Another Tuesday , another smattering of bone X 10.5 tips : Today we ’ll con how to keep our hands on the keyboard more when using the Dock and Stacks , feel out more entropy about AirPort connections , and create sidebar shortcuts from unexpected places .
The Dock and the keyboard
If you ’ve been read my tips over the years , you ’ll know I ’m a vast exponent of the keyboard ; I apply it whenever potential instead of the mouse . One of the nice changes in oculus sinister X 10.5 is that the Dock is now more well used via the keyboard . In prior passing of OS X , you could aerate the Dock by pressing Control - F3 , use the Left and Right Arrow keys to select an ikon , then adjure Return to spread that item ( or the Up Arrow key to show its Dock menu ) .
While this still works in 10.5 , there ’s a good elbow room that does n’t ask nearly as much central pressing . After pressing Control - F3 ( assuming you ’ve antecedently enable full keyboard admittance by bid Control - F1 ) , just type the first missive of the program ( or Indian file / brochure on the right side ) whose icon you ’d like to choose . The Dock will foreground matches as you type . The matching is based on the full name of the syllabus as shown in the Finder , so you may require to do some renaming to make this well-to-do — for instance , remove the Word of God Microsoft from the names of the Office 2004 applications will let you just type Exc , Powe , or Wor to select those icon ( otherwise , you ’d have to type out Microsoft , or use the pointer keys to get to the icon you want ) .
Once the Dock is combat-ready , you could utilise the keyboard to not only select detail , but also entries in their Dock menus — or in the instance of Stacks , the Stacks ’ content . For instance , imperativeness Control - F3 , type Down ( assume you ’ve got a Downloads flock in your Dock ) , then press Return . The Downloads Stack will belt down up out of the Dock , and you could now use the same “ type a few letters of the item ’s name ” john to select something in the Stack . Once you have an token pick out , press Return to open it .
More AirPort entropy
The AirPort icon in the 10.5 menu bar contains quite a portion of serious information , but you might not fuck that at first coup d’oeil , as it ’s hide by default . The next time you use the AirPort menu , curb down the Option key before you get through the icon . ( you may give up it once the AirPort fall - down menu is seeable . ) For your connected connection , you ’ll see some detailed information below the connection name : the MAC computer address of the wireless station you ’re link to , which channel is in use , a measure of the signal intensity level ( more on that below ) , and an indication of the information transmission rate .
Regarding the signal strength , what you ’ll see is probably a electronegative number . A perfect connection would be represented by 0 ; as the numbers become more electronegative , sign strength is humbled . Sitting here about 15 invertebrate foot from my Base Station , my connection betoken a strength of -54 ; my laptop down the stairs , about twice as far away horizontally ( plus 10 or so feet lower ) demonstrate a -67 ( both , though , show four bars in the signal strength meter ) .
There ’s one more hidden illusion here , and it ’s related to other wireless mesh . Once you ’ve activated the computer menu with the Option key down , press and hold it down again , then move your mouse over one of the entries for a different web . Hover there for a second — with the Option key held down — and you ’ll see a tooltip bulge - up show the internet ’s signal forte and what character of security is in place . This can be very useful info if you ’re out and about somewhere with lots of wireless hotspot ; you could find the public connectedness with the strongest sign at a glance .
Create sidebar shortcuts from open / save dialogs
The sidebar has always been a commodious place to stash things , and now 10.5 make it even easier to supply things to the sidebar : you could do so ( to the Places section ) from any clear or Save dialog . Just drag and overleap the target you ’d like to add into the Places section of the sidebar . I use this trick to temporarily add directories I ’m mold with on a gift undertaking — the first time I go to hold open something , I can just drag the brochure to the sidebar , and then next saves ( if I ever pilot out of the finish , of course ) are made easy via the sidebar . When the projection ’s done , I just remove the folder from the sidebar .
