{"id":26205,"date":"2022-06-12T13:15:39","date_gmt":"2022-06-12T20:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/?p=26205"},"modified":"2024-11-19T15:57:28","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T23:57:28","slug":"tiny-mac-tips-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/tiny-mac-tips-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Mac Tips \u2013 Part 1 of X"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Jump to Tips<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#find-in-list\">Finding files\/folders in a long list<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#scroll-bars\">Where are My Scroll Bars?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#move-no-open\">Moving Files into Folders Without Opening Them First<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#confused-dock\">My Dock is Confused<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#change-primary-display\">Changing Primary Display<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#true-delete\">True Delete<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#quick-rename\">Quick Way to Rename Files and Folders in Finder<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#where-menu-item\">Where Is that Menu Item?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>NosillaCastaway Jill from the Northwoods recently made the full switch from Windows to the Mac.  Jill had been a Windows user for a very long time and was so proficient that she was the one her family, friends, and co-workers relied on for support. She was a Windows admin and taught classes on Windows. She also worked as a windows 95 support team lead.<\/p>\n<p>Jill knows her way around the Mac by now, but she doesn\u2019t feel like she\u2019s nearly as efficient with it as she was with Windows. Think of it as she was a pianist on Windows but she\u2019s a piano player on the Mac.<\/p>\n<p>To help her become a pianist, I started to send her what I called my Mac Tip of the Day, teaching her one little thing that isn\u2019t perhaps easily discoverable but makes my Mac life more efficient.  I thought maybe this list of little tips and tricks might be useful for a broader audience so I\u2019ve compiled them for you here.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve written so many little tips to Jill that this will be part 1 of X. I hope to keep doing these for her as they come to me, so I can\u2019t say how many tips there will be!<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m presenting these tiny Mac tips in no particular order. In fact, they\u2019re in the order I sent them to Jill, which was the order in which they popped into my brain.<\/p>\n<p>One caveat. I\u2019m writing these up a few months before the release of macOS Ventura. I bring this up because I\u2019ll be referring to where to look in System Preferences on some of these, and in macOS Ventura, Apple is redesigning and renaming System Preferences. It will be called System Settings and will look a lot more like iOS settings. Hopefully, they\u2019ll keep things pretty much in the same categories, but they\u2019ll definitely look different from any screenshots I may include in these tips.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"find-in-list\"><\/a>Finding files\/folders in a long list<\/h2>\n<p>Let\u2019s say you\u2019ve got a folder with a lot of individual items in it and you want to open a file or folder that you know is buried in there somewhere. Let\u2019s use my Documents folder as an example, which has 92 items in it and I want to open my Scripts folder.<\/p>\n<p>I can scroll and scroll and scroll until I get down to the s\u2019s in the list, but there\u2019s a tiny trick to speed this up.  Simply type the letter \u201cs\u201d in thin air.  The list will instantly scroll down to the beginning of the s\u2019s.  If you\u2019re quick about it, you can sometimes get in two characters, such as \u201csc\u201d which would jump me to my \u201cscan holding\u201d folder right above the scripts folder.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"scroll-bars\"><\/a>Where are My Scroll Bars?<\/h2>\n<p>Speaking of scrolling, what\u2019s up with the scroll bars on the Mac? At rest, they don\u2019t show but as you scroll (with a mouse or two-fingered on a trackpad), you\u2019ll see them magically appear. If you have the reaction time of the tongue of a frog catching a fly, you can sometimes get your cursor to them to drag them down without scrolling.<\/p>\n<p>If this behavior annoys you, you can actually change it. In System Preferences, General, in the middle of the pane, you\u2019ll find a section on when to show scroll bars. You have three options:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Automatically based on mouse or trackpad\n<ul>\n<li>This option means based on what kind of mouse or trackpad you have. If your device allows gestures, then the scroll bars will be hidden, but if it doesn\u2019t, they\u2019ll show all the time<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>When scrolling &#8211; which is this same hidden until you start to scroll madness but will happen no matter what kind of device you have<\/li>\n<li>Always, as nature intended. I always check the Always box.