Mac OS X Panther ONLY Hidden Features/Hacks/Hints/Tips/Tricks [Archive]

Spaztik

10-25-2003, 06:06 PM

I'm looking for cool features, hacks, hints, tricks, tips and tid-bits about Panther that they don't really advertize about Panther.

Please post your "findings" in this Topic. I guess I'll start off the subject here.

TextEdit: New "Complete" feature. While typing a word press option-esc and a list of possiblities comes up with guesses as to what word you are trying to type. Yes, it's small, but it's new to Panther.

Exposé also works while you are dragging icons, playing movies, and playing DVDs. Try pressing tab while you have ALL windows exposéd and you can cycle through the different apps.

Preview now has a full screen feature. Take a screenshot of your desktop and open it in Preview and make it full screen. It's funny watching someone go and use your computer and nothing moves... they'll think they broke it... it's a nice practical joke.

Does anyone have any other power tips, hacks or hidden features they'd like to share?

Dog Almighty

10-25-2003, 06:14 PM

How about easter eggs?

>_>

10-25-2003, 06:38 PM

Hmm.. I dunno. But I think I found a bug. ^_^

http://homepage.mac.com/xidius/pictures/bug.jpg

- Xidius

Spaztik

10-25-2003, 06:45 PM

not new to Panther, 10.3:

Hold down option and click the scroll well in any Application to scroll to where you clicked. So if you click the bottom of a scroll well, you will scroll to the bottom of the window's content.

Spaztik

10-25-2003, 07:11 PM

She loves me... :embarrass

http://homepage.mac.com/justspaztik/Xidius.png

:) - Spaztik - :D

Spaztik

10-25-2003, 07:15 PM

not new to Panther, 10.3:

In the Finder. If you have your widows in Brushed metal mode, you can cmd-click the toolbar widget to quickly adjust the icon size in the toolbar or even display only text names or only icons.

Fellowship

10-25-2003, 07:28 PM

Originally posted by Spaztik
I'm looking for cool features, hacks, hints, tricks, tips and tid-bits about Panther that they don't really advertize about Panther.

Please post your "findings" in this Topic. I guess I'll start off the subject here.

TextEdit: New "Complete" feature. While typing a word press option-esc and a list of possiblities comes up with guesses as to what word you are trying to type. Yes, it's small, but it's new to Panther.

Exposé also works while you are dragging icons, playing movies, and playing DVDs. Try pressing tab while you have ALL windows exposéd and you can cycle through the different apps.

Preview now has a full screen feature. Take a screenshot of your desktop and open it in Preview and make it full screen. It's funny watching someone go and use your computer and nothing moves... they'll think they broke it... it's a nice practical joke.

Does anyone have any other power tips, hacks or hidden features they'd like to share?

THANKS for the info!!!!

Fellows

iBrowse

10-25-2003, 07:33 PM

I really like the tab in expose, that's awesome.

Mount_my_floppy

10-25-2003, 08:14 PM

Huh, I didn`t know about tab in expose.

Barto

10-25-2003, 08:19 PM

Originally posted by Spaztik
TextEdit: New "Complete" feature. While typing a word press option-esc and a list of possiblities comes up with guesses as to what word you are trying to type. Yes, it's small, but it's new to Panther.

JAW DROP - I'm guessing this is part of Cocoa Text Frameworks in Panther. This is freakin' high level WP stuff.

Originally posted by Spaztik
Exposé also works while you are dragging icons, playing movies, and playing DVDs. Try pressing tab while you have ALL windows exposéd and you can cycle through the different apps.

JAW DROP... why didn't the hell Apple document this??? I knew about icons (it's really handy for that), but that tab thing rocks.

SonOfSylvanus

10-25-2003, 08:29 PM

Originally posted by Barto
JAW DROP... why didn't the hell Apple document this??? I knew about icons (it's really handy for that), but that tab thing rocks.

'cos it looks and works too much like Windoze? (If I think I know what you are talking about - that rectangle comes up in the centre of the screen and lets you cycle thorough apps? - I don't have Panther yet)

MacUsers

10-25-2003, 08:37 PM

i want panther now!!! when is apple going to ship my up-to-date copy of Panther that i ordered on the first day... (the 8th) :mad:

Eugene

10-25-2003, 08:53 PM

Spaztik

10-25-2003, 10:28 PM

Nobody else has any tricks?

Spaztik

10-25-2003, 11:04 PM

not new to Panther, 10.3:

I don't know how many people know about this, but I've seen it in Jaguar as well as Panther. I mine as well share it with you all.

