OS X Lion Tips & Tricks thread

[migo]

Since we are asking questions, is there a way to get Rosetta back on Lion? I want to be able to play the Sims Complete Collection!! :'( lol

There might eventually be a way, I doubt you'll see it for 6 months though (if at all), as it'll have to be a 3rd party hack.

[mattmatik]

Use the Maximiser app by chpwn to add Full Screen functionality to all apps, works great in Chrome - Maximiser

Awesome, thank you! I've been checking periodically to see if Chrome and Coda have been updated LOL. This will be a good band-aid until they officially get updates.

Is there any other gesture to get 'Show Desktop'? I loved the simple four finger down swipe in SL - and since I don't use Launchpad...The default (and only) way in Lion is thumb and three finger pinch out LOL. Needless to say, doesn't work well for me.

[allannyholm]

Hi,

What was the conclusion and perhaps solution on using a locale like danish or dutch on the login screen despite the OS itself being in the english language? I'm seeing US English locale for the time on the login screen and I'm using a danish keyboard layout and danish metrics. The Language is set up as Denmark - Danish.

Let me answer this question myself.. I'm using my own plist file which you can see is based on my location in Denmark. You can try using SE, NL or any other language code.

Some digging through the GlobalPreferences.plist I experimented by first changing the whole OS X language and dragging my language "da" on top of the "en" entry like this..

AppleLanguages

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<array>
	<string>[b]da[/b]</string>
	<string>en</string>
	<string>ja</string>
	<string>fr</string>
	<string>de</string>
	<string>es</string>
	<string>it</string>
	<string>nl</string>
	<string>sv</string>
	<string>nb</string>
	<string>fi</string>
	<string>pl</string>
	<string>pt</string>
	<string>pt-PT</string>
	<string>ru</string>
	<string>zh-Hans</string>
	<string>zh-Hant</string>
	<string>ko</string>
</array>
</plist>

While that didn't work out how I hoped because the only thing that did for me was to change the language under the Restart, Sleep and Shut down buttons.

I changed this part of the GlobalPreferences.plist instead. From the US English locale to the Danish way of typing countries, cities.. the actual location(longitude and altitude) has been removed from this entry - while not the most clever this of me, people are not unfamiliar with the yellow pages that they can't figure it out.

com.apple.TimeZonePref.Last_Selected_City:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<array>
	<string>xx.xxx</string>
	<string>x.xxxx</string>
	<string>0</string>
	<string>Europa/K?benhavn</string>
	<string>DK</string>
	<string>Aalborg</string>
	<string>Danmark</string>
	<string>Aalborg</string>
	<string>Danmark</string>
	<string>DEPRECATED IN 10.6</string>
</array>
</plist>

My time is now 11.58 instead of 11:58 AM on my login window.

See how it works for you.. I know I'm excited about this.

BTW. the part "com.apple.preferences.timezone.selected_city" has not been tampered with.

AppleLocale is "da_DK"

Country is "DK"

[.Neo]

Where do I find GlobalPreferences.plist?

[allannyholm]

Where do I find GlobalPreferences.plist?

You'll find it as a hidden file inside Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/ - there's a plist.lockfile which doesn't affect the changes to the .GlobalPreferences.plist as one might fear.

[Guest]

What happened to a swipe going backwards and forwards in Finder and other apps?

[.Neo]

What happened to a swipe going backwards and forwards in Finder and other apps?

It's funny you should ask that, just now I was navigating around the Finder and wondered the same thing. I could swear at least one of the Developer Previews had this functionality in at least the Finder. :/ I don't get why Safari gets this fancy "card stacking" of pages and the Finder doesn't. They're essentially the same type of application by it locally vs internet.

[Guest]

It's funny you should ask that, just now I was navigating around the Finder and wondered the same thing. I could swear at least one of the Developer Previews had this functionality in at least the Finder. :/ I don't get why Safari gets this fancy "card stacking" of pages and the Finder doesn't. They're essentially the same type of application by it locally vs internet.

It was still there when I just upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion. Now I've done a clean install it's gone.

Missing it!

[Guest]

It's funny you should ask that, just now I was navigating around the Finder and wondered the same thing. I could swear at least one of the Developer Previews had this functionality in at least the Finder. :/ I don't get why Safari gets this fancy "card stacking" of pages and the Finder doesn't. They're essentially the same type of application by it locally vs internet.

