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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

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12 hidden gems in Apple's OS X 1.3 Panther


Nov. 12, 2003


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard

   Apple's newest operating system, Mac OS X Panther (OS X 1.3), continues the company's tradition of offering hidden features you discover only now and then. I hate to make anybody wait, so here are a dozen of the little gems Apple stashed away in Panther.
   1. Change-address notification: In Panther's Mail. Turn on "Notify people when my card changes" in Mail's preferences. When your card (your address information) changes, Mail automatically asks if you'd like to notify everyone in the address book.
   2. Print your address book: Click "Print" in the "File" menu and choose how you want the address book printed.
   3. Keyboard menu boost: Press the key that corresponds to the first letter of any menu item to go straight to that item when you open a menu in any program.
   4. Web links in Mail: Mail uses Safari for anything it does related to hyperlinks, so you can use the same techniques you use in Safari, such as opening a link in a new window or copying a link.
   5. Make your own special keyboard shortcuts: This is built into Panther, but what's not obvious is the ability to launch AppleScripts. If you have AppleScripts in the iTunes script menu, for example, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to open any of them.
   6. Copy text clippings easily: Text clippings (those wonderful text items you create by dragging selected text out of a program window and onto the desktop) don't seem to respond to selection methods when you open them. Dragging the mouse pointer over text in a clippings window doesn't do anything. But pressing Cmd-C does, in fact, copy the text in a clippings window. You can then paste it into a mail window or word processor.
   7. Make Preview more powerful: Preview's added speed is obvious, but you might not discover that you can select and copy text from a PDF document in Preview. Another hidden feature: If the PDF has multiple columns, hold down Option and drag the mouse to select text within a column.
   8. No-hassle selection in a file list: Click to the right of a filename in List view, then move the mouse up or down to select contiguous files.
   9. Color space in 3D: If you consider color space important (and you should if you work with images), open the ColorSync Utility and click "Profiles," then choose the one you want to see. It will be in 3D. (Color spaces show the range and ultimately the quality of the color reproduction of any device.)
   10. Calendar cool: In iCal, once the Info window is open, press the Tab key to go from field to field. With a field item highlighted, press the Spacebar to open the popup menu.
   11. Get rid of a problem quickly: If a program stops working properly, make it disappear by pressing these four keys at the same time: Cmd-Shift-Option-Esc. (Warning! This zaps the foreground program immediately!)
   12. Toolbar fun: Click the top right gadget in a Finder window to toggle the toolbar on and off. Hold down Cmd and toggle through the many versions of the toolbar.