Apple OS X: Tips and Tricks for Getting the Most Out of Your Mac

El Capitan – Updated form of Operating System of Apple’s Mac

El Capitan is the up-to-date form of the operating system of Apple’s Mac and the next edition would be announced very soon, though the concluding software would not be released till autumn. A multifaceted OS such as this tends to have abundant features as well as capabilities though there seems to be plenty of secrets which need to be discovered. Some worth mentioning are:

Find the Cursor

Sometimes one may not find the cursor. In this type of OS X, a mouse wiggle tends to make the cursor increase massively so as to enable in locating it. It remains big for as long as you do so and then returns to its normal size.

Swipe to delete as in iOS

If one is familiar with the handy swipe-left-to-delete motion in the Mail app of the iPhone, one will find the same on your Mac also. Utilising a trackpad, you could bring up the familiar red `Trash’ box with a two finger left swipe, while one finger is used on an Apple Magic Mouse.One could choose a natural swipe direction for the mouse and trackpad wherein swiping down tends to move the onscreen content down which seems to happen on an iPhone or iPad though is the opposite of what happens on a computer.

Suggestions in email

When one receives an email, the program tends to search the text for new statistics like event or contact details which is not recorded. A new line seems to appear towards the top of the message stating `1 Event found in this email’ and with a single click it can be added to your calendar. It will recognise a flight number also, so clicking on the arrow which tends to appear towards the right of the words makes knownthe flight information. If it states New Contact info found in this email, you can update your contacts’ details.

Mail in full screen

Full screen apps, raised on clicking the green button towards the top left area of the document of bar application, assists in focusing on one job at a time. However if one needs to work on many emails simultaneously, you would need flexibility. You could click on the yellow button in the traffic-light three, in mail, on the new message window in order to see it glide to the bottom of the screen. Thereafter you could develop more new messages which are together ready to be called back to the main screen by clicking on them. In order to work on plenty of new messages, you could click the new message button continually which will be identified by a tab at the top of the messages and you could click between them with ease.

Smarter Spotlight

To launch Spotlight, you could click the magnifying glass towards the extreme right of the menu bar. On editing the word weather, you get to see the forecast for your area. Entering the name of a sports car, a movie stars etc. to see the latest headline. You also get the updates of sports score here and could also move the Spotlight window around the screen, resizing its depth.

Safari tabs

Should there be browser windows which are used continuously, there is an easy method rather than plucking them from the top sites which Safari window tends to provide. A right click on the tab tends to turn it into a `pinned tab which sits towards the left edge of the tab bar like a small icon. It is also easy to suppress a tab which plays audio when you don’t seem to need it. Rather than having to mute the entire computer you could go to a blue speaker icon in the browser bar to mute any kind of audio pick a selected tab to silence. It is also simple to switch between tabs and click on the tab, However you can hold down the Command key and a number key to select a tab – 1 is the left-most tab, 2 the next along and so on.

The cleanest desktop so far

For long, Apple featured an application dock which tends to sit on the bottom of the screen while in the same menu there is a check box to `automatically hide and show the Dock’. It means that the dock slides in view only when the mouse heads towards it which is useful if the screen real estate seems to be limited.

Notes

This seems to be one of the best recently introduced application which seems to be developing. If one has an iCloud account, a note made on the iPhone would seem as if by magic on your iPad and Mac. Searching the notes seems to be easy and you could also save web addresses to notes together with photos and much more. You could also display element by type portraying all the URLs that have been saved together. Besides this, it is also simple in creating list, with bullet circles that tend to be satisfying when you have completed your task. The latest on the list is a padlock icon that enables you to lock individual note or the complete lot so that no one can get hold of it without your password.

Live Photos

Shooting live photos with multiple frames as well as audio saved along with the main shot seems to be the support of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus which can be viewed on a Mac by just hovering the mouse over the thumbnail pic in Photos. On clicking on the Live logo towards the bottom left of the image, when the image is full screen, it tends to come to life.

Use Makeshift Tags

There seems to be one thing which Apple has not introduced to notes, which are tags. If these tend to be a consistent part of the workflow, one would have to do with a hack. You could use hashtags in your notes and later search for them utilising the search box in Notes by using Spotlight in order to filter notes depending on hashtags.