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Show-Scroll-Bars.png\" alt=\"Show Scroll Bars\"  title=\"Show Scroll Bars.png\" width=\"668 \" height=\"710\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Show Scroll Bars in System Preferences<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2><a id=\"move-no-open\"><\/a>Moving Files into Folders Without Opening Them First<\/h2>\n<p>Sometimes you need to move a file from one folder to another, but you haven\u2019t yet opened the folder yet. It turns out you don\u2019t have to open folders to move files into them.  Let\u2019s say you\u2019ve got a photo of a cat on your desktop. You\u2019ve got a folder on the desktop called animals, and inside that, you have two folders, one for cats and one for dogs. You\u2019d like to move the cat off of your desktop and into that folder buried two levels deep into the cats folder.<\/p>\n<p>Simply drag the cat photo onto the animals folder, and wait a heartbeat. The folder will open automatically, and then you can drag the cat onto the cats folder, and when it highlights, let go and you\u2019ll have successfully moved the file.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"confused-dock\"><\/a>My Dock is Confused<\/h2>\n<p>Sometimes the Dock gets confused. The particular problem I have is that it will sometimes decide to be on my secondary display instead of my primary display.  The solution sounds terrifying but it\u2019s quite simple to execute. You can kill the Dock. Yep, kill it.<\/p>\n<p>To kill the Dock, you need to open the Terminal. Terminal is in Utilities inside your Applications folder. Simply type:<\/p>\n<p><code>killall Dock<\/code><\/p>\n<p>And make sure to put the leading cap on Dock. The Dock will disappear and come back on the correct display. Once in a while your menu bar might misbehave, and for some odd reason killing the Dock fixes it. I wish I understood how they were connected.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"change-primary-display\"><\/a>Changing Primary Display<\/h2>\n<p>I mentioned in the Dock-killing tip the concept of a primary and secondary display. Let\u2019s say you\u2019re using a Mac notebook, but you have it plugged into an external display. Rather than give up the screen real estate of the internal display by putting it in clamshell mode, why not leave it open?  I like to use it as a \u201cthrow-away\u201d screen, dragging messaging apps or just apps I&#8217;m monitoring over to the notebook display.<\/p>\n<p>If you use this approach, and you open a new app, it\u2019s very likely to open on your Mac\u2019s internal display instead of the external one. The way you teach your Mac which is the primary display is not in the least bit discoverable. You usually only have to teach it once, but the trick is to open System Preferences, then Displays.<\/p>\n<p>In the Displays Preference pane, you\u2019ll see your two displays, and with any luck they are arranged properly. If they aren\u2019t, you can drag them up and down and even swap their positions so you can easily drag your cursor between them without difficulty.<\/p>\n<p>At the top of the display which is currently acting as the primary display, you\u2019ll see a lighter band at the top which is signifying the menu bar. You can relocate the menu bar to the display of your choosing by simply dragging it from one to the other.<\/p>\n<p>When you relocate the menu bar, you may see your apps and windows jump from one display to the other, which can be kind of disconcerting but it only happens this one time.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Change-Primary-Display.png\" alt=\"Change Primary Display\"  title=\"Change Primary Display\" width=\"668 \" height=\"478\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Change Primary Display<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2><a id=\"true-delete\"><\/a>True Delete<\/h2>\n<p>One of the first things Windows converts complain about when switching to the Mac is that the delete key is a lie. In the Windows world, delete means to delete <em>forwards<\/em> but in the Apple universe, delete means to delete backward.<\/p>\n<p>For example, if I have my cursor (or \u201ccaret\u201d as Brett Terpstra recently corrected me), between the letter \u201ca\u201d and \u201cb\u201d and I hit the delete key on the Mac, it will delete the \u201ca\u201d. Using the same key on Windows, it would delete the \u201cb\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>I can\u2019t convince Apple to change this behavior, but I can give you a quick and easy way to delete forwards instead of backward, and that\u2019s by holding down the Control-D.  Now I hope we can all live in peace and harmony.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"quick-rename\"><\/a>Quick Way to Rename Files and Folders in Finder<\/h2>\n<p>If you have a file (or folder) in the Finder, there\u2019s a very quick and easy way to do rename them. Simply select the file, and then hit the Enter key. This will immediately highlight the name, and you can simply start typing. The original name will be erased and replaced by whatever you type.