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

 

 

Pick an apple! 
Become a TidBITS member!
 

 

TidBITS Watchlist
 
Open Files with Finder's App Switcher

Say you're in the Finder looking at a file and you want to open it with an application that's already running but which doesn't own that particular document. How? Switch to that app and choose File > Open? Too many steps. Choose Open With from the file's contextual menu? Takes too long, and the app might not be listed. Drag the file to the Dock and drop it onto the app's icon? The icon might be hard to find; worse, you might miss.

In Leopard there's a new solution: use the Command-Tab switcher. Yes, the Command-Tab switcher accepts drag-and-drop! The gesture required is a bit tricky. Start dragging the file in the Finder: move the file, but don't let up on the mouse button. With your other hand, press Command-Tab to summon the switcher, and don't let up on the Command key. Drag the file onto the application's icon in the switcher and let go of the mouse. (Now you can let go of the Command key too.) Extra tip: If you switch to the app beforehand, its icon in the Command-Tab switcher will be easy to find; it will be first (or second).

Visit Take Control of Customizing Leopard

Share your own tip! | Search TipBITS

 

 

Published in TidBITS 374.
Subscribe to our weekly email edition.

 

 
07 Apr 1997 | Print Printer-Friendly Version of This Article

StarNine Technologies Sponsoring TidBITS

by Adam C. Engst Send Email to Author

Send Article to a Friend

StarNine Technologies Sponsoring TidBITS -- We're extremely pleased to welcome our latest sponsor, StarNine Technologies. As many of you know, StarNine makes the popular Macintosh Web and mailing list servers, WebSTAR and ListSTAR, along with some mail gateways and Quarterdeck Mail (nee Microsoft Mail). The other products notwithstanding, WebSTAR and then ListSTAR really put StarNine on the map for us.

WebSTAR began as the shareware MacHTTP, created by Chuck Shotton. When Chuck announced that StarNine had acquired MacHTTP and would be renaming it WebSTAR, we were concerned. Not all shareware makes the transition to the commercial world, but Chuck and StarNine did well, making WebSTAR the leading Mac Web server and continuing to push the feature and performance envelopes.

As important as WebSTAR is (and TidBITS uses it for our Web server), ListSTAR saved our bacon in August of 1996, when Rice University shut down the aging IBM mainframe that had been hosting the TidBITS mailing list. We moved the entire list to a Power Mac 7100 running ListSTAR, and it (along with a custom FileMaker database) has run smoothly since. Considering that there are over 46,000 people on the TidBITS list, ListSTAR demonstrates the fact that Macintosh is a serious Internet server machine.

In September of 1995, the now-beleaguered Quarterdeck Corporation acquired StarNine, which initially looked like a synergistic move. Little development came of it, but StarNine has remained a wholly-owned subsidiary and thrives on its own. We're happy to see StarNine supporting the Internet community via their sponsorship of TidBITS and other Macintosh resources like the Info-Mac Digest. [ACE]

 

CrashPlan is easy, secure backup that works everywhere. Back up
to your own drives, computers, and online with unlimited storage.
With unlimited online backup, this is one resolution you can keep.
Back Up Your Life Today! <http://crashplan.com/ref/tidbits.html>