Installing a new operating system on your Mac is like unwrapping a much-anticipated holiday gift: There are just so many goodies inside waiting to be pored over and played with. We dug deep into Mac OS 10.5 - better known as Leopard - and found powerful tools, entertaining toys, and the occasional rock-hard fruitcake. Our in-depth Leopard primer is at www.maclife.com/article/living_with_leopard, but we’ve found more teeth on this cat. Come along for a tour of the hidden treats that are waiting for you inside Apple’s latest and greatest OS.

LEOPARD QUICK TIPS

Whether it’s Leopard’s brand-new Finder, its upgraded apps, the enhanced file-sharing, or the ultra-convenience that is Spaces, power users - like you - won’t be content until they uncover all of the cat’s hidden powers. Here’s a set of starter secrets you can use to begin your journey to Leopard mastery.

Finder

> If you find it hard to distinguish between, say, spreadsheets and text documents in a Finder window, uncheck Show Icon Preview in the View Options window (press Command-J to bring it up) to view the files by their application icon instead.

> You can use Cover Flow view to see thumbnails of your fonts. Select one and press the spacebar to bring up Quick Look, and you’ll be presented with all that font’s upper- and lowercase letterforms.

> In addition to using a hot corner to launch Exposé, Dashboard, or a screen saver, you can also put your display to sleep. Choose the corner you want in System Preferences > Exposé & Spaces.

> You can change the grid spacing of icons in the View Options dialog (Command-J). Although changes in the horizontal spacing are smooth and continuous, there are only two vertical-spacing positions.

Using Quick Look to display all of a font’s letterforms is a slick trick - but unfortunately, we found this capability to be slightly buggy. Your mileage may vary.

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Sharing

> You can make any folder a shared folder - just add it to the list in System Preferences > Sharing > File Sharing > Shared Folders by clicking the plus-sign icon and selecting it.

> You can run apps residing on a shared Mac, but only if those apps don’t have an activation scheme (as does Adobe’s Creative Suite) that allows that app to be run only in one user’s area.

> To see the shared volumes to which you’re connected right on the Desktop, make sure that Finder > Preferences > Show These Items On The Desktop > Connected Servers is checked.

Google Earth can view the Mac|Life office building even though the app is on another Mac, connected to this one using Leopard’s File Sharing capability.

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Apps

> The quickest way to find and play a song in iTunes is to type “kind:music by:artist name” in the Spotlight field (filling in the real artist name, of course). In the search results, double-click the song you want to hear, and iTunes will launch and play it.

> The Terminal has seven preset “looks” from which you can choose. Find them in Terminal > Preferences > Settings.

> Even if your Mac didn’t come with an Apple Remote, you can still access Front Row (which now shares the Apple TV interface). Just hold down Command-Escape, wait a few seconds for the interface to appear, then use the arrow keys, Return/Enter (forward), and Escape (back) to navigate through it.

You can easily customize the appearance of the Terminal. We’re partial to the ’80s nostalgia of the Homebrew setting.

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Spaces

> When you click the Spaces icon in the Dock to view all your Spaces in the bird’s-eye view, activating Exposé gives you the Exposé view in each of the displayed Spaces.

> When you press Command-Shift-4 to take a screenshot, the crosshairs cursor now displays Desktop pixel coordinates. When you hold the mouse button to make your selection, those coordinates change to show the size of your selection.

> If you want a certain app to show up in each Space, select System Preferences > Exposé & Spaces > Spaces, bind the app to any Space using the plus-sign icon. Then click the up/down arrow to the right of its name and choose Every Space.

If you have a lot of apps and windows open (top), even Spaces needs help. Activate Exposé in all your spaces at once (bottom) to choose that fireworks photo you’re searching for.

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