TIFF of just that portion.
+————————————————–+
More Shortcuts!
Since we’re talking about shortcuts for screen shots and working with
the dock, did you know that there are a slew of keyboard shortcuts for
working within the Finder?
Jump to the search field in a Finder window Command + Option + F
Define a search using multiple criteria such as Name contains Apple and
date modified within the last month. Command + F
Open your home folder Command + Shift + H
To open the next folder following the hierarchy. For example, if you’re
in the home folder, + + Up Arrow opens the User Folder. Command + Up
Arrow
Open your iDisk Command + Shift + I
Open the Computer area (Computer area shows your connected hard drives,
network drives, and iDisk) Command + Shift + C
Open the Network browser Command + Shift + K
Open the Applications folder Command + Shift + A
Open the Utilities folder Command + Shift + U
Select the next icon Arrow keys
Select an icon by the first letter of its name Letter key
Select the next alphabetic item in a window Tab
Select the previous alphabetic item in a window Shift + Tab
Select a group of icons Drag the pointer across the icons
Add an icon to the selection Shift + click
Select adjacent icons in a list Shift + click
Select or deselect non-adjacent icons in a list Command + click
Select the name of the icon Return
Align icons as you drag them Command + drag
Copy a file instead of moving it Option + drag the file’s icon to new
location
Make an alias to a file instead of moving it Command + Option + drag
the file’s icon
See the pathname of the current window Command + Option + click
window’s title Choose an item from the pop-up menu to open it
Open a folder in a separate window Command + double-click
In list view, open the selected folder Right arrow
In list view, open each level of folders within the selected folder
Command + Option + Right Arrow
In list view, open all folders within the selected folder Option +
click the disclosure triangle
In list view, close the selected folder Left Arrow
In list or icon view, open the selected folder Command + Down Arrow
In list or icon view, show the folder containing the current folder
Command + Up Arrow (If no Finder windows are open, opens a window
showing your home folder.)
Open a new window showing the folder that contains the current folder
and close the current window Command + Option + Up Arrow
Open a new window showing the contents of the current folder and close
the current window Command + Option + Down Arrow
Make the desktop active Command + Option + Shift + Up Arrow
Move the selected item to the Trash Command + Delete
Empty the Trash Command + Shift + Delete
Empty the Trash without any warning or when it contains locked files
Command + Shift + Option + Delete or Option + choose Finder > Empty
Trash
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