TechBlog

After reading my colleague, Aaron Hecker’s Tip of the Week posts, I thought it might be useful to provide some tips for our Mac population. As we are seeing more and more students bringing in Mac’s, and I should note with few less problems than Windows on the support side, it would be nice if I shared some useful productivity tips using the built-in Finder.

Typically within Finder, you are either locating documents, applications, or moving documents around. As you might be aware, you can always toggle between your productivity Finder views by:

• Command-1 (icon view)
• Command-2 (list view)
• Command-3 (column view)
• Command-4 (cover flow)

Each having their own purpose. I am typically working with Apple-3 (Column view) and using my arrow keys to cruise along, navigating to and from my documents. This is pretty basic stuff. However, there are a handful of really useful Finder tools that might assist in your day-to-day productivity.

1. Showing the Path bar. Enable this by clicking on View - Show Path Bar. Notice in the bottom area of the finder window you get the full path to where you are. This is really helpful if you are in a List or icon view, and need to move around. Double-clicking on any of the items in the bottom take you to that location.

2. Adding items your toolbar. Granted, the Mac has the dock, as well as the left-hand side of your Finder to add your favorite applications, or documents that you consistently need to go to, however did you also know that you can drap a folder, application, or document to the top of the toolbar, wait a second until the plus symbol shows up, and release. You can use the Command-drag to remove it from the toolbar.

3. Proxy Icons. See that tiny icon at the top of every Finder window?. Control-click on it to show a pop-up menu displaying its folder hierarchy. Select a folder to get there. If you hold down the command key while selecting a folder, it will open up in a new Finder window.

4. Dragging Files. Here is a nifty little way to move files around. If you drag a file over a folder, and pause a second, that folder will open p and show its contents. Drag the file over another folder in that window, and that folder will also open. Using this “spring-loaded” feature allows you to move files deep into your folder hierarchy without having to open new windows. Pressing the spacebar while holding a file over a folder will immediately open the window, and pressing the escape key will cancel the move.