10.5: Create Stacks from network shares

One thing that I really miss from Tiger is having a shortcut on my Desktop to my network shared volumes, so I don't have to open a Finder window, click on share, and then select the machine or AirPort Extreme entry, and then the volume I want to access. Leopard won't let you make an alias of a network shared volume, or create one by dragging it to your desktop. What I found out, however, is that you can drag a shared volume to the dock as a Stack folder, and there it is, a direct link to your shared volume. You have to drag it to the area next to the trash; it won't work in the applications zone of the dock. It also helps when the Shared option won't even appear, and you don't remember the direct link to get to the volume through finder's Go » Connect to Server option. This happens quite often with AirPort Extreme, and now I just have to click the shortcut on the dock...

published on Tuesday, the 27. November 2007, macosxhints

AutoStacks re-familiarizes Leopard's stacks

Turdhead.com has released an update to its Stacks-improving application, AutoStacks 0.2, allowing users to define whether or not they want to move the original file when creating a stack, or simply create an alias for it. Many users were under the impression that Leopard's Stacks would be able to take a group of random files and create a single doc...

published on Thursday, the 22. November 2007, macintosh-news-network

10.5: Use Finder Sidebar Items as Proxy Icons

In all OS X incarnations prior to Leopard, the Finder Sidebar items could only be removed or reordered. Attempting to use them as proxy icons only resulted in them poofing to oblivion. No more in Mac OS X v. 10.5! Option-Drag on a Finder Sidebar item to copy it, and Command-Option-Drag it to create an alias. This works for the desktop, other Finder windows, and other Finder Sidebar items. You can't, however, Command-Drag to move Finder Sidebar items to a new location...yet?

published on Wednesday, the 21. November 2007, macosxhints

10.5: Use Finder Sidebar Items as Proxy Icons

In all OS X incarnations prior to Leopard, the Finder Sidebar items could only be removed or reordered. Attempting to use them as proxy icons only resulted in them poofing to oblivion. No more in Mac OS X v. 10.5! Option-Drag on a Finder Sidebar item to copy it, and Command-Option-Drag it to create an alias. This works for the desktop, other Finder windows, and other Finder Sidebar items. You can't, however, Command-Drag to move Finder Sidebar items to a new location...yet?

published on Wednesday, the 21. November 2007, macosxhints

Large Files Search 1.0

The problem: The disk on my computer was getting quite full, so I wanted to see what the largest files on the disk were. (This really helped--the first time I ran it, I found a runaway log file that was over 10GB.) The solution: An AppleScript script that's a much more user-friendly wrapper for the Mac OS X UNIX 'find' command. When you run this script, you will be prompted for a folder to put aliases of the large files into as well as the minimum size of the files to search for. The script will then use 'find' to create a list of the large files and alias them into that folder.

published on Sunday, the 11. November 2007, scriptbuilders

10.5: Create a System Preferences Stack

Now that I have to live without Fruit Menu (nothing Unsanity writes is yet Leopard-compatible) I found myself missing a cascading System Preferences menu. To replicate it, I made a folder and dragged in aliases to all my frequently used preference panes. The panes are located in each of these locations (for some reason, some panes appear multiple places): ~/Library/Preference Panes /Library/Preference Panes /System/Library/Preferen​ce Panes I created a folder (I keep it in my home directory, but it can be anywhere) called System Preferences to hold these aliases, and I dragged that folder to the right side of the Dock. Lo and behold, a cascading System Preferences menu. Right-clicking on the Stack lets you decide if it should be a fan or a grid (though a fan is limited in how many icons it shows). T...

published on Monday, the 5. November 2007, macosxhints

10.5: How to keep folders, not Stacks, in the Dock

To place a folder in the dock without turning it into a Stack, you just have to create an alias of the folder, place this somewhere and drag it to the right side of the dock. The alias will behave like a folder, not a stack. This hint is for all the people who wants back their own nice icons in the dock. [robg adds: Unfortunately, you will not have a pop-up navigable folder, just a folder whose icon won't change based on its contents (I'd really like to know who came up with that "great" idea). For alternatives, I suggest taking a look at DragThing, which can do hierarchical folders in dock, along with about 3,000 other things. I also use Butler, which lets me create pop-up navigable menus of any folder or disk that I can access with a hot key.]

published on Wednesday, the 31. October 2007, macosxhints

10.5: Create account aliases in Leopard

Unix account aliases have been around for a long time; in Leopard, you can easily create such aliases for an account. Why is this useful in OS X? For one example, you can use that alias anywhere you'd normally enter your short username: at login, in authentication dialogs, etc. If your "short" username is abnormally long, or if you just don't like it, aliases are one way to effectively get a different username (df instead of danfrakes) without actually changing your account's short name. Control-click on your account name in the Accounts pane of System Preferences; choose Advanced Options in the contextual menu that appears. In the resulting Advanced Options screen, click on the plus (+) button below the Aliases box. Enter the alias, and then click on OK. Restart (or just log out and then back in). And yes, there's a ...

published on Tuesday, the 30. October 2007, macosxhints

Apps: Hazel, Meal Planning

Hazel 2.1 ($22) watches whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organizing your files according to the rules you create. The latest release has Leopard compatibility. It also features expanded file type filtering and new actions for creating aliases and revealing files. In addition, Hazel 2.1 provides numerous fixes and performance improveme...

published on Monday, the 22. October 2007, macintosh-news-network

Access iPhoto '08 Library From Adobe Bridge

iPhoto '08 now stores its photo library as a package in the ~/Pictures folder (or whatever folder you've chosen for your photos). Adobe Bridge cannot penetrate this structure, but this problem can be easily avoided.In the Finder, navigate to the iPhoto Library, control-click and select Show Package Contents from the pop-up folder. Now create an alias for the Modified and/or Original folders within the package (your preference) and drag it/them to another folder on your drive.In Adobe Bridge, navigate to the alias(es) and browse the directories as usual.[robg adds: This solution should work for other programs that have difficulty peering into the new iPhoto library structure, but allow you to manually point to it via a file dialog.]

published on Friday, the 17. August 2007, macosxhints