Use a two-finger pinch on a trackpad to zoom the text in TextEdit documents. Pinch your fingers apart to zoom in, and pinch them together to zoom out.
[kirkmc adds: This works zooming in and out with TextEdit. I expected it to work in other apps, and it does in Preview. However, it only works zooming in with Safari; if you pinch together, you see the currently open tabs, as explained in this hint.]
I had many applications show up as "Installed" in the update pane of the Mac App Store even after I had updated them. Apparently, if you have copies of an application on your system, even on a secondary drive, they are discovered by the Mac App Store. This causes a problem if you have a copy an application in the /Applications directory as well as somewhere else on your drive. If you update the application in the /Applications directory but not the other instance then the Mac App store will display the application on the Update Pane, but list it as "installed". Simply deleting the other instance of the application will cause the Mac App Store to refresh it's data and remove the application from the update list.
[kirkmc adds: I was seeing that in the early days of Mountain Lion. After running the updates again, they disappeared; I didn't think to check my backup drive, were I clone my startup volume, to see if those copies of my apps got updated.
I just checked the Mac App Store and found two updates waiting for me. (I thought it was supposed to alert me when there were updates?) I updated one app, quit the Mac App Store, then re-launched it; that app was no longer listed. So this may be a transient problem that Apple has resolved, but I'm publishing it anyway, in case others still see this issue.]
To send Messages or tweets via the Share Panel or the Twitter field in the Notification Center, you can use the same keyboard shortcut as in Mail to send e-mails: Command-Shift-D.
Mail notifications, while useful, can be overwhelming. That's why Mail can restrict the notifications (Dock badge and Notification Center) to a specific mailbox or Smart Mailbox.
Notifications restriction is available from Mail's Preferences; however here is a way to change this setting using a script, without going through the GUI.
This is especially useful when used with location-aware apps, such as Marco Polo or ControlPlane: you can automatically be notified of your professional e-mails only when at work, and of your personal emails only when at home, for instance.
I find it especially useful to keep focused and reduce the amount of distracting notifications.
#!/bin/bash
#
# Configure Mail.app to enable notifications only in the specified mailbox.
# Notifications include the Dock badge and messages in the Notification Center.
#
# Usage:
# restrict-mail-notifications
#
# Example:
# restrict-mail-notifications smartmailbox://f687826d-f4de-4724-9a12-c5794dcdaa32
#
# Notes:
# To find the mailbox id you're interested in, look in the com.apple.mail.plist file.
#
mailboxID="$1"
if [ ! -n "$mailboxID" ]; then
echo "Error: "mailboxID" parameter missing."
echo "Usage: $0 "
exit -1
fi
# Only display the unread messages count in the Dock for the specified mailbox
defaults write com.apple.mail MailDockBadgeMailbox "$mailboxID"
# Only display notifications for incoming messages in the specified mailbox
defaults write com.apple.mail MailUserNotificationScope -int '4' # Smart mailboxes
defaults write com.apple.mail MailUserNotificationMailbox "$mailboxID"
# Now relaunch Mail.app for changes to take effect
In iOS, whenever you view a document attached to an e-mail, you can click the Share button to send the document to a list of compatible applications, not just the preferred one. The same option is available in Mountain Lion whenever you use Quick Look to view a document.
When you display a document using Quick Look, you can now right-click on the "Open in xxxx" button, and see a list of compatible applications. This makes it easy to open, for example, a spreadsheet or graphic in your application of choice instead of the default application.
If you've tried burning the Mountain Lion installer to a standard DVD, you've probably noticed that it does not quite fit. Fortunately, there is a way around this.
The problem is that the size of the InstallESD image is fixed at 4.75 GB; slightly larger then a 4.7 GB single-layer DVD. However, the actual contents of the image occupy only 4.38 GB on disk, which will fit on a standard DVD.
In order to cram Mountain Lion onto a standard DVD, we need create a slightly smaller image file of the exact same format, copy the contents over, then burn it to a DVD.
I've written a small script to make this process quick and easy. Simply paste the code below into a plain text document and save it with a file extension of ".sh" To run the script, fire up Terminal and enter "bash /path/to/script.sh". When this script finishes, you will have a new, smaller DVD image in your home folder, ready for burning.
