Showing posts with label Keyboard shortcut. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Ten Safari shortcuts you should know

Ten Safari shortcuts you should know

While I like my Magic Trackpad, and the trackpad on my MacBook Air, I do as much as I can from the keyboard.

As such, I use LaunchBar () to launch applications, and have learned a number of essential iTunes shortcuts to save time when I work with my music collection.
I know dozens of shortcuts for the apps I use most.

Since it's easier to use the keyboard - no need to move my hand to my trackpad - I've memorized a handful of useful shortcuts for browsing the Web.
Here are ten that I think are essential.Â (These should work in both Snow Leopard and Lion unless otherwise noted.)

1. Quickly enter URLs

When I want to type a URL, I don't use a mouse or trackpad to click in the Address Bar, clear it, then type. Just press Command-L, and all the text in the Address Bar is selected, so whatever you type replaces it immediately. Start typing a URL for a favorite site, and Safari can auto-completes it by looking at your history or bookmarks. If Safari displays a list of sites, use the up- and down-arrow keys to choose the right one, and then press Return to go there.

2. Search in a snap

Like everyone, I search a lot using Google. Why click in the Google search field when you can go there by simply pressing Command-Option-F? Remember this shortcut, as it works in many Apple programs. Use it in Mail, iTunes, Address Book and more when you need to zip to the search field.

3. Hop to your history

There are times when I want to browse my History list to find a Web page I visited recently, but whose URL I can't remember. Pressing Command-Option-2 takes me to the History list, and puts the cursor in the search field. I can type a word or two and narrow down the display to find what I want. Double-clicking an entry in the History list takes me to that page, and pressing Command-Option-2 again takes me back to the previously visible Web page.

4. Scroll with the spacebar

When I get to my favorite Web page, I rarely bother to use scroll bars, or even my trackpad, to scroll. Just press the spacebar, and Safari scrolls down one screen. Need to go back up a screen? Press Shift-Spacebar. It's fast and efficient, and doesn't make me dizzy watching the page move up and down.

5. Open tabs in the background

Safari’s Tabs preferences show the shortcuts you can use to create new tabs. Go to Safari -> Preferences and click on Tabs to see these. The shortcut I use most is Command-Shift-click, which opens a new tab in the background. I use this a lot when I’m doing research on the Web and want to open several pages from search results without looking at them right away. Safari's tabbed browsing is a practical way to have several Web pages open at once without getting confused by multiple windows. IMAGE - SAFARI-TABS Safari's Tabs preferences let you choose how you want tabbed browsing to work, and show you the available keyboard shortcuts according to your settings.

6. Navigate your tabs

Use Command-Shift-Left Arrow or Right-Arrow will take you from one tab to the other. Just make sure that your cursor isn’t in a text field on any window displayed in a tab

7. Send a page (or its URL) to a friend

To email a neat Web page you’ve found to a friend.

Command-I does the trick; it takes the contents of the page and send it to the person in a new message in Mail, with the page’s title as the message subject.
Command-Shift-I Will just want to send a link

8. Save pages for later

New in Lion is Reading List, a sort of temporary bookmark list that you can use for pages you want to come back to and read later. If you press Command-Shift-D, you can add the current page to the Reading List.

9. Save links for later

The above Lion shortcut works when a page is visible. If you want to add a linked page to the Reading List - a page in search results, or a link, say, on the main page of macworld.com - just hold down the Shift key and click on that link

10. View Lion’s Reading List

To view the Reading List, you could click on the eyeglasses icon in the Bookmark Bar, if it was visible. Since we’re discussing keyboard shortcuts, however, instead you use the easier method of just pressing Command-Shift-L.

Concepts:

Mac, Shortcuts, Tabs, Safari, Command-L, Command-Option-2, Command-Option-F, Command-Option-2, Command-Shift-Click, Command-Shift-Left Arrow, Command-Shift-I, Right-Arrow, Command-Shift-D, Command-Shift-L, Lion, Macworld, Business, Accessories

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Open a Collection of Tabs in Safari using AppleScript

Image via Wikipedia

AppleScript to open a collection of Safari tabs

Source: hints.macworld.com

Apr 18, '11 07:30:01AM • Contributed by: Dana Nau

Here's a simple AppleScript that replaces the current Safari window with a collection of tabs, each open to a different URL. I've seen several scripts that attempt to do something similar, but this one improves on them in a couple of ways:

It closes all of the old tabs, rather than just adding new ones.
It opens the new tabs directly in AppleScript, which is much faster than using system events.

