Mac OS X ’s service feature — which let you use one software ’s abilities from within another — has dumbfound a good sight of tending here at Macworld over the past couple weeks . Just last Wednesday , two different web log entries discussed ways to trim the Services cascading menu ( in the software menu ) to make it more operational : Christopher Breen cover the old utilityService Managerand pointed to amanual solutiononMac OS X Hintsfor geeky types ; Rob Griffiths opine on his beefs with Services in general and suggested the new utilityService Scrubberto help you bring off your Services submenu . ( Rob will be reviewing Service Scrubber for Mac Gems soon . )
veritable readers of my various Macworld authorship know that I ’m a giving devotee of Services . ( I first wrote about the feature in the December 2003 offspring of Macworld [ “ OS X ’s Overlooked Shortcut ” ] . ) I agree with Rob that Apple needs to supply a way for the user to decidewhichservices seem in the menu , and that the Services menu is so secret that few exploiter are even aware of its existence . But the functionality provide by divine service can be so utile that I still incur myself using them many time each day .
( What armed service do I use ? My favorite Services plug - in is stillWordService , which I covered back in August 2004 ; it provide 34 filters for make clean up and converting take text . I also oft use AppendNote as an electronic notepad to store snippets of text I rule online . And , of course , there ’s also the myriad services provided by individual applications . )
Rob and Chris have provide suggestions for trimming the Services submenu to make it more doable , but the bigger issue , in my opinion , is that services are buried in the app menu — the menu - bar equivalent of being banished to Siberia . Sure , some users venture to that menu when they want to quit an program , or perhaps to get at an app ’s Preferences dialog , but few people concern the lotion menu when actually doing work , which is when you would be most likely to need and use services .
To solve that job , I turn to one of my must - have utilities for OS X , Nicholas Riley ’s freeICeCoffEE 1.4.2 ( , May 2005 ) . I primitively recommend ICeCoffEE as a way to get the functionality of ICeTEe ( an OS 9 system extension ) in Mac OS X : With ICeCoffEE install , Command - clicking on a URL in most OS ex applications — in an e - chain armor message , a Read Me file , or even a dialog box — automatically opens that URL in your preferred WWW web browser app . However , ICeCoffEE also has a couple features , enable via its Preferences screen , that make it a heavy room to better appreciate services .
The first such feature of speech is the ability to elevate the Services submenu to full - fare status ; with this option enabled , a Services carte is add just to the left wing of the Window bill of fare in most OS X applications . No longer “ out of sight , out of mind , ” you ’ll find yourself using services much more frequently . And if you use Service Scrubber to custom-make your service menu , those customizations hold to ICeCoffEE ’s computer menu - bar Services carte du jour , as well .
The 2nd service - friendly feature article of ICeCoffEE lets you stick the Services submenu in contextual menus . This is where you ’d expect them to be in the first billet , pass that services arecontextual — only those services applicable to the currently selected contentedness are uncommitted ; the rest period are dimmed . ( ICeCoffEE ’s Services contextual menu does OS X one unspoilt : Services that are n’t applicable do n’t even show up in the menu . ) So whenever you want to use a service — for example , to apply a WordService format filter on a block of text edition — you just foreground the subject matter , Control / rightfield - get across , and then choose the appropriate servicing .
ICeCoffEE has bring a few other useful features since I wrote about it in 2003 . Perhaps the most welcome is the power to edit the contextual Services menu in Service Scrubber - like mode . For model , I broadly speaking use only text - formatting and -conversion divine service via contextual menus , so I ’ve cut the contextual Services menu to include principally text - related overhaul .
late versions of ICeCoffEE also work around a bug in OS X where you have to get at the Services submenu before service keyboard cutoff will work .
Because of differences in the way Mac OS X applications programme can be designed and coded , ICeCoffEE does n’t work everywhere . For example , if an software does n’t back up Service , menu - bar and contextual - card Services menus obviously wo n’t work . And some applications prevent third - party utilities from sum up menus to their menu bar ; this is a limitation ( calculated or inadvertent ) of those applications . But for all the program thatdowork , ICeCoffEE puts services where you ’re much more probable to see them , and thus bring them nigher to your workflow .
[ Note : ICeCoffEE is anApplication Enhancer(APE ) module . Some multitude believe that APE can make a system less unchanging . I ’m not going to get into that debate here , but I can say you that I in person have software Enhancer installed on all of my Macs ( mainly for ICeCoffEE andWindowShade Xfunctionality ) and have yet to know a problem I can charge on software Enhancer . Caveat Emptor . ]
ICeCoffEE is compatible with Mac OS X 10.1 and after ; however , there are unlike versions for each major release of Mac OS X , so be sure to download the right version .
