Mac OS X Tips

The Stationery Pad option has been around for as long as I can remember, in every version of the Mac OS. The Unofficial Apple Weblog does a great job of describing what it does:

If you have any kind of workflow where you need to repeatedly modify some sort of a file template, checking this option in any file's Get Info window will tell its parent application to open a copy of it by default, ensuring that the original file remains unedited.

Surprisingly, very few people know about and use this useful option. To enable it, select a file and open up its Get info window by pressing Command-I. From here you can check the stationery pad option to set that file as a dafault template for its application. Now when you open that application, a copy of the file will load up and you can use it as a template. However, when you save the file it won't save over the Stationery Pad file.

For many applications the icon of the file will change slightly if you set it as a stationery pad. For example, some Microsoft Office files will change to look like a pad.

Most people store some kind of data on their computer that they don't want other people to see or use. Whether it is financial information, confidential files for work or files you shouldn't have in the first place, it is often hard to guarantee that no one has seen them. If your computer was stolen, for example, you would hope that the thief would just wipe the hard drive, but there is no way to be sure. Leaving your Mac logged on in the office or at home also allows other people to gain access to your private data.

Encryption

The easiest and most secure way to protect your files is an encrypted folder. This means that a password is needed to access the files within it, and the files won't show up in Spotlight searches. Moreover, it is almost impossible to decrypt the data without that password, even with data recovery tools.

Mac OS X comes with FileVault, which you can turn on from the System Preferences. However, this really is overkill as it encrypts your entire user folder, including your music, photos and files that really don't need to be protected.

A much better option is to use Disk Utility (located in Applications/Utilities) to create an encrypted disk image. This is just like a normal disk image (downloaded software often comes in one), but to mount it on your desktop you need to provide the correct password.

To create an encrypted disk image, open up Disk Utility, go to the File menu and choose New - Blank Disk Image. In the dialog box that appears choose a name for your disk image and where you want to save it. The size is a maximum that the disk image can hold, so the preset sizes for CDs and DVDs are useful for if you want to burn the contents when it gets full. Choose AES-128 encryption and sparse disk image from the Format drop down menu.

Now when you click Create, you will be prompted to enter your password. To really protect your data, don't choose a password that you use for everything else or something that is easily guess-able. Press the key button next to the password field to open the Password Assistant. This will help you choose a password that is both easy to remember and hard to crack. The best type to choose from the menu is "Memorable" as the others are a bit more complicated. Obviously longer passwords are more secure, but you have to find the right balance. If you don't like the password that the assistant suggests, press the down arrow next to the password to see a list of other suggestions. Alternatively, type in your own password and it will tell you how good it is and give tips on how to improve it.

Remember to deselect the "Remember Password" option before pressing OK, as that would really defeat the point of creating the disk image in the first place. Now your encrypted disk image will be located in where you chose to save it. When you double-click it you will be prompted for the password, then it will mount on your desktop and also appear in the Sidebar of every window.

Hiding

For some people there is no need to encrypt data. For a quick, temporary solution you can just hide away your files on your Mac. This is much less secure and far from foolproof, but quite often it is as much as you need.

Probably the best place to put your files is in the Library folder. The main benefits of this are that it isn't searched by Spotlight, and that there are hundreds of other files in there already. The Application Support folder in you Library is a good place, as there are all sorts of random files in there. You might also want to rename your file if it has a name that stands out ( super-secret-file.doc for example).

1. You can create line breaks in an iCal event by pressing Option-Return. Handy if you want to create a small list in an event.

2. If you are really worried about missing an event, set more than one alarm for it. In the info panel for your event click on the word "alarm" and a menu will appear allowing you to add or remove alarms. You can even set alarms to go off after the event, for example if you need to drop someone off and then be reminded go pick them up an hour later.

3. Use iCal to schedule things on your Mac. When setting an alarm for an event, you can choose the option for it to "Open a file". You could create an Applescript or Automator workflow that loads up iTunes and plays a random song or create a shortcut to a web site by dragging the address from Safari to the Finder. Create an event that occurs every morning at 7.00 and set this file as the alarm.

4. While iPhoto is great for printing pretty calendars, iCal offers a special customized print dialog that gives you much more flexibility in printing your calendars, albeit without the lovely photos. Check out this previous tip for printing To Do lists in iCal.

5. You can customize the alarm message in iCal to show something else instead of the alarm clock. First, create a Quicktime movie that is roughly 53 pixels wide and 66 pixels high, and save it as alarmclock.mov. Locate iCal in your Applications folder and Control-Click (or Right-Click) on its icon. From the context menu, choose Show Package Contents. Go to the resources folder and locate the alarmclock.mov file that is already in there. Replace this with your new alarmclock.mov file. You will probably want to keep a backup of the old file if you even want to go back to the ringing alarm clock.

