OS X Lion has been out for over a week now, and now that you’ve had a chance to try Lifehacker’s 10 favourite secret features of the new operating system, here’s five more to test out.
1. Reveal the Dock while using a fullscreen app
Lion’s fullscreen apps sure are pretty, but they can slow you down by hiding many navigation elements of the operating system. If you want to reveal the dock while in full screen mode to quickly switch to a new program, TUAW reveals that you can simply rest on the bottom of the screen (or left or right side, if that’s where you keep the Dock), then push it down as if you’re trying to move beyond the edge of the monitor. It’s not a natural movement, but the dock does come out of hiding as advertised.
2. Put your contact info on the lock screen
Though it was possible to do this in Snow Leopard with third party apps, Lion now allows you to place a personal message with your contact information on the lock screen for any good samaritan that should stumble upon your lost laptop. To enable the feature, just go to your “Security & Privacy” preference pane, check the box labelled “Show a message when the screen is locked”, and fill in your information.
3. Move applications out of your Applications folder
Lion removed the ability to drag application files into a different folder, and instead only creates an alias for the program in the new folder while keeping the actual app package in the Applications folder. Luckily, Tested points out that you can still easily move applications to your heart’s content by holding down the Command key as you drag.
4. Use Quick Look in Stacks
Ever since the release OS X Leopard, Stacks and Quick Look have been great tools for quickly accessing and checking files without opening a new window. Unfortunately, OS X bafflingly omitted the ability to use Quick Look from within a Stack, forcing you to open a new Finder window. No more. Just mouse over your file in any stack and hit the spacebar as you normally would to get a quick preview of its contents.
5. Use the spacebar to zoom in on Mission Control thumbnails
If you keep a lot of windows open, it can be tough to see exactly what each one contains in Mission Control, especially on a tiny MacBook Air screen. Thankfully, Tested reveals that you can quickly zoom in on any window without exiting Mission Control by mousing over it and tapping the spacebar. Hit space again to shrink it back down.
These secrets will only get you started with unravelling Lion, so check out the rest of Lifehacker’s coverage:
- How To Upgrade To Lion
- How To Burn Your Own OS X Lion Install DVD Or USB Drive
- How To De-iOS-ify Mac OS X Lion
- Fix Dual Monitor Colour Issues In Mac OS X Lion
- Quick Solutions To Mac OS X Lion’s Most Common Installation Issues
- Top 10 Secret Features In Mac OS X Lion
- How Do I Upgrade My Hackintosh To Mac OS X Lion?
- Create Floating Desktop Webapps In OS X Lion With Automator
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