Two Uses For The Option Key [Expose] [Finder]

This past week, I've discovered two new tricks that holding the option key will do. The first involves Exposé and the second involves Finder.

While I hardly ever use Exposé I'm sure that for some people, it's their favorite feature. Well, one of the problems with Expose is that if you're looking for a specific window, then you have to mouse over every window then read it's name. This can be particularly slow if you are using the keyboard to activate Exposé instead of the mouse. Well, James over at Mac Tips and Tricks points out that if you hold the option key after you activate Exposé, all the window titles will be overlaid the windows.


One of the problems with using Column view in Finder is that sometimes the name of a file is too long for the width of the column. Well, instead of holding your mouse over the file for a couple of seconds waiting for the tooltip with the full file name to appear, you can simply hold the option key. This will make the tooltip instantly appear.

Use Modifier Keys With Exposé Hot Corners

I never really got into the whole "Hot Corners" thing. Sure, they might be nice in concept, but all to often, I'd accidently drag my cursor to one of the corners and my screen would changes. Well, I discovered yesterday that you can add modifier keys to your corners. So, right now, if my mouse moves to the lower right hand corner, while I'm holding the Cmd key, my display will sleep. To apply this effect, simply hold the modifier key when you choose the function for the corner. Now, I can enjoy the full power of expose!

10.5: A New *option* in Leopard Exposé

This is a tip I read over at mactips.org. (Read the original here.)

In Exposé in Leopard, there was a small sublime addition that adds some serious improvement. That is, you can see the names of every window in your current Exposé view by pressing, and holding, the option key. This can be really good if your dealing with lots of documents!

One Month And Counting! (Plus: Contest #1!)

Congratulations! You are reading, (and I am writing) the one month anniversary post of the mactipper blog! This means that there needs to be something to celebrate! So, first....

Because it's a special occasion, today is going to be a double tip day. That doesn't mean that the second tip is going to be great, but, it means that you get two tips. So, be happy with that. I don't have any other tips written/filmed. So, here it is:



This will be my last post about expose for a while, so, let’s get it over with. After pressing the expose button you can switch between windows by using the arrow keys. Once the window you want is selected you can then hit the space bar or the enter key. I don’t know why you would exactly want to do it, but, I’m sure there’s a reason for it.

To add some usefulness/fun to this tip, you can hold down the Shift key while doing expose/dashboard/minimizing something for a “slo-mo” effect. Kinda fun, kinda pointless.


With that posted, lets move along. I'm also --in honor of the "holiday" -- going to have a contest. The contest title is... "Contest #1"! So, here's the goal: you have to design a logo for the mactipper blog. You can use any photo editing you can think of. Just, no cheating. Email me, or, leave the link to it in the comments. It should be a square (preferably, although, it could be a slight rectangle) with the dimensions of less than 200 px square. But, it has to be larger than 100 px square. So, get editing!

The contest will be finished one week from now, the winner wiil be selected from a panel of judges. There will be a prize, the identity of which is secret at this time. All I can tell you is that it's worth trying. Also, if it's better than my current icon, then I'll use your icon instead. Congrats!

So, that's it for now. hope you enjoyed the post!