Collect your favorite apps, files in the Finder, Dock for easy access
OS X’s Finder makes it easy to collect your favorite stuff for easy access. Give these shortcuts a try:
- ⌘-T will add the currently selected app or file to the sidebar on the left
- ⌘-⇧-T will add apps to the left side of your Dock, and files to the right side
Note: if you don’t see a sidebar or a toolbar at the top of your Finder window, hit ⌘-⌥-T (View > Hide Toolbar) to show them.
You can also drag just about anything to the toolbar at the top of your Finder window, though I haven’t been able to find a keyboard shortcut for that.
While playing a Genius Mix, you can’t see or do much with the song currently playing. You can’t even rate it; File > Rating is grayed out.
But if you hit Command-L (Controls > Go to Current Song), iTunes will show you the song in your library where you can add a rating and edit metadata. Hit Command-L again and you’ll be taken back to Genius Mixes.
Alfred, the incredibly useful productivity utility from Running with Crayons, lets you create “Groups” for launching a bunch of apps and files all at once (the Powerpack add-on is required). Add everything you want to a list, give it a keyword, and call it up whenever you want your Mac to do more of your work for you.
Right-click a group in Alfred’s preferences and you can export it as a .alfredextension file to share with others. Running with Crayons now has an Extensions site for finding more extensions and sharing your creations.
Taking this idea one step further in version 1.0 which just went beta, Alfred’s upcoming Global Hotkeys feature allows you to assign keyboard shortcuts to open Groups, collections of URLs, specific apps, toggling iTunes features, and more.
Alfred is free to use. Its Powerpack option, required for features mentioned here and many others, costs about $20.
Quickly open a new browser window and bypass your default Homepage
If you’ve closed all windows in Safari, Chrome, or Firefox (but not quit the app itself), you can quickly open a new window without loading your homepage by switching to the browser and hitting Command-L, the default shortcut for placing keyboard focus in the address bar. The new window that opens will default to an about:blank page, waiting for you to get typing.
This works at least in Safari 5.1.1, Chrome 14.0.835.202.1912843.1834873471.676752.3, and Firefox 6.0.
Selectively turn off Lion’s “Resume” feature when opening an app
Lion introduced a new iOS-like Resume feature that allows apps to reopen with all documents, windows, and settings right where you left them. But if you want to override this setting on an app-by-app basis, simply hold the Shift key when starting an app. It will open to its native ‘clean slate,’ with none of the documents or windows you had open the last time you quit the app.
iChat lets you scroll back through your recently sent messages, send them again
Like many IRC clients and developer utilities, iChat 6.0 in Lion makes it easy to scroll back through the messages you have sent to a buddy and re-send them. With your input focus in the text box, hold the Option key while pressing the up arrow to scroll back chronologically through each message you’ve sent. The messages populates the text box as if you had just finished typing it, allowing you to strike Return to immediately send it again or edit it before sending.
This can be quite useful if have to repeat something like a link or a complex set of instructions, especially if your friend is mobile, closed their chat window, or otherwise cannot access that portion of the chat history.
Unfortunately, even if you enable iChat to save your chat history (it’s still off by default in Lion), iChat does not provide access to your input history between login sessions or even chat sessions; close the chat window, and the Option-up command silently mocks your attempt at reliving chat history. Your input history is also not available across multiple buddies—what you say to one buddy is not Option-up-able in another chat that is happening simultaneously.
Pressing and holding a letter now shows a list of variations similar to the keyboard on iOS.
How to make the Library folder visible under OS X Lion (Updated)
OS X Lion hides the ~/Library folder from view in an effort to prevent users from tampering with sensitive files or unwittingly tossing out their precious data. It’s easy to get to your user’s Library folder with a simple Go > Go to Folder command in Finder, then typing ~/Library. But moapp found a Terminal command that can bring your library folder back into focus:
Open the Terminal and type:
chflags nohidden /Users/[username]/Library/
Alternatively, PBenz pointed out in the comments that you can also hold the Option key when clicking Finder’s Go menu to make a hidden Library option appear, like so:
And thanks to Paul Conigliaro in the comments, you can also assign a shortcut in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts to open ~/Library. In the demo screenshot below, I used Command-Option-Shift-L.
