Thoughtful, detailed coverage of the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, plus the best-selling Take Control ebooks.

 

 

Pick an apple! 
 
Mac OS X Services in Snow Leopard

Mac OS X Services let one application supply its powers to another; for example, a Grab service helps TextEdit paste a screenshot into a document. Most users either don't know that Services exist, because they're in an obscure hierarchical menu (ApplicationName > Services), or they mostly don't use them because there are so many of them.

Snow Leopard makes it easier for the uninitiated to utilize this feature; only services appropriate to the current context appear. And in addition to the hierarchical menu, services are discoverable as custom contextual menu items - Control-click in a TextEdit document to access the Grab service, for instance.

In addition, the revamped Keyboard preference pane lets you manage services for the first time ever. You can enable and disable them, and even change their keyboard shortcuts.

Submitted by
Doug McLean

 
 

Poll Results: Mac Attack!

Send Article to a Friend

Poll Results: Mac Attack! Last week's poll asked which of Apple's just-announced Macs you'd buy if you were going to buy one today, and the results seem to reflect what we've already knew - TidBITS readers are a high-end bunch. The four iMac models combined for a mere 15 percent of the nearly 1,000 votes, whereas the two G4 Cube models garnered 26 percent of the votes and the three Power Mac G4 models led the way with 49 percent of the votes. The G4 Cube's strong showing fits with some of the TidBITS Talk discussions about the stylish Mac's target audience, and I also wasn't surprised to see that within the Power Mac G4 models, the 450 MHz and 500 MHz multiprocessor models each received 21 percent of the votes compared to a measly 7 percent for the 400 MHz single processor unit. What's a couple of hundred dollars for an additional processor that will be especially helpful with Mac OS X's symmetric multiprocessing capabilities? [ACE]

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbpoll=50>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1108 +1104>

 

READERS LIKE YOU! Support TidBITS by becoming a member today!
Check out the perks at <http://tidbits.com/member_benefits.html>
Special thanks to E.A. Lloyd, Steve Nicholson, Fred Miller, and Tina
Garfield for their generous support!