In iTunes 7 it is now possible to have multiple music libraries. This works in the same way that iPhoto has for quite a while. When opening iTunes, press and hold the Option key immediately after clicking the Dock icon or double-clicking the application in the Finder.

A dialog box will appear instead of the normal iTunes window, and from here you can choose an existing library or create a new one. Your existing library is in your user folder, under Music / iTunes / iTunes Library.

When you create a new iTunes library it doesn't just create this single library database file, it creates the entire folder, complete with a music folder and Album artwork folder.

This is quite useful for separating off a section of music. For example, you may want a separate library for your live music, your children's music or the music you don't want to copy to your iPod.

In an ideal world it would be possible to access all your music libraries from the sidebar in iTunes, but currently this isn't possible. Hopefully at some point it will be possible to change between your libraries without having to quit and load up iTunes again.

One of the things that has always been an annoying problem in Mac OS X is that the text in text clippings doesn't behave like normal text.

You can create a text clipping by selecting a portion of text in any application and dragging it to the desktop (or anywhere in the Finder for that matter). Once you have done this, a text clipping file will appear, which you can open using the Finder.

The text in the clipping looks normal. For example, the text highlight cursor will appear when you put your mouse over it. However, if you try and make a selection you will find it doesn't work. This means that text clippings are only really useful for drag and drop. Instead of dragging text from one application to the other, you can store it on your desktop for a while before dragging it to somewhere else.

The functionality has been improved somewhat in the past few major updates of Mac OS X. Since Mac OS X 10.3 it has been possible to copy a text clipping by choosing copy from the Edit menu (or by pressing Command-C) instead of only being able to drag them.

Since Mac OS X 10.4 it has been possible to select a portion of a text clipping, but it's a little trickier than it should be. Remember I said you couldn't make selections in text clippings? Well you can... sort of.

If you drag over a part of your text clipping obviously it doesn't look like a selection was made - nothing is highlighted. But when you copy and paste into another application (TextEdit for example) you will find that only the text you dragged over was copied, not the entire text clipping as you would expect.

Now there are a few problems with this. Normally the text clipping will retain the style of the original text, however now it won't. Also it is still pretty annoying having to guess if you have selected the right text.

Luckily, Mac OS X Hints has an article on how to make selected text in clippings highlight.

Basically you have to edit one word in a file within the Finder application. To do this, open your Hard Drive and navigate to System / Library / CoreServices / Finder.

Right-click (or Control-Click) on the Finder and choose "Show Package Contents". Now you have to navigate to Contents / Resources / English.lproj. If you are using a different language, you will need to choose that one instead. Inside your language folder, right-click ClipWindow.nib and choose "Show Package Contents".

Here there are three files. Keep this window open because you will need it later. Copy objects.xin to your desktop and open it up in TextEdit. In this file you need to change one word. Look for this line:
<boolean name="noSelection">TRUE</boolean>
You can do this using Command-F to search for it or just look about 23 lines down. Change the TRUE to FALSE so it looks like this:
<boolean name="noSelection">FALSE</boolean>

Save and close the file, and drag it back to the ClipWindow.nib folder to replace the original file. You may be prompted to enter your administrator password to do this if you are not an admin. It is probably a good idea to make a backup of this file before you replace it, just in case everything goes pear shaped.

Finally, you will need to relaunch the Finder for changes to take effect. The easiest way to do this is to hold down Control and Option and then click on the Finder icon in the Dock. Choose Relaunch from the list.

Now you have wonderfully improved text clippings!

The Exposé blob is a hidden feature within exposé that sits on your desktop and allows you to invoke Exposé by clicking it.

To enable the blob, enter the following command into the Terminal (Applications/Utilities) and hit return.
defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool true

Now you need to relaunch the Dock, which contains the Exposé program. This can be done from Activity Monitor (also in Applications/Utilities) but it is much easier to just type the following into the Terminal and press return.
killall Dock

Now a blue blob should appear on your screen. Notice that it hovers above all other windows, and you can drag it about. It is semi-transparent until you put your mouse over it, when it becomes fully opaque. Now there are a few things you can do with this blob. Just clicking it will do the equivalent of hitting F10 - it will activate Exposé for all windows in the current application. Option-clicking is the same as F9, Exposé for all open windows. You can add in shift (Shift-Click or Shift-Option-Click) to make everything happen in slow motion, just the same as if you were using the F9 and F10 keys.

To remove the blob, repeat the above command but with false at the end.
defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool false

As before you will need to relaunch the Dock for the changes to take effect.
killall Dock

methodshop.com has a great tutorial on how to customise the blob to be a different image. This isn't too tricky, and basically involves looking inside the Dock application and replacing two images. Mac OS X Hints has a great idea of a prank to play using the blob. By changing it to look like the Hard Drive icon you can really confuse someone.

The blob is probably the most stable and most useful of the hidden features, but there are others. The following command makes small semi-circles appear where you have hot corners set.
defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-showcorners -bool true

You will need to type killall Dock for changes to take effect and repeat the command with false at the end to reverse it.