The URLs in the script are just an example; obviously you'll want to replace them with others.

tell application "Safari"
  activate
  -- close all but one tab of the front window
  try
    repeat
      close tab 2 of window 1
    end repeat
  end try
  -- open the URLs in separate tabs
  tell window 1
    set URL of tab 1 to "http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/USMD0100.html"
    make new tab with properties {URL:"http://www.weather.com/weather/today/College+Park+MD+20740"}
    make new tab with properties {URL:"http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=20742"}
    make new tab with properties {URL:"http://www.accuweather.com/us/md/college-park/20742/city-weather-forecast.asp"}
    make new tab with properties {URL:"http://weather.weatherbug.com/MD/College%20Park-weather.html?zcode=z6286&zip=20742"}
  end tell
end tell

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Review of MsgFiler 3.0.1 for Mail

MsgFiler 3.0.1 for Mail Review

Source: macworld.com

MsgFiler is the fastest way to move, copy, and label messages in Mail. It also offers useful features for navigating and managing mailboxes.

Back in early 2008, I reviewed MsgFiler 2.0.2, a plugin for Mac OS X's Mail program that lets you file or copy messages using the keyboard, no matter how many mailboxes you have. It quickly became one of my favorite Mail add-ons, and it's one of the major reasons I was able to migrate from my previous e-mail client, Entourage, to Mail. (Yes, Gmail lovers, some of us still like to file mail in folders.)

MsgFiler has seen a few updates since that review, but it recently received a major overhaul to mark the software's debut on the Mac App Store.

MsgFiler 3 (Mac App Store link) offers a number of dramatic improvements that make it even more useful. The biggest change to MsgFiler is that it's no longer a Mail plugin. Thanks to Apple's rules, Mail plugins aren't allowed on the Mac App Store, so the developer has remade MsgFiler as a standard OS X application that communicates with Mail using AppleScript. As long as the MsgFiler app is running when you're using Mail - it's best to set MsgFiler as a Login Item and let it run in the background - its features are available to Mail.

Like MsgFiler 2, the new version makes it easy to file messages to any mailbox. With one or more messages selected, just press MsgFiler's keyboard shortcut - Command+9 by default, but you can change it to whatever you like - and up pops a search window. Type the first few letters of the desired mailbox, and MsgFiler shows a list of all matching mailboxes, sorted by relevance. Otherwise, type a few more letters of the desired mailbox's name, or use the down-arrow key to move down the list. (If you include a space when typing your search term, MsgFiler performs a wildcard search. For example, typing mac re will search for any mailbox that includes mac and re in its name - in my case, finding a mailbox called Macworld Reader Feedback.)

By default, once you press Return to file a message, MsgFiler's window disappears, although you can choose to have the window remain open until you press the MsgFiler keyboard shortcut again - you can even navigate and select messages in Mail while the MsgFiler window is open.

As I mentioned in my previous review, once you've performed the filing procedure a few times, it becomes second nature - and it's a whole lot easier on your hand/wrist/arm than using a mouse or trackpad to drag a message to a mailbox. (Check out the developer's example videos for some nice demos of MsgFiler in action.) To make filing messages even faster, you can designate frequently accessed mailboxes as favorites that will always appear at the top of the results list.

MsgFiler also tracks your filing habits, listing recently accessed mailboxes immediately after favorites. And search results are numbered, letting you use keyboard shortcuts to jump directly to a mailbox.

If you'd rather copy a message to the selected mailbox, leaving the original message in place, click the Copy button or press Shift+Commmand+C. Alternatively, you can view ("open") the selected mailbox in Mail - without doing anything with selected messages - by clicking Open or pressing Command+O, making MsgFiler useful for quickly switching Mail's window to a particular view. (You can switch MsgFiler's default action - the one that occurs when you press Return - to Move or Copy if you use one of these commands frequently.) You can also add a color label to selected messages, and create new mailboxes, right from within the MsgFiler window.

MsgFiler provides a number of useful options for tweaking its behavior. You can restrict mailbox searches to the account you've selected in Mail's Mailboxes pane. You can restrict searches to mailbox names or open them up to full mailbox paths - if you've got mailboxes inside folders, the latter option includes the folder names in searches. You can choose for searches to be case-sensitive or -insensitive. MsgFiler can automatically add a color label to - or remove the color label from - any message it files. Finally, you can force MsgFiler to exclude from its searches mailboxes with names that include specific words or strings.