Open a Finder window and drag it as far off the (left or right) side of the screen as possible. Then, drag an icon onto the content area of the window and watch the magic.

Barto

10-25-2003, 11:07 PM

Originally posted by Eugene
F5 works too. This works in text fields of almost any app. Cocoa apps anyway.

Brad is going to wet himself.

Barto

the cool gut

10-25-2003, 11:34 PM

Originally posted by SonOfSylvanus
'cos it looks and works too much like Windoze? (If I think I know what you are talking about - that rectangle comes up in the centre of the screen and lets you cycle thorough apps? - I don't have Panther yet)

No, this is something different. Your talking about the bar that pops up in the middle of the screen which lets you tab through the icons of diffferent apps you have runnign with command-tab.

There is now also a tabbing feature in exposé which cycles through your open application windows while keeping the others faded in the background.... VERY COOL!

ok ok ok .... here's mine ....

not new to Panther, 10.3:

hold down the shift key and minimize any window ....
WOW!

MacUsers

10-25-2003, 11:40 PM

Originally posted by the cool gut

ok ok ok .... here's mine ....

hold down the shift key and minimize any window ....
WOW!

That was always there... Do the same with Expose... then you have something really cool

blue2kdave

10-26-2003, 01:38 AM

not new to Panther, 10.3:

Well, this seemed cool to me. We started up a quicktime movie ( in our case perversion for profit (http://www.archive.org/movies/movies-details-db.php?collection=prelinger&collectionid=00895a&from=mostViewed&PHPSESSID=fcdc930c51972a7bd56b5eab3b47c826)), and then went into full screen mode. Now, by command tabbing and selecting the finder, you get the movie as a desktop. Worked very smoothly on a duak gig, very impressive. We flipped between a lot of apps, had a bunch of windows layer above, and even did some transparency on the terminal. The movie just keeps chugging along.

Spaztik

10-26-2003, 05:21 AM

not new to Panther, 10.3:

This is also not new, but it's helpful.

Have you ever wanted to stop the flying Finder windows? Well, here's how.

Cocktail can do this with a push of a button but, if you want to try it with the Terminal then do this:

Make sure you have BSD installed first.

Open Terminal.app
Type: defaults write com.apple.finder AnimateWindowZoom -bool false
Press Return

And you're done! There's no need to restart the Finder. Changes take effect immediately!

Spaztik

10-26-2003, 05:26 AM

not new to Panther, 10.3:

I want to talk about the dock. I like my Magnification size to be as sharp as possible, so I don't use the dock preferences for that.

I have my dock set up with 32x32 size icons and Magnify at 64x64. How did I get the icons at exactly 64x64 without going nuts? Simple. Terminal.

You need the BSD System installed to do this.

Open Terminal.app
Type: defaults write com.apple.dock largesize -integer 64
Press Return

That's it! Now just restart the dock with Process Viewer and your icons will magnify to 64x64. By the way, you can do this with any size, just type a different number where the "-integer 64" is.

Anders

10-26-2003, 05:44 AM

GSpotter

10-26-2003, 06:09 AM

Originally posted by Anders
Now why can´t I get this to work? Seems only to work in english. I tried typing Hau<option-esc> and hoped to find "Haus" (german for house) in the pop-up list. Instead I got a list starting with "Hauberk" :err: and ending with "Hauteur's". The only german word I found in that list was "Hausfrau". :\

Spaztik

10-26-2003, 08:10 AM

I just found another thing cool about Panther. Everyone knows that you can minize every window from a running Application at once with the option key right? (hold option and double-click one window).

Well, all those windows go into the dock. To get them ALL BACK at once just option click on window in the dock and *WOOOSH!* they all come flying up onto the desktop again.

MagicFingers

10-26-2003, 09:02 AM

Originally posted by Spaztik
I just found another thing cool about Panther. Everyone knows that you can minize every window from a running Application at once with the option key right? (hold option and double-click one window).

Well, all those windows go into the dock. To get them ALL BACK at once just option click on window in the dock and *WOOOSH!* they all come flying up onto the desktop again.
doesn't work with iTunes but seems to work with other apps

rok

10-26-2003, 09:18 AM

i forgot to tell apple to include one simple thing for dock minimizing, and, as has been metioned before, some apple developers do read these threads and use ideas, so here goes...

allow a checkbox under the "Dock..." system preference to lock the dock size to be PROPORTIONAL to the magnification size. that way, you can make sure that as you scale the dock smaller, the magnification will scale down with it behind the scenes, and avoid having the strange "16x16 icon dock magnifies to 128x128 heart attack inducing shock" effect. of course, if you like it the old way, you could just uncheck the "maginification propotional to dock size" checkbox.

i guarantee, if you don't see this feature in a minor panther update, you will in 10.4.

seriously, apple, when am i getting my job offer??? i live for this stuff!

