From http://www.applematters.com and Chris Howard comes the following useful OSX tips.
1. Pressing Esc while typing in most applications pops up a list of
suggested completions of the word you’re typing. (Does anyone know if
there’s a way to toggle the permanent display of this?)
2. Image Capture lets you manage photos on your camera before you download
them (as explained in last week’s article).
3. Right click on an open PDF in Safari to get the a context menu which
includes the option to open the PDF in Preview.
4. Pressing the Tab key in Exposé cycles through open applications.
5. Press the ` key in Exposé to cycle backwards as per the previous tip. (
‘ is the key Tab and left of the 1 key).
6. Press Command-Q to close applications when command-tabbing. This is
possibly the fastest way you’ll find to close several applications in
quick succession.
7. Macs with remote controls can be put to sleep by holding down the play
button on the remote. (I use my Mac as a reading light so find this quite
handy. Maybe Apple could include a clapper for me in Leopard.)
8. Triple click selects a whole paragraph of text.
9. To select a block of text, click the start position, then Shift-click the
end position. Significant;y, this doesn’t just work in editing
applications like Word (where you might be already doing it anyway), but it
also works with non-editable text, such as a webpage in Safari. Where has
this been all my life? The number of times I’ve selected pages and pages
of text by click and drag, when this is so much quicker. (My Hackmeister
friend knew this one of course – but never had told me. )
10. In TextEdit, Option-click & drag selects a rectangle of text. (When you
need it, selecting a rectangle of text is really useful, so if anyone knows
other applications that have this functionality, let us know.)
11. We all know Command-shift-4 to capture a selection of the screen, but
don’t forget pressing the Spacebar will toggle between selection mode and
select whole window mode.
12. Command click the jelly bean found in the top right corner of some
applications to cycle through toolbars.
13. In Safari, Command-Shift-click a link opens it in a new tab and
immediately displays the page. (If anyone knows a way in Safari to force a
page to open in the same window, do tell.)
The Option key is a hidden treasure trove. Experiment with it often.
Here’s a few:
14. Hold the Option key will clicking the Zoom button (green button,
rightmost of three in the top left corner of windows) switches the zoom
state of all windows in the selected application.
15. Option-click the minimize button minimizes all windows in the
application – and makes for a really cool animation (hold the shift key too
if you want to slow it down to see it more easily).
16. Option-click on a minimized window will restore all windows for that
application.
17. Option-click on a running application in the Dock hides the front-most
application and brings the clicked application to the front (unless it
already was).
18. Option-click on the close tab icon in Safari, closes all other tabs.
Handle this one with care – there’s no warning dialog.
19. Option-arrow moves cursor by word. One for the Windows switchers who are
used to using ctrl-arrow.
20. When menus are selected, press the option key to reveal alternative
functions. Eg In the File menu of Finder, the Get Info item becomes Show
Inspector which is like a context sensitive info pane.
LeRoy's World 