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Favorite Snow Leopard Tips and Features
I upgraded to Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) this week. Aside from some problems getting ImageMagick working, everything's been pretty smooth.
A lot has been made of the fact that the Snow Leopard upgrade is less about new features and more about enhancements to what OS X already has to offer. That being said, there's a lot to like about the new OS, aside from the modest speed bumps. Here's a list of some of my favorites.
Image from Gizmodo's
Snow Leopard Box Redesign Gallery
Gestures
- Swipe the trackpad left or right with four fingers to invoke application switcher
- Swipe the trackpad up with four fingers to reveal the desktop. Swipe down again to restore your windows.
- Swipe the trackpad up with four fingers to invoke Exposé
- Resize icons in the Finder and on the Desktop with pinch/unpinch gestures
Menu Bar Widgets
- Option-click the Airport icon in the menu bar for details on your wireless network
- Option-click the speaker icon in the menu bar for audio options
- Option-click the battery icon in the menu bar for battery stats and condition
- You can set a preference for displaying the full date in the menu bar
Other Enhancements
- Click and hold an application icon in the dock to see all of its open windows
- Right click / option click an item in the trash to 'put it back' where it was before you threw it away
- The play button on keyboard launches iTunes
- Built-in data detectors now support flight numbers. This means that if there's a flight number in an email, for example, you can click it and be presented a contextual menu that includes tracking the flight in Dashboard.
Did I miss anything cool? Leave a comment below.