:D

p.s. why don't they have icon pixel size int he dock system preference, when they DO have it in the get info panel? just seems logical to me.

p.p.s. to take a cue from a-dock, i also don't understand why there can't be a way to toggle a small pixel bar along whatever edge the dock is for when it is set to auto-hide. i can't tell you how maddening it is whenever i sat down at a co-worker's desk to troubleshoot a file, and they had their dock set to "auto-hide," and i had to scrub three different screen sides to find the bloody thing, because everyone wanted their in a different place. if i had some visual cue, like a few pixels of it still visible along the edge where it is hidden, it would save a lot of scrounging around.

p.p.p.s. anyone know where to send feedback and suggestions like this?

Hobbes

10-26-2003, 11:08 AM

Brad

10-26-2003, 11:57 AM

Originally posted by Barto
Brad is going to wet himself. I already knew about this, actually, and am still quite dry, thanks. :)

not new to Panther, 10.3:
Originally posted by Spaztik
I have my dock set up with 32x32 size icons and Magnify at 64x64. How did I get the icons at exactly 64x64 without going nuts? Simple. Terminal.

You need the BSD System installed to do this.No, you don't. You can simply change that number in any text editor of the file ~/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist.
Originally posted by rok
p.p.p.s. anyone know where to send feedback and suggestions like this? http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/, but it appears to still not have been updated for the retail version of 10.3.

Brad

10-26-2003, 12:06 PM

By the way, there are several posts here that don't belong since they don't follow the thread's topic of tricks/features that are *new* to Mac OS X Panther ONLY.

I'm weeding through the posts and am tagging the ones that are old so we can have a good list of strictly *new* tricks. If you post a reply for something that you know is not new to Panther but is nice to have anyway, please include this line at the top of your post:

not new to Panther, 10.3:

coded as this without the extra spaces:
[ color=blue][ b]not new to Panther, 10.3:[/b][/COLOR]

I'll also weed all the posts out of people correcting each other as to what is not new. If you see a feature posted that's not new that isn't tagged as old, though, please do post so it can be corrected.

Thanks.

solfege

10-26-2003, 12:46 PM

Originally posted by iBrowse
I really like the tab in expose, that's awesome.

Thanks, I just discovered that, and it is awesome. As is the Command-Tab Application Switcher.

johnq

10-26-2003, 02:45 PM

EDIT: I actually READ what you wrote, the second time ;) but i'll leave the tip here anyway...

not new to Panther, 10.3:

Option-drag the Dock's resize bar. This snaps it to exact pixel sizes for all the icon sizes.

johnq

10-26-2003, 02:49 PM

Originally posted by rok
p.p.s. to take a cue from a-dock, i also don't understand why there can't be a way to toggle a small pixel bar along whatever edge the dock is for when it is set to auto-hide. i can't tell you how maddening it is whenever i sat down at a co-worker's desk to troubleshoot a file, and they had their dock set to "auto-hide," and i had to scrub three different screen sides to find the bloody thing, because everyone wanted their in a different place. if i had some visual cue, like a few pixels of it still visible along the edge where it is hidden, it would save a lot of scrounging around.

p.p.p.s. anyone know where to send feedback and suggestions like this?

not new to Panther, 10.3:
All you need to do is merely type option-command-d. This shows/hides the Dock, wherever it happens to be.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

Luca

10-26-2003, 04:18 PM

It would be nice if the dock had a clickable minimize/maximize tab when hidden, like A-Dock or the control strip. That way you always get it when you want it, and you never get it when you don't.

rok

10-26-2003, 04:34 PM

Originally posted by johnq
not new to Panther, 10.3:
All you need to do is merely type option-command-d. This shows/hides the Dock, wherever it happens to be.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

son of a gun. THANKS! (though i kinda like my idea as an option, too.)

G in the S

10-26-2003, 04:35 PM

I found the Special Characters... tool under the Edit menu to be a nice addition.

ryaxnb

10-26-2003, 06:57 PM

Sort of new to Panther, 10.3
Keyboard Viewer replaces Key Caps (input menu, turn on in keyboard prefpane,) and Date & Time "display in window" clock option replaces Clock.app*
*Actually it's inferior. You can't put it in the Dock and I don't now how to get my pretty third-party "Aqua" clock style to work, so I recovered Clock.app from the trash.