How much use have I gotten out of MsgFiler?

The program provides a nifty count of the number of messages you've filed, and after around three weeks of use, the counter tells me I've filed over 1800 messages - that's a lot of wrist-killing drag-and-drop I've avoided!

There are a couple drawbacks to MsgFiler's conversion from a Mail plugin to an application. The first is that the application version can't exclude from its searches accounts that are offline or inactive - the plugin included this feature. The second is that performance suffers a bit - according to the developer, the plugin's tighter integration with Mail made it faster at loading the mailbox list and at filing messages to IMAP mailboxes (those hosted on your e-mail provider's IMAP servers, rather than "On My Mac).

However, you can restore much of the plugin's speed by manually downloading - guess what - a Mail plugin! Available from the MsgFiler Website, the MsgFiler Engine Mail Plugin improves performance dramatically, and I highly recommend you install it. The plugin is a clever way for MsgFiler to work around the Mac App Store's rules, but it also means you'll need to manually check for, and download, updates to the plugin, since such updates won't be handled by the Mac App Store. (Before installing an updated plugin, be sure to quit both Mail and the MsgFiler application.) Alternatively, you can skip the Mac App Store version altogether and download the older plugin version of MsgFiler, currently at version 2.1.0 - the developer has promised it will be maintained for compatibility with future versions of Snow Leopard, as well as Lion, although you lose out on version 3's new features.

MsgFiler is one of my must-have apps, and I wouldn't be using Mail without it.

Besides the increase in productivity it provides, it also dramatically reduces my repetitive mousing and trackpad-swiping. Best of all, it's simple to use - just press a keyboard shortcut and type a few letters. While there are other Mail add-ons, such as the excellent Mail Act-On, that include message filing among their more-varied feature sets, I find MsgFiler's mail filing to be faster and more efficient - enough so that I actually use MsgFiler together with Mail Act-On.

If, like me, you're a compulsive message filer, you need MsgFiler.

If you'd like to try MsgFiler before purchasing it, the developer recommends downloading the latest beta.

Concepts:

Msgfiler, Mac, Mailbox, App, Plugin, Mail Plugin, Internet, Filing, Mac App Store, Keyboard Shortcuts

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Easily download files from URLs on your Mac

Image via Wikipedia

Quickly download files from URLs | Mac OS X | Mac OS X Hints

Source: macworld.com

Using this tip, you will be able to create a service on OS X that will enable you to highlight a URL to download and use your new service to download it without opening any other application.

Let's say a friend sent you a link to an app or an MP3 file, and you just want to download the thing.
Normally, you'd copy the URL, open your browser, and paste the URL into the address bar. In some browsers, you'd even need to paste the URL into the address field, hit Enter, wait until the file loads, and then save it.
From the list of templates, select Service.
At the top right of the window, set the service to receive selected URLs in any application.
Then, in the Internet group of actions, double-click on Download URLs.
That will add it to the editing window on the right.
By default, it will download URLs to your Downloads folder; if you wish them to go somewhere else, select that other location from the Where drop-down.
Save the service and give it a name, such as Download Selected URL.
Now, in any app that supports services, find the URL of a downloadable file (or, for the purposes of testing, any URL at all) and select it with your cursor. Open the Services submenu from the application menu and select Download Selected URL from the list. (Or right-click on the selected URL and choose the service from the context menu’s Services section.)
The file connected to the selected URL should download to your selected folder.
If it's especially large, you'll see a spinning cogwheel on the right side of the menubar while the service is running; clicking on that will open a menu where you can cancel the download if you wish.
When the download is done, check the destination folder; your file should be there.
You can make this quicker by assigning a keyboard shortcut to your service: Open System Preferences and select the Keyboard preference pane.
In the Keyboard Shortcuts tab, select Services from the list to the left.
Find Download Selected URL in the list on the right and double-click to its right.
You can then enter a keyboard shortcut - Control-Command-D, perhaps - to assign it to your service.