<\/p>\n<p>If remembering to hit the Enter key isn\u2019t easy for you, there\u2019s a second way. Select the file, pause, and then select it again. It will highlight and you can start typing. The reason for the pause is that if you click twice in quick succession, you\u2019ll open the file instead of selecting it. I find the Enter key works better for me because I get impatient and do the second click too quickly.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a bonus tip to go along with that one. Let\u2019s say you have a file you want to rename, but you don\u2019t want to completely replace the whole name. Maybe you want to edit part of it or add something to the end or beginning of the name.<\/p>\n<p>Use the same method to select the name of the file until it\u2019s highlighted. Then you can use your arrow keys to move around in the name, just like you would use them in a text document. If you hit the right arrow key with the name highlighted, you\u2019ll be able to add to the end of the name, and if you use the left arrow with the name highlighted, you can add to the beginning of the name.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"where-menu-item\"><\/a>Where Is that Menu Item?<\/h2>\n<p>Have you ever been using an app and you need something in a menu but you can\u2019t find it? You start in the most obvious menu but then start flipping through all of them in a desperate search?<\/p>\n<p>In any standard Mac app (and even in a lot of non-standard cross-platform apps), the last menu item will be Help. Inside the Help menu, you should find a search field.  If you type into the search field the item you hope to find in the menus, the Help menu will change.<\/p>\n<p>If it finds any matches to your search, it will list them under the heading of \u201cMenu Items\u201d. If you hover over the Menu item you\u2019re seeking, it will drop down the appropriate Menu and give you a giant blue arrow pointing at the one you were looking for.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Searching-for-Help-in-Menus-in-Ulysses.png\" alt=\"Searching for Help in Menus in Ulysses\"  title=\"in Ulysses, searching for type shows me 10 typewriter mode options.png\" width=\"767 \" height=\"599\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Searching for &#8220;type&#8221; in Menus in Ulysses Reveals Typewriter Mode Options<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This does two things for you.  You can simply select the item in the Help menu to execute the selected action, but by showing you where it is, maybe next time you\u2019ll know where to look. Personally, I get real lazy and just use search because it\u2019s more reliable than my memory and faster than I can find it.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to showing you the item for which you searched under Menu items, you\u2019ll also see a section called Help Topics on the same subject.  These are standard macOS help topics and while lovely that they offer them, they\u2019re rarely what I wanted. The Help topics from macOS have a question mark in front of a circle, while the Menu items have a little icon in blue of a dropdown Menu.<\/p>\n<p>As I said, I use this way to find menus all the time, even in apps I\u2019ve been using for years!<\/p>\n<h3>Bottom Line<\/h3>\n<p>There are 8 tiny Mac tips for you and I\u2019ve got 8 more to tell you about in Part 2. If you found these helpful, even if you\u2019ve been using the Mac for a while, please let me know. If you\u2019ve got a favorite tiny Mac tip to share, send me an email at <a href=\"&#109;&#x61;&#x69;&#108;&#x74;&#x6f;&#58;&#x61;&#x6c;&#108;&#105;&#x73;&#111;&#110;&#x40;&#112;&#111;&#x64;f&#101;&#x65;t&#46;&#x63;&#x6f;&#109;\">&#x61;&#x6c;&#108;&#105;&#x73;&#111;&#110;&#x40;&#112;&#111;&#x64;f&#101;&#x65;t&#46;&#x63;&#x6f;&#109;<\/a> and maybe I\u2019ll include it in a future installment. I\u2019m having a lot of fun putting these together for Jill, especially because she hasn\u2019t once said, \u201cI knew that.\u201d I suspect some of these she knew, but by being polite, she\u2019s encouraged me to keep going. And that\u2019s why Jill from the Northwoods is one of my favorite people.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/tiny-mac-tips-part-two\/\">Link to Tiny Mac Tips Part 2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jump to Tips Finding files\/folders in a long list Where are My Scroll Bars? Moving Files into Folders Without Opening Them First My Dock is Confused Changing Primary Display True Delete Quick Way to Rename Files and Folders in Finder Where Is that Menu Item? NosillaCastaway Jill from the Northwoods recently made the full switch [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[147,6818],"tags":[51,150,4540,13],"class_list":["post-26205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-tiny-mac-tips","tag-mac","tag-mac-tutorials","tag-switcher","tag-windows"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Tiny-Tip-landscape.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26205"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32294,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26205\/revisions\/32294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}