This final undocumented feature is part of the show desktop function that you start by pressing F11. Instead of moving all the windows off the sides of the screen, Exposé will now put all of your open windows into a small box that can be moved around the screen.
defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool false

This is arguably the most interesting hidden feature for Exposé, however, be warned that it has some bugs. After using the show desktop function, the front window can freeze. Mostly this can be fixed by pressing F9 (the show all function). Of course you have to do the usual killall Dock command to make the changes happen and type the command again with true at the end to reverse it.

I've never written much about Spotlight on this site, as I never anticipated that many tips and tricks would be available for it. However, Spotlight currently offers loads of tweaks and shortcuts for improving and speeding up your searching. Here are my favourites.

By default, you can access Spotlight by using the keyboard shortcut Command-Space. You can also bring up the Spotlight window by pressing Command-Option-Space. Both of these shortcuts are customisable from the Spotlight pane in the System Preferences. If the chosen combination clashes with another one on your computer a warning symbol will appear next to it. To fix this, click on the warning triangle to go to the Keyboard and Mouse pane that allows you to view all keyboard shortcuts and see which ones are the same.

In all Cocoa apps (Safari, Mail, TextEdit etc.) you can quickly search for selected text in Spotlight. The first way of doing this is to Right-click (Control-click) on a word to bring up the context menu. The first option in the list is "Search in Spotlight". If you want to search multiple words, you will need to select them before bringing up the menu. You can also achieve the same effect by selecting the text and pressing Command-Shift-F (or by going to the Services menu and choosing Spotlight).

There are two ways of putting your contacts in the spotlight. The simplest method is to just type the person's name into Spotlight. The alternative option is to do it via Address Book. Select which contact you want to search, and from the Action Menu (looks like a cog, located in the top left) choose "Spotlight [name]". The spotlight window will pop up, and show documents, photos, iCal events, mail messages and iChats related to this person. This is one of my favourite features of Spotlight - it allows you to use it as a personal organiser and links together Address Book, iCal, Mail and iChat.

Moreover, Spotlight remembers files that people have sent you. When searching for one of your contacts, Spotlight will list any files they sent as attachments to you, providing you received them in Mail.

To immediately choose the "Top Hit" press Command-Return. This shortcut makes Spotlight a bit better as an application launcher. If you press Command-Return on any other item it will bring up the enclosing folder in the Finder (i.e. Show in Finder). The same thing happens if you Command-click any item.

Spotlight indexes far more than you might expect. In iPhoto, keywords and photo titles are indexed, and in iChat your chat transcripts are as well. In terms of third party applications, Delicious Library indexes your movies and books, Microsoft Office indexes the author, title and description of your documents and Newsfire indexes the titles and contents of feed items.

On the Apple Spotlight downloads page there are loads of plugins to enhance your Spotlight searches. Some add Spotlight functionality to unsupported applications, while others allow access to internet search engines from Spotlight.

You can perform Spotlight searches from the Terminal. the mdfind command will perform a spotlight search with many flexible options. However you don't have to use the Terminal to access these advanced options. Mac Geekery has an article describing how to execute raw Spotlight queries from the Finder http://www.macgeekery.com/tips/how_to_execute_raw_spotlight_queries_in_the_finder

In the Spotlight window there is an info icon next to each search result. Clicking this will give you loads of useful information about that result. It's like choosing "Get info..." on a file in the Finder, only you can do it on iCal events, fonts, music, emails and contacts.

There are loads of keyboard shortcuts for manipulating the Spotlight menu. Most of these correspond to the normal behaviour in other Mac OS X menus. Use the Up and Down keys scroll up and down the menu. Command-Down will move to the first item in the next category, Command-Up Arrow will move to the first item in the previous category. Control-Up or the Page up key will move you to the first item in the menu, and Control-Down or Page down will take you to the last item in the menu. Command-Left and Command-Right will skip to the start or end of the search field, while Tab will select all text in the search field and Escape will clear it. If you press Escape with the search field empty, the Spotlight menu will close.

You can narrow you searches by specifying a kind. For example, to search for "Hello" but only in your music files, you would type "Hello kind:music". This can be done for almost any type of file - applications, movies, images, contacts and mail.

Using the same method as above, you can choose for Spotlight to only display files opened in a certain date range. For example, you would use "date:yesterday" to specify only files opened yesterday. Choosing a future date will display upcoming iCal events and to do items.

From the Spotlight pane in System Preferences you can enable, disable and rearrange categories. In the Privacy tab you can disable searching of specific locations.

To improve your Spotlight searches you can assign Spotlight Comments to files in the Get Info window. Access this by selecting your file in the Finder and pressing Command-I. Now you can set comments such as "urgent" or "temp" to make that file appear when those keywords are searched in Spotlight.