NOTE: This script assumes you have the "Install OS X Mountain Lion" application in /Applications. It won't work if it's located elsewhere. You'll also want to make sure you have at least 9 GB of disk space free, as the script temporarily creates two additional copies of the install image.
#! /bin/bash
rm -f /private/tmp/Mountain\ Lion\ DVD\ Image\ read-write.dmg # Remove any old copies of the DVD image before we begin.
echo "Creating DVD Image..."
hdiutil create -size 4.2g -volname "Mac OS X Install ESD" /private/tmp/Mountain\ Lion\ DVD\ Image\ read-write.dmg -fs HFS+ -layout SPUD
# hdiutil attach -nobrowse /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mountain\ Lion.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg
hdiutil attach -nobrowse ~/Desktop/InstallESD.dmg
hdiutil attach -nobrowse /private/tmp/Mountain\ Lion\ DVD\ Image\ read-write.dmg
echo "Copying Mountain Lion to new image..."
cp -pRv /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/* /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD\ 1/
hdiutil detach /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD\ 1
hdiutil detach /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD
echo "Converting to read-only..."
hdiutil convert /private/tmp/Mountain\ Lion\ DVD\ Image\ read-write.dmg -format UDZO -o ~/Desktop/Mountain\ Lion\ DVD\ Image.dmg
rm -f /private/tmp/Mountain\ Lion\ DVD\ Image\ read-write.dmg
echo "Image Creation Complete. Please burn '~/Desktop/Mountain Lion DVD Image.dmg' to a DVD using Disk Utility."
open ~/Desktop/
[kirkmc adds: I haven't tested this. Given the cost of USB sticks, and the fact that, if you do want an installer, it's better to have the most recent one, I've gone that route using Lion DiskMaker. Some people may prefer DVDs, but another factor is whether or not your Mac has an internal DVD drive; my Macs - a Mac mini and a MacBook Pro - do not, so USB is easier than using an external drive.
Note: I've updated the script in the hint to the last revision below in the comments as of 8/18/12.]
I discovered while adding some new Mail rules that existing rules which ran an AppleScript seemed to be missing the scripts I had designated, even though they were still in my Scripts folder (~/Library/Scripts). Upon clicking the "Open in Finder" option in the drop-down menu for choosing an existing AppleScript, it took me to a new file path: ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.apple.mail.
You just need to copy or move the scripts to the new folder. Mail seems smart enough to remember the earlier choice and update the rules by moving the scripts to the new folders.
[kirkmc adds: This probably has something to do with sandboxing. The only other application I use AppleScripts for is iTunes, and their location hasn't changed. Can anyone post in the comments if they see other folders in the Application Scripts folder?]
Migrating Mail from Lion to Mountain Lion leaves behind a folder containing previous attachments.
Attachments in Lion were saved to ~/Library/Mail Downloads, but under Mountain Lion, Mail is now sandboxed, and the new path is ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Mail Downloads.
During the upgrade, the folder contents are copied from the old location to the new, so the old location can be deleted to save some space.
[kirkmc adds: While this may not save a lot of space, if you get a lot of e-mail with attachments, you may have plenty of files in that folder. I clean mine out from time to time, so it's good to note the new location.]
There is no preset keyboard shortcut for Notification Center, but you can set one in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Mission Control.
[kirkmc adds: You can also set a hot corner in the Mission Control preference pane. I find the top-right hot corner to be ideal.]
If you go to LaunchPad, you can search for apps by typing a couple of letters. You'll see a search field at the top of the window. You don't need to move the cursor there; you just start typing. Launchpad will narrow down its list of apps to those named with the same initial characters as any typed text. For example, "pre" will return Preview, whereas "rev" won't.
Additionally, it returns apps that contain capital letters and words' initial letters from any consecutive position within their names that match the typed text. So, "qt" will return QuickTime Player, "sp" will return System Preferences, and "p" will return iPhoto.
[kirkmc adds: It seems that LaunchPad treats capital letters at any location in an application name as important, just as Spotlight does.]
