Mac OS X Hints - March 2007 Page 2 of 2

The insiders’ tips you won’t get from Apple

by Rob Griffiths, Kirk McElhearn, Macworld.com

Make save dialog boxes more useful

I find Mac OS X’s default Save dialog box to be less than user friendly. It makes it appear as though you can save your file only to one of the places listed in the Where pop-up menu—but this short list of locations is basically useless. How often do you really want to save something to the top level of your hard drive?

The trick is to click on the unassuming triangle to the right of the Save As field. When you do so, your Save dialog box becomes a fully navigable Finder-like window (see “Before and After”). Here you can search, choose between list and column view, and even create a new folder to put your file in. If you prefer to see this expanded dialog box all the time, you can make it the default for all your applications in OS X 10.4.

Launch Terminal (/Applications/Utilities) and enter this command (better yet, copy and paste it ):

defaults write -g NSNavPanelExpandedState ForSaveMode -bool TRUE

(Do not break

NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode

—Unix commands don’t always reproduce well in print.)

That’s it—now all new applications you install will use the expanded Save and Save As dialog boxes by default. Keep in mind that OS X remembers your settings on a per-application basis. So if you’ve used the Save or Save As dialog box in one of your current applications and in so doing left it in the simple mode, you won’t see the expanded Save or Save As dialog box even after having entered this command. To change that, the next time you use the app, click on the disclosure triangle to reveal the expanded dialog box before you quit.

If you decide that you prefer the simple dialog boxes, repeat the previous Unix command, but replace

TRUE

with

FALSE

Change the Save Default for All Users If you run a Mac lab, you may be excited to use this tip and, hopefully, reduce the number of support calls you get as a result. Unfortunately, the command I outlined applies only to the user who runs it—it’s not global. If you’d like to change the global default for a Mac so that all users on the machine will see the expanded Save dialog box, enter this command in Terminal or, better still, copy and paste the command from macworld.com/2440 instead:

defaults write /Library/Preferences/ .GlobalPreferences NSNavPanelExpandedState ForSaveMode -bool TRUE

As with the single-user version of the command above, you undo this one by repeating the command, replacing

TRUE

with

FALSE

Install and uninstall

New OS X users commonly ask this question: “How do I install and uninstall applications?” The answer depends on the program, but the good news is that both tasks are very easy to do.

Install It If you’re installing software that came on a CD or DVD, insert the disc into your Mac. A Finder window will open showing the contents of the disc, and most commercial software will have some form of Read Me file or simple instructions visible in the disc’s window. Usually all you’ll need to do is drag a folder from the disc’s window to the desired final location on your hard drive—typically the top-level Applications folder.

If you’re installing a more-complex program—Adobe Photoshop CS, for example—you might need to double-click on an installer to start the process. Once this specialized program launches, follow its on-screen instructions. The installer will place all of the program’s files in the right places.

Software you download from the Internet requires a few more steps. These programs are almost always compressed, so you’ll need to double-click on the file to expand it. Most downloads will expand into something called a disk image, which uses the extension .dmg . This is like a virtual hard drive or a virtual CD, and is a convenient way to place a number of related files together for installation. Double-click on the disk-image file, and it will show up in the Finder just like another hard drive, CD, or DVD. Now you can drag the program you want to install out of the disk image’s window onto your Applications folder. This is a critical step because you don’t want to run the program from the disk image! Eject the disk image, and then trash the downloaded archive and disk-image file.

Uninstall It Installing Mac applications is clearly a piece of cake. But what about uninstalling them? For many Mac converts, this is one of those ah moments—uninstalling programs is very simple. Unlike the Window OSs, OS X has no strange .dll files or registry, and programs typically install everything they need to run within the application itself (excluding some settings files in your user folder). As a result, what is almost always a laborious process on a Windows PC is a very quick operation on a Mac.

To uninstall most programs on a Mac, go to the Applications folder. Drag the program’s folder to the Trash and empty the Trash. That’s it—you’re done. Really. OK, it’s true that there will still be some small bits related to the application left over. If you really want to make sure you get everything, look in your user folder /Library/Application Support for any references to the program. Also check in your user folder /Library/Preferences for the program’s preferences. If you find something related to the uninstalled program, you can drag it to the Trash. But there’s really no need to—the files you find won’t cause any damage if they’re simply left alone.

If you had to double-click on an installer to install a program, try rerunning the installer first. In most cases, after you launch it you’ll see an uninstall option that will automatically remove all the program’s files. Run this. If you don’t see such an option, check the program’s documentation or online help for uninstall instructions.

[ Senior Editor Rob Griffiths runs the MacOSXHints.com Web site. Kirk McElhearn is the author of many books, including The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix under the Hood (Sybex, 2004). ]

Before and After By default, OS X’s Save dialog boxes aren’t all that useful (left). Click on the disclosure triangle, though, and you gain a much more powerful interface (right).