Leveling Up As A Mac User

Apple computers are notoriously easy to use. Even with that, the Level 1 Mac User will disable things like Expose and Spaces. They’ll make the doc large and bouncy. The spotlight’s keyboard shortcuts will be ignored and the files will always be three moves away. I’m going to tell you how to make it to level 3 as a Mac user.

Dock Stacks

My Adobe Dock Stack

When I was new to the Mac, I kept all of my commonly used programs on the dock. It wasn’t long before my dock turned into a logistical nightmare. It stretched across my screen 30 apps wide, it seemed. I had to tame the beast. In walked something called “dock stacks”.

Thankfully, I wasn’t on my own. There are numerous articles to help you customize your dock stacks. The great thing is how easy it is.

I try to keep my stacks clean and foolproof. Deleting my stack or my stack folder shouldn’t delete the individual programs. I create a folder inside of my Applications folder. You could create this folder anywhere, of course, but keeping it where all the applications are made sense to me. I then would drop all of the relevant aliases into the folder. The folder gets put on the dock, and a stack is born.

I’m not sure how else I could organize my Adobe Suite, my administrative programs, and my web development programs. You already have stacks, you say? Well, then I’ll just consider you a level 2 Mac user. We can jump right to the good stuff.

Spaces

Exaggerated Spaces

According to Apple’s website, Spaces is the end all be all of clutter management:

Spaces lets you group application windows together according to the way you work and easily switch between them. Create a space for work. Create a space for play. Organize each space just the way you want it.

What it does is give you four desktops. Imagine a situation where you had to get something done very quickly and with minimal distraction. You didn’t want to close Safari, but you’re positive that the huge list of minimized programs in the dock is going to drive you batty. Enter Spaces. You now have four desktops uncluttered by the other’s applications to play with.

Typically, I only use two spaces. One contains my frequently used programs (Adium, Safari, Tweetie, etc.), and the other contains the one-off or focused set of programs. Whipping out a web design quickly? We’ll hop over to Space 2 so that we’re not distracted by the open lolcats on Space 1.

The screen where you can see all four (or more) Spaces allows you to drag and drop applications between the windows. This makes it easier to organize things after-the-fact when you realize you need the organizational help. If you know you’ll only want to open up an application in a particular Space, you can also assign it to whichever you choose.

I was afraid of Spaces for the longest time. Playing with it after the frustration of a desktop strewn with random apps helped me get a better sense of what it was for. When I felt organized again, I was using it right. Above all, you have to remember to play with your Mac.

Expose

Configuration Menu

Bundled with Spaces in OSX’s System Preferences panel, Expose is a great little tool that allows you to bind keyboard and mouse functions to different actions. For example, when I set up Spaces, I set the bottom left corner to bring up the Spaces dashboard. This helps me reinforce using both applications.

There are other settings you can play with, but I’ve found that Expose was the gateway to something more beautiful. I kept getting frustrated that I couldn’t one-click search for applications and files. Why shouldn’t internet queries be one click away, too?

Quicksilver and Alfred

Cmd+Space for me.

When Spotlight isn’t pretty enough or robust enough, many people turn to Quicksilver and Alfred to pick up the slack. I personally chose Alfred because it’s currently in development. The gent responsible for Quicksilver has stopped developing it, according to rumor. Instead, he’s moonlighting as a Google employee working on their Launchbar, a similar application.

What can we do with 'A'?

Now, why a quick launcher? I want my display results shoved in my face sometimes. I search for Delicious Library? I want it to pop up big and bold in the center of my screen. An additional app lets me do that. And while there may be a way to get Spotlight to do Google searches for you, applications like Alfred are much easier to configure.

With Alfred, any query is a single keyboard command away. This makes me the fastest IMDBer in the room most of the time. When alone, it makes sure I don’t fish through an entire folder chalk full of apps in order to find the one I’m looking for. If you use your Spotlight for easy application launching, you’re already one step ahead of the Cmd+Shift+A dance.

Oh, and by the way? Congratulations on level 3.