10-26-2003, 07:48 PM

Try this one. The blob:
defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool true; killall Dock

Brad

10-26-2003, 07:56 PM

Originally posted by Ra
The blob: Sweet sassy molassy! What in the hell?

A shortcut for Exposé's "application windows" option... interesting.

10-26-2003, 08:02 PM

Hold option when you click and it does all windows.

pensieve

10-26-2003, 08:03 PM

Originally posted by Ra
Try this one. The blob:
defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool true; killall Dock

What does it do? I'm a little scared to try it out because I don't understand what it says.

10-26-2003, 08:18 PM

Try it out... it's harmless. If you want to get rid of it, do the same command but type 'false' instead of 'true.'

blue2kdave

10-26-2003, 08:43 PM

Originally posted by blue2kdave
not new to Panther, 10.3:

Well, this seemed cool to me. We started up a quicktime movie ( in our case perversion for profit (http://www.archive.org/movies/movies-details-db.php?collection=prelinger&collectionid=00895a&from=mostViewed&PHPSESSID=fcdc930c51972a7bd56b5eab3b47c826)), and then went into full screen mode. Now, by command tabbing and selecting the finder, you get the movie as a desktop. Worked very smoothly on a duak gig, very impressive. We flipped between a lot of apps, had a bunch of windows layer above, and even did some transparency on the terminal. The movie just keeps chugging along.

well don't i feel corrected

Kickaha

10-26-2003, 09:36 PM

Originally posted by Ra
Try it out... it's harmless. If you want to get rid of it, do the same command but type 'false' instead of 'true.'

How about, for those of us who haven't installed Panther yet, you give an actual answer? We're curious too, you know.

Barto

10-26-2003, 09:41 PM

Originally posted by Kickaha
How about, for those of us who haven't installed Panther yet, you give an actual answer? We're curious too, you know.

You don't exist!

It puts a transparent blue blob on your screen, like you can drag around like the Speech thing or Clock.app.

Click it, and it tiles the frontmost application's windows.

Option clicking it tiles all windows!

(now it's useful for me lol)

Barto

pensieve

10-26-2003, 10:33 PM

Pretty cool.

http://homepage.mac.com/torifile/.Pictures/blob.jpg

Click on it and it exposes the front apps windows. Option click it and it exposes all windows. (Like Barto said).

DHagan4755

10-26-2003, 11:13 PM

Speaking of hacks (ha, ha) ...is Panther carbon or is it cocoa?

ryaxnb

10-26-2003, 11:25 PM

Originally posted by DHagan4755
Speaking of hacks (ha, ha) ...is Panther carbon or is it cocoa? Which part. AFAIK, the Finder is still Carbon.

ChrisG

10-26-2003, 11:35 PM

There is this interesting little thing, in the terminal type:
defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool false; killall Dock
This little trick changes the show desktop F11 Expose animation, and instead of moving all the windows off screen it shrinks them into a little movable window. To turn it off just change false to true.

Eugene

10-27-2003, 12:59 AM

Originally posted by ChrisG
There is this interesting little thing, in the terminal type:
defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool false; killall Dock
This little trick changes the show desktop F11 Expose animation, and instead of moving all the windows off screen it shrinks them into a little movable window. To turn it off just change false to true.
Heh, if you notice, enabling this adds another wvous-pip-blah-blah property with scale, positioning values. I tried changing the scale to 4...which worked...but subsequently froze the GUI other than the cursor. A forceful logout via rehupping the windowserver fixed it. I delete that value from the dock property list immediately.

EDIT: It seems you don't need to change the other values to freeze the windowserver.

Mount_my_floppy

10-27-2003, 01:26 AM

Wow the blob is very interesting. I wonder why they would add such a nice "Fade" animation to a hidden feature.

Placebo

10-27-2003, 09:59 AM

Not new to Panther, 10.3:

Command-click on an icon in the dock, and it will show the app or folder in the Finder. I just noticed this yesterday.

iBrowse

10-27-2003, 03:13 PM

Originally posted by Mount_my_floppy
Wow the blob is very interesting. I wonder why they would add such a nice "Fade" animation to a hidden feature.

I'm guessing it was used for internal testing at Apple for implementing Exposé. And as to why it's made nice if it's not a real feature..? Well, you know what happens when you spend too much time writing code...

I like what ChrisG mentioned, it's like Minimize in Place for Exposé. I like it better than any MIP dock hack I've ever used.

Spart

10-27-2003, 05:27 PM

Originally posted by Eugene
...

A forceful logout via rehupping the windowserver fixed it.

...

How is this done? Killing the windowserver, that is.

