Dr. Mac's OS X Tip-of-the-Day
Dr. Mac's Macro's - Budget Priced Shortcut Solutions For Mac OS X
By BOB LEVITUS
As promised, today's tip is about shareware programs that add macros (a.k.a.
keyboard shortcuts) to your Mac. Now I'm only going to tell you about a
handful that I know of personally - but there must be dozens more out there.
If your favorite little program has 'em, use 'em. But if you don't have any,
here are a few to try:
One program I use all the time lets you create keyboard shortcuts for
files, folders, disks, servers and/or URLs is James Thomson's beautiful,
flexible, useful, and usable launcher/dock/palette thingie, DragThing.
I've loved this handy little program for many years. It lets you create
"docks" where you can stash all the things that might ordinarily be
cluttering up your desktop or be buried 7 folders deep. It's easy to use,
incredibly customizable, and has many other great features including the
return of the desktop trash icon.
DragThing is beautifully-crafted program, and it's updated with new features
and improvements more often than most. And, with hundreds of colors,
textures, and button styles, you can waste hours making your docks look any
which way you choose.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so I've created a little one for you,
showing how I add a keyboard shortcut (F12) to open (or switch to if it's
already open) QuicKeys.
I used another of DragThing's handy features, a contextual menu, to quickly
open the QuicKeys Options window.
You can try it for free, but if you like it, send James his $25 and be done
with it. Competitive upgrades are also available for $19 to users of Aladdin
DragStrip 3 and PowerOn ACTION GoMac 2.
DragThing. http://dragthing.com/
Another great little programs that let you create keyboard shortcuts, among
other things, is the superb "haxie" FruitMenu, courtesy of those clever lads
at Unsanity. (Hmmm. Does that make them unsane?)
It lets you once again customize your Apple Menu, just like you used to do
ever so easily in Mac OS 9, but FruitMenu is way better. Its latest new
feature, in the just-released version 2, is the ability to create your own
incredibly useful and configurable contextual menu items, available anywhere
you can control click. This TOTALLY rocks.
Once again, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I've created another for
you...
Adding the keyboard shortcut F12 (top), and my Apple menu afterward
(bottom).
My FruitMenu-created contextual menu is almost as handy as keyboard
shortcuts.
FruitMenu is priced at only US$7 and comes with lifetime free updates. I
paid and so, I predict, will you, once you've tried this delightful haxie.
http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/fruitmenu/
I've rambled on and on and I still have a few more programs you might like,
so today's tip will be continued tomorrow.
I remain yours truly, Dr. Macro. :-)
To discuss this tip (or anything you like) in Dr. Mac's OSXFAQ Forum, click
here:
http://forums.osxfaq.com/viewtopic.php?topic=1638&forum=100
Bob LeVitus is a leading authority on Mac OS and the author of 38 books, including
Mac OS X For Dummies and The Little iTunes Book.
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