Concepts:

Mac, download, app, Macworld, Prices, selected URL, accessories, keyboard, Customer Service, Publishing, Cameras, business, ipod, Leopard, Internet

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Mac Gems I’m thankful for

Image by insidetwit via Flickr

Mac Gems I’m thankful for

Here's an extract from an article on MacWorld I found very useful since I use mostly

Source: macworld.com

It’s Thanksgiving day here in the U.S., and I want to wish all our U.S. readers a happy holiday. Since Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday, which is also a Mac Gems day on the Macworld calendar, I thought I’d mention a few Gems I’m thankful for—the inexpensive apps and utilities that I use every day to increase my productivity and generally make my Mac-using life a bit better.

This isn’t a list of our all-time favorite Gems; we published the most-recent version of that list back in June (although some of those products appear on this list, as well). Nor is it a list of my favorite Gems of 2009; you’ll see that one the week we publish our annual Eddy Awards. Rather, this is a list of Gems that I continue to use every day—Gems that have become such an integral part of my workflow that I often take them for granted.

To the developers of these programs, and of the many other great-but-inexpensive software titles out there, thank you. The Mac experience is better because of you.

DocumentPalette: I use DocumentPalette many times each day to create a new document in the current folder via a keyboard shortcut—I just choose the type of document from the palette that appears.
Dropbox: Over the years, I’ve tried many methods for keeping particular files in sync between my computers, and for sharing files with friends and family. Dropbox, with its Finder integration and automatic syncing, makes it easy.
FlexCal: Flexcal lets me create new iCal (or BusyCal) events without having to open my calendar program. I just press a keyboard shortcut and provide the event details.
Growl: More and more of my favorite programs take adantage of Growl to provide notifications and updates. Throw in HardwareGrower, a Growl add-on that informs me of hardware and network connections and disconnections, and my Mac feels lacking without this utility.
Jumpcut: As a writer, I consider a multiple-Clipboard utility to be a must, and Jumpcut remains my personal favorite for its ease of use and elegant interface.
LaunchBar: Jason Snell put it best: “If I could have only one Mac utility, a solitary piece of software that I could use to improve using my Mac and all its programs as I went about my daily business, it would be Objective Development’s LaunchBar. When I use a Mac that doesn’t have LaunchBar running, I simply feel naked.”
MagiCal: Snow Leopard finally lets you put the date in the menu bar, but I still prefer MagiCal, which instead uses a tiny calendar icon for the date; clicking on the icon displays a useful monthly calendar.
Mercury Mover: Among this add-on’s many features, the one I use the most is the capability to quickly restore windows to particular sizes and positions. For example, by pressing Mercury Mover’s keyboard shortcut followed by S, my Safari window is instantly placed in my favorite location with my favorite dimensions.
MondoMouse: I use MondoMouse dozens of times each day to move and resize windows without having to grab a thin title bar or a tiny resize box—heck, without even having to click a mouse button.
ScreenSharingMenulet: Using OS X’s Screen Sharing feature between my Macs has become a regular part of my daily routine, and ScreenSharingMenulet has made making those Screen Sharing connections simple.
Sharpshooter: Tech writers take screenshots—lots of screenshots. When I choose to use Mac OS X’s built-in screenshot features, Sharpshooter lets me choose, on the fly, the screenshot format, name, and save location.
Shimo: Mac OS X’s built-in VPN functionality doesn’t hold a candle to Shimo, which provides more features, more-reliable connections, and many automation options. It’s also a much-improved alternative to Cisco’s OS X VPN software. Did I mention it provides Growl notifications?
SuperDuper: I’m paranoid about data loss, so I have a rigorous backup routine. Part of that routine is to use SuperDuper to schedule six clone operations every day—two each of three different drives. If a drive dies, I can be back up and running without much delay.
TextExpander: In my line of work, a text-expansion utility—which automatically pastes frequently used text whenever I type a corresponding abbreviation—is up there with multiple Clipboards in terms of productivity gains. And TextExpander is my current favorite. According to the program’s own tally, I’ve expanded over 5500 snippets over the past couple years.
Today: Today shows me the day’s events and tasks in a space-saving window, even if iCal or BusyCal is closed.
Witch: OS X lets you switch between windows in the current program by pressing Command+`. Witch puts that feature to shame by displaying a list of every window in every application, letting you easily switch to—or act on—any of them.

There are plenty of other Gems that I use regularly, but these see daily action on my Mac and have worked their way into my routines. What are your most-used—and most overlooked—Mac Gems? Let us know in the comments. And if you're celebrating today, have a great Thanksgiving, and thanks for reading.

think-act-do

Tuesday, August 2, 2011