Although I usually only post usability tips within applications, if I find a particular application I think is interesting, I'll post about the actual program.
DesktopCalendar, freeware by Takashi T. Hamada, is just such a program. It doesn't do all that much, but what it does, it does very well. It simply places a fully configurable floating calendar anywhere on your desktop that you want it. You control the font sizes and colors, placement of the month, year, and calendar, and the degree of transparency.
Although you can use the included Clock application, DesktopCalendar seems much more elegant in its functionality. And since I keep a clean desktop in X, there's plenty of room for it (I have it just below the menu bar, at screen top right).
Worth a look-see if you're interested in having a calendar floating about on your desktop!
Just a little quickie (but the little ones are usually the nicest!)...double click on the square just above the scrollbars but to the right of the message header titles (e.g. Date & Time on my std install), and Mail toggles from Preview Message to List view (or I guess more accurately, toggles preview off and on). Same happens if you double click on the separator bar between the lists and the preview.
Still a little light on functionality, and a bit slow when you have more than one mailbox (try 6+), but hey it's only a Beta oops i mean 1.0 release.
If you use custom Terminals for various tasks such as one terminal to telnet or ssh, and one terminal to tail a log file, etc. you can edit the .term file for each custom terminal to keep the shell you'd like to use -and- to also start up any default program or script you'd like.
If you'd like to set custom terminals with custom commands and still use your default shell, read the rest of this hint.
[Editor's note: This is similar to a tip that has been previously published, but it's a nicer wayto accomplish the same objective, so I've published it as a new hint]
Over the last few days, I've been trying to burn my first CD's with iTunes for X on my G4/733 with the Superdrive. On my first attempt, I accidentally left the screensaver and drive sleep enabled, and continued to browse web sites, download files, and play with mySQL while the disc burned. I wound up with a coaster, and wrote it off to my failure to set things up correctly.
On the second attempt, I remembered to turn everything off, and left iTunes in the foreground while it worked. When it was done, I stuck the disc in the PC (as it's the most finicky machine about reading homebrew CD's), and it didn't read. On the Mac, it read, but wouldn't play at all. Coaster #2, but this time, I didn't know why.
Before the third attempt, on a hunch I went into iTunes' prefs, and set the burn speed to 1x instead of 8x. I had already set the buffer to "large", so I left that alone. Again, I left iTunes in the foreground while it worked. The play list was about an hour long, and I left for about 45 minutes. I was surprised to find the disc done when I returned, so I can't really say it burned at 1x -- I need to do some further testing to see how fast it actually burns. When I tried this disc in the PC, it worked great ... it also works in all the players I've tried it in, so it appears I had a successful burn.
Pending further investigation, I plan on burning all my CD's in iTunes at 1x; it may be worthwhile (at least for those with G4/733 Superdrive machines) for others to do the same. Anyone else had similar or different experiences on similar or different hardware?
I just discovered (a colleague of mine) that when you double click on the rotating arrows in the main window in the Mail.app, the activity window appears. That's a bit easier than selecting it in the Window menu.
some people (including myself) have been having trouble with IE 5.1 and logging into hotmail. here is a workaround.
when you go to hotmail, go to the address bar and delete the part that says login, and type start/username that is whatever your username is. so if it was brodie then the whole address should look like this:
as long as it has cgi-bin/start/brodie at the end it doesnt really matter, this will give you a password/username prompt pop up. interestingly it remembers your username for the duration of your IE session.
What's 2+3? 5 of course! But what if you want it to be 6? Or -1? Its easy to fool your fellow Mac users with a little help from InterfaceBuilder.
Open up the .nib file from any application (I use Calculator as an example), but make a backup first in case you screw up somewhere. In order to swap the - and + buttons on the calculator, all you have to do is re-connect the subtract button to the add action (and vice-versa). Whilst holding down control, click on the - button in the calculator window in Interface Bulider and drag the blue line over to the CalculatorController icon in the Calculator.nib window. Click on the "add:" action in the top-left area of the "Inspector" window that appears, and then click "Change Action" at the bottom of the window. Do the same for the add button and "subtract:". Save, run Calculator and BINGO! - clicking subtract now adds.
This is just a simple example. You can even modify menu items (change 'New...' to 'Quit' for hilarious consequences).
Of course none of this will work without write access to the Applications folder (ie. an adminisrator account), and you'll need the Developer's Tools installed in order to get InterfaceBuilder.
[Editor's note: Use at your own risk, as alays ... and this is a GREAT example of why you might want to use a locking screensaver when you leave your computer alone for a bit!]
At times you'll want to grab a selection of text different apps for any number of purposes. For example, you may be viewing a post in this "Tips" forum and want to keep a particular paragraph within a particular post.
Previously, you would have selected the text and dragged it to the desktop as a "clipping." This still works, but it clutters up your desktop.
Here's a better way:
Select the desired text -- in any Cocoa application -- and choose "Services" and then "Make Sticky" under the menu with your applications title in it (the menu just to the right of the Apple menu; it will have the same name as the application you're in). Stickies will launch if it's not already running, and create a new note with your selected text.
[Editor's addendum: In my opinion, system-wide services are one of the coolest and probably least publicized features of OS X. Take a look at the Services menu (under the application's name in the menu bar) for examples of what you can do.
Most services seem to be available even if the service app is not running; the application will launch when the service is selected. "Grab" services appear broken, at least in my 10.0.3 - it doesn't work with or without Grab running.
At present, only Cocoa apps can take advantage of services; hopefully, Carbon apps will gain the ability at some point in the future. I personally think services could turn into one of the most useful features of X]
Thanks to macosxhints' user 'louisdeboer' for pointing this one out. If you option-click on any of the window widgets at the top left of an application window (most Carbon or Cocoa apps, it seems), it behaves just as though you option-clicked a widget in the old Finder - the action is passed to all open windows. Want to minimize all of OmniWeb's open windows? Just option-click the minimize button. Similarly, option-click the close button, and they all close.
[Editor's note: See Geoff's comments; apparently this only works the first time you try it! There's an alternative suggested in the comments which may work better.]
I have managed to get Mail.app to handle sendmail mail by cheating... I am assuming that you're running sendmail OK but have been using mail or pine or somesuch to read mail.
Do this:
in the terminal, copy the folder heirarchy of another of your mailboxes (in ~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes).
Switch into the newly created directory, and instead of mbox, do:
ln -s /var/mail/user_name mbox
where user_name is your username. Restart Mail.app and you should now be able to manage mail downloaded from sendmail in Mail.app
If anyone knows a better way, preferably from within Mail.app instead of silly hacking, please let me know!!!
Cheers,
Geoff Saulnier - Mac, *NIX, perl, hack!!
[Editor's note: I'm not running sendmail locally, so I have not tried this myself]
Although I usually only post usability tips within applications, if I find a particular application I think is interesting, I'll post about the actual program.
