While the Mission Control preference pane allows you to map common keyboard shortcuts to Mission Control actions, its interface doesn't allow you to map more esoteric keys like F19. Here's a quick way to assign an unlisted keyboard shortcut to one of the Mission Control actions.
Go to the Keyboard preference pane, then the Keyboard Shortcuts tab, select Mission Control and enter your keyboard shortcut there. It will automatically be reflected in the Mission Control preference pane. No need to muck around with Terminal commands!
[kirkmc adds: This is a good reminder that other features that offer a limited set of keyboard shortcuts may be available to change in the Keyboard Shortcuts pane of the Keyboard preferences. For example, the Spotlight preference pane offers a number of shortcuts, but you may want something other than what's in its menu. You can set any shortcut you want in the Keyboard preference pane.]
I discovered a bug in Logic Pro by missing the last movement of a symphony recording: if you unplug your headphones, Logic stops recording. I'm assuming this is because it switches from line out to speakers.
The solution is to route the output of Logic to Soundflower. Launch another audio application (e.g., Amadeus Pro), set its input to Soundflower, the output to headphones or speakers, then launch any operation that allows monitoring the signal. (In Amadeus, open a real-time sonogram window and select Play Through.) Unplugging the headphones now no longer interrupts recording in Logic Pro.
[kirkmc adds: I haven't tested this; I don't use Logic Pro.]
When I tap the checkboxes next to items in your Reminders list to mark them complete, I usually want them to go away, so I don't have to scroll up and down, especially when I have a long list of things to do or buy.
To quickly force the marked items to move into the Completed section I noticed that if I slightly swipe to left or right so that part of the next or previous Reminders list appears, then release so that I stay in my current list, the completed items get moved over, and only the uncompleted ones remain.
In recent versions of Mac OS X, the standard Save dialog box was replaced with a more compact sheet giving only a text field for providing a file name, a popup menu to choose a save location, and sometimes are some specific options such as text-encoding or file-type, along with the Save and Cancel buttons.
There's a disclosure triangle to expand the Save panel into the full size one, giving access to the whole file system.
But you can toggle between the compact and full-size versions by pressing Command-= (equals).
[kirkmc adds: Nice catch. I was sure this would have been on the site, but can't find anything. It's worth noting that applications remember the state of the dialog box, so if you expand it once, they will always display the large dialog.]
If you have poor vision, and multiple accounts display in a Login window, you can turn on zoom, and zoom in and out as needed to see the different user names and icons. (This assumes that zoom is not already turned on.) This uses the standard keyboard shortcuts that display in the Universal Access preference pane.
To turn on zoom, press Command-Option-8.
To zoom in, press Command-Option- = (equals).
To zoom out, press Command-Option- - (minus).
You may need to move the window around to see the different login icons. You can do this by moving the cursor to the edge of the screen.
[kirkmc adds: there have been plenty of hint about using the zoom feature, but it's worth noting that it can be activated and used even when the Login window is visible.]
I use Dropbox to sync files across my Macs, but also to collaborate with others on several projects. One day, I woke up to find the disk space on my MacBook Air had dropped substantially. I started poking around, looking for large files, swap files and the other usual suspects. I eventually found a hidden folder inside my Dropbox folder: .dropbox.cache.
Looking inside this folder, I found that it contained three dated folders, for the past three days. (For example, 2012-03-01.) Inside this folder were a number of files, and since on one shared project we use a standard versioning system, I was able to see that there were subsequent versions of these files, with names indicating that they had been deleted.
All in all, I recovered 8 GB that day, because there were two projects where people had change a lot of files. On a desktop Mac, this won't usually make much of a difference, but if you have a MacBook Air, in particular, without much disk space, you may suddenly find yourself out of room. So, if you see a sudden decrease in disk space, you can check this folder. If you use Terminal you know how to get there; if not, you can open it from the Finder. Choose Go > Go to Folder, and enter ~/Dropbox/.dropbox.cache (assuming that your Dropbox folder is at the default location at the top level of your home folder; change the path if it is not). You can delete the folders with no worry of losing files.
As of today, I am taking over as editor of Mac OS X Hints. Old-timers may recognize my name: I guest edited a number of times when Rob was on vacation or having kids. For those who don't know me, I'm a senior contributor to Macworld, where I am also the iTunes Guy, and I've written a couple of Take Control books, most recently about Scrivener and iTunes. If you want to learn more about me, check out my web site, Kirkville.
I'd like to thank Craig for all the work he's done here over the years. I wish him the best as he moves on to other ventures, and I hope you'll all join me in giving him a big thank you!
Starting today, MacOSXHints has a new editor. Kirk McElhearn, who I'm sure many of you already know, will be at the helm. Treat him well.
My thanks to all of you as readers, and especially those of you who are hint submitters. It's been a remarkable time in Apple's evolution, and I hope there will be plenty of good tips both for Lion and Mountain Lion in the future. I very much look forward to reading them, and maybe adding a few myself.
In a recent hint it was mentioned that you could use your laptop as a lightbox for tracing artwork. Even better, you can trace on an iOS device, such as an iPad, with apps like Photoshop or Illustrator, if you want to trace something.
Using a screen forwarding utility like Air Display, you can use your iOS device as a secondary monitor for your desktop Mac. Simply drag your Illustrator/Photoshop/whatever window to that display, and you can walk around and trace whatever artwork you have displayed on the iOS screen. It servers as both the lightbox and the source artwork in one.
[kirkmc adds: I would be much more likely to do this with an iPad than a laptop, because of the iPad's glass screen. I guess you could even do this on an iPhone, if your art is very small.]
In Lion, you can drag windows between desktops without going in to Mission Control.
Create a few new desktops in Mission Control if you don't already have them. (Launch Mission Control, then move your cursor to the top-right corner of the screen and click in the big +.)
Go to a desktop where there is an open application window.
Drag that window to the edge of the screen, and the screen will slide to the next desktop. You can keep dragging it through your desktops if you keep it against the edge; it will shift one desktop per second.
When you've reached the desktop where you want to put that window, release it and position it as you want. Note that this won't cycle through to the beginning or end of your desktops. In other words, if you have three desktops, and move a window to the right-most desktop, you can't bring it back to the first one by moving it to the right again.
[kirkmc adds: I had never noticed this, because I invoke Mission Control using a hot corner, and move windows like that. This is similar to the way you move app icons on iOS devices]