I've found an option in System Preferences which fixes this.

[.Neo]

It doesn't fix it for the Finder...

[Guest]

It doesn't fix it for the Finder...

3 finger swipe works in Finder and iTunes here, and I still have the nice 2 finger page turn effect in Safari.

[.Neo]

Well three finger swipe is already in use to flip between spaces. :/ Not finding it convenient to change it to four. Bit insane that it doesn't just work if you set things to two fingers, which is the option by default.

[Guest]

Well three finger swipe is already in use to flip between spaces. :/

That becomes a 4 finger swipe, which is fine by me.

[Dinggus]

Use the Maximiser app by chpwn to add Full Screen functionality to all apps, works great in Chrome - Maximiser

My chrome already has a fullscreen option? The arrows are at the top right, I click them and it expands.

--

Seems like Mission Control and Show Desktop are near the same gesture and my trackpad can't determine which one I'm trying to do. Also, I thought there was autocorrect?

[.Neo]

Has anyone found out a way to uncheck the checkbox by default? I'm using keyboard shortcuts to shutdown/restart/logout my Mac and I'm finding it fairly annoying that the OS keeps restoring my windows afterwards.

[Dinggus]

I have a question, I have 2 HD's with the a music folder on each, if I transfer one music folder to the other harddrive will OSX combine them together like Windows does? Because it just asks if I'd like to replace the folder, and I don't want to do that, I want to make sure I transfer that folder over. Just incase one of my music folder has more mp3s than the other. Trying to organize my music.

[.Neo]

According to Apple:

Merge folders

When you try to combine two folders with the same name, the Finder now offers to merge them into a single folder.

Simply click the "Keep Both" button instead of of Replace All". It will indeed merge folders like Windows Explorer does in that case rather than replacing things. I've just tried it myself.

[Dinggus]

I don't have "Keep Both" I just have "Keep Newer" is that what you meant? I selected "Keep Newer" so wish me luck. 93GB of Albums, hopefully nothing gets erased.

[.Neo]

I don't have "Keep Both" I just have "Keep Newer" is that what you meant? I selected "Keep Newer" so wish me luck. 93GB of Albums, hopefully nothing gets erased.

You're now replacing the older folder version with the newer one instead of merging both.

The "Keep Both" option only appears when folders with the same name have unique content though. So apparently only one folder has content the other one doesn't have instead of both?

[giga Veteran]

Side note: "Keep both" for folder merging only appears when you copy a folder to another location, not move. Finder always moves folders located on the same partition, so just dragging and dropping them won't work unless you hold down option and the green plus icon appears. Or you can use the default copy/paste keyboard shortcuts.

[.Neo]

Remove Finder sidebar items

In Mac OS X Lion and Mac OS X Snow Leopard v10.6.7 you now have to hold down the command key on your keyboard in order to remove items from the Finder sidebar.

[Dinggus]

I checked my folder and it went from 98GB to 105GB, still had original folders and files, so did Keep New just add the new files? Only reason I'm asking is because I have a 3OH!3 folder that was on the HD that I was copying my other Albums folder to and it's still there.

[haragog]

Gadly following your thread from the beginning, and followed some of your tips.

But there's something I would like to ask any of you, have you noticed the new behaviour on Lion, that after sleeping it doens't wakeup with a flick of the mouse as before (after some minutes) because I've set a hot corner for the screen to sleep, and it works (mouse flicking to wake it up) for some time, but after sometime it stops, and can only start with a keyboard press. I've fiddled with energy settings, Display sleep (set for one hour 'cose I use the hotcorner), but to no avail.

Another very annoying thing, is that mission control unlike expos?, stopped showing minimized windows, so I have no way to see minimized windows as of now....Bummer :blink:

If any of you know of a way out of any of this, it would be great!

[Zoom7000]

Does anyone know how to get the 3 finger swipe up and down in Firefox to behave like SL. (i.e. In SL it used to do a Page Up/Down - In Lion, 3 finger swipe down doesn't do anything and swipe up does Mission Control)

[Xtreme $niper]

Does anyone know how to get the 3 finger swipe up and down in Firefox to behave like SL. (i.e. In SL it used to do a Page Up/Down - In Lion, 3 finger swipe down doesn't do anything and swipe up does Mission Control)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the 3 finger page up/down is no longer supported. I tried to bring it back, but now it either does dragging (if you enable it) or nothing at all.