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Finder Tricks
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I wanted to explore some options and tricks in Lion's Finder that might help make things more useful
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Change New Window Default
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I believe the default in Lion is now for new Finder windows to open to the new 'All My Files' view
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To change that behavior go to Finder-->Preferences… and under the General tab change the 'New Finder Windows Show' setting
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The options are:
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Computer, Hard Drive, iDisk
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Home, Desktop, Documents
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All My Files
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Other… (Allows you to pick any volume, folder, or location)
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Organizing the Sidebar
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Click and drag to reorganize items within a group
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Unfortunately there is no way to control the default order of the groupings
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Favorites, Shared, Devices
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Remove items by dragging them out while holding the command key. Should see the smoke puff.
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Can also right click and Choose remove
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Add items by dragging them into the sidebar
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Useful for adding the Library folder in Lion
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Use Go menu to access hidden Library folder by holding down the 'option' key.
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Once visible drag it to the sidebar. You should be able to see it 'greyed out' in column view
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Manage from the Finder-->Preferences Sidebar tab
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Check on or off default items.
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Customize the Toolbar
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View-->Customize Toolbar…
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Presents the toolbar customization pane
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You can add additional items to the toolbar, like the 'Path' dropdown, 'Connect', or 'Get Info'
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You can also rearrange items while in this mode by dragging them
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When not in edit mode, you can re-arrange items in the toolbar by holding down the command key and dragging items
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You can also add your own files, folders, or even apps to the toolbar.
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Hold Command and drag item out of the toolbar to remove it
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Access UNIX directories
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Use the 'Go--->'Go to Folder' menu
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Can now type any UNIX level path and access the contents of that folder (Directory)
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Examples. '/etc' or '/private'
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Or '~/Library' to access your Users Library folder.
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Be careful access ing hidden directories because you could do damage to your system if you edit or delete the wrong file or folder
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Saved Searches and Smart folders
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When doing a Finder search from the toolbar in the results screen there is a 'Save' option
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Can control where the search is being performed from the search bar just above the results
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Default is the entire computer, but you can change it from the Finder-->Preferences Advanced tab.
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"When performing a search:"
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Options are: 'Search This Mac', 'Search Current Folder', 'Use the Previous Search Scope'
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Also from the search bar you can click the "+" icon to add additional search criteria
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The first dropdown is your filter name
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Accessing 'Other…' gives tons of options.
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These can be added to the drop down by clicking the 'In Menu' option
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I like to add at least 'System files' and 'File Visibility'
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The second is usually the criteria, like 'is' or 'contains'
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The last item is the filter value
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If you hold the option key down the "+" becomes an ellipses and you can add boolean criteria. All or Any
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Finally you can save complex searches and add them to the sidebar for later use
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These are saved by default in your ~/Library/Saved Searches folder
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Arrange By
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I believe this is a new option in Lion
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Works in all Finder View and allows you to group items by various criteria
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Accessed from the toolbar item or under 'View'-->'Arrange By'
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Name, Kind, Application, Date Last opened, Date Added, Date Modified, Date Created, Size, Label
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The 'Applications' folder has an option of 'Application Category' which replaces the 'Application' option
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I have found setting my 'All My Files' sidebar item to arrange by 'Date Modified' to be much more useful than it's default setting which is arrange by 'Kind'.
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With Date Modified, the documents I worked with most recently are always displayed and this works in 'Open' dialog boxes which is great when moving between apps.
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For example, I prep an image with Acorn and then want to upload that with Transmit. In the open dialog box I select the 'All my Files' location and because it's arranged by 'Date Modified' the file I just worked with is the first item I see.
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Spotlight Previews
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If you do a search from the Spotlight menubar item
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Hover over a result and wait a moment to get a preview in Lion
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If you hold down the Command Key while you hover you'll get a status bar at the bottom.
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The Status bar shows the name or contents first and if you wait to will toggle to the path (location) and then back and forth.
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You can now also drag items directly out of the Spotlight search results dropdown pane and a copy will be made of the document
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Add multiple items to folder
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If you select multiple items in a folder and then Control+Click (right_click) there is now a 'New folder with Selection' option as the first choice.
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It even drops you right into editing the new folder name, so you can name it and be done quickly.
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You can of course Command+Select items to add multiple different items to the folder
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Also don't forget that you can still also Control+Click after your selection and create an Archive of the selected items. This will copy the items into a ZIP archive. Great for emailing items, especially to PC users.
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Keep Both or Skip
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When copying or moving multiple items in the Finder if the destination already has items with the some name you now get a choice
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Keep Both, Stop, or Replace.
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You can toggle the 'Keep Both' option to be 'Skip' if you hold down the option key.
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Likewise, if the default option comes up as 'Skip' then holding the option key will present the 'Keep Both' option.
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When keeping both a number is appended to the filename to make it unique in the destination folder.
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