Eugene

10-27-2003, 06:31 PM

Originally posted by Spart
How is this done? Killing the windowserver, that is.
I ssh'd into the box from another computer and did a "kill -HUP"

Bygimis Turug VIII

10-28-2003, 06:39 AM

Originally posted by rok
ip.p.s. to take a cue from a-dock, i also don't understand why there can't be a way to toggle a small pixel bar along whatever edge the dock is for when it is set to auto-hide. i can't tell you how maddening it is whenever i sat down at a co-worker's desk to troubleshoot a file, and they had their dock set to "auto-hide," and i had to scrub three different screen sides to find the bloody thing, because everyone wanted their in a different place

Reveal that teasy dock

Cmd - Opt - D

Spaztik

10-28-2003, 07:11 AM

Does anyone know how to get this to work without freezing up the GUI? I really like the look of this hidden feature!

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool false; killall Dock

Spaztik

10-28-2003, 07:42 AM

I just found a cool new feature!

Press cmd-option-shift-esc

This force quits the front-most running App. It DOES NOT work on the Finder (sadly). But, this is way faster than any other force quit method (in my opinion)

Eugene

10-28-2003, 07:44 AM

Originally posted by Spaztik
Does anyone know how to get this to work without freezing up the GUI? I really like the look of this hidden feature!

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool false; killall Dock
I think it would have been an officially recognized feature if it worked right...

kcmac

10-28-2003, 10:23 AM

TextEdit drop shadows. I can't see how to do this. I open the fonts panel in TE and I don't see a button that I can click or a menu item .

Did this make the final version?

Brad

10-28-2003, 10:57 AM

Originally posted by kcmac
TextEdit drop shadows. I can't see how to do this. I open the fonts panel in TE and I don't see a button that I can click or a menu item .

Did this make the final version? Make sure the font box is large enough and then click the button that is blue here:

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~bwsmith/images/TextEdit-shadowcontrols.png

Tooltips will explain the options if you wait for them to appear. And, no, you can't change from degree mode to radian mode. :grumble: ;)

kcmac

10-28-2003, 11:29 AM

Thanks Brad.

I had the font panel as small as I could make it and couldn't see these options.

kcmac

10-28-2003, 12:26 PM

While in TextEdit, say you are typing a big word that you don't know how to spell. Start a few letters and then hit opt - esc keys. It will list a bunch of words that may have the one you were going for.

not new to Panther, 10.3:
While in TextEdit, you realize your document is a little long. Go to the services menu and look for "summarize".

You then drag a size button and it will pair down your words by sentence or paragraph.

Whisper

10-28-2003, 12:30 PM

Originally posted by Brad
And, no, you can't change from degree mode to radian mode. :grumble: ;) NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!! I need my radians!!

iBrowse

10-28-2003, 03:29 PM

Originally posted by Spaztik
Does anyone know how to get this to work without freezing up the GUI? I really like the look of this hidden feature!

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool false; killall Dock

Works fine for me, turn the floater off before using it, I don't have a problem with it at all.

curiousuburb

10-29-2003, 04:17 AM

Originally posted by G in the S
I found the Special Characters... tool under the Edit menu to be a nice addition.

Kick down the "Font Variation" arrow at the bottom left and you can compare variations of the selected glyph in every font on your system simultaneously. (Which font has the coolest Q or most Art Deco A? check)
Way faster than scroll of "custom" preview in FontBook. Killer new feature.

Special Character Font Variation WINS!

QNational

10-29-2003, 05:01 AM

Originally posted by GSpotter

Seems only to work in english. I tried typing Hau<option-esc> and hoped to find "Haus" (german for house) in the pop-up list. Instead I got a list starting with "Hauberk" and ending with "Hauteur's". The only german word I found in that list was "Hausfrau".

If you want the list to show German alternatives, then you need to change the spelling dictionary to German. I use the built-in German spelling dictionary alot (pesky umlauts...I'm always putting them where they don't belong!).

In Mail or TextEdit, because they are Cocoa apps, they use spelling services. Just ctrl-click in the message/document window, select spelling, change the dictionary to 'Deutsch'. This will also change the dictionary used to German when you use option-esc. (Also works in Safari!)

Spaztik

10-29-2003, 06:47 AM

I figured out what the problem in the (olddesktop true) trick.

Wherever you put that little translucent rectangle (the one that the windows minimize into) is exactly the area you can't click. Say you have it in the upper right hand corner for some reason... well, when you bring your windows back, you won't be able to double click the Hard Drive icon. You see what I'm saying?

I guess there's no fix for this. If there was, Apple probably would have uesd it. I wish they figured it out... I really like this tip.