Living with Leopard
Posted 10/29/2007 at 11:47pm
| by Rik Myslewski
Quick Look & Spaces. There not much to say about Quick Look other than the fact that it, along with the Cover Flow view so useful to we photographer types, is almost reason enough to upgrade to Leopard.
Quick Look lets you watch videos without having to launch QuickTime.
As you probably know, you simply highlight a file in any Finder view and press the space bar, and Quick Look displays a large image of that file - one that's even readable if the file is a text or spreadsheet document. You can also click a small icon at the bottom of the Quick Look display to view the file full-screen - but don't go looking for a way to default to full-screen view; Apple told me that there's no option to do that.
One oddity - bug? - that I discovered in Quick Look: Files created by iWork '08's Numbers expanded each cell to contain all the information in it when viewed in Quick Look, even when in the actual file that expansion hadn't been performed and didn't display in the Cover Flow view.
And speaking of Cover Flow, you already knew that you can play QuickTime files right in the Cover Flow view. But did you know that you can also view AVI and WMV files, as well, if you have the correct plug-ins installed? You did? Then never mind.

Imagine what a jumble it would be if all the apps divided into these four Spaces (seen here in the "bird's-eye" view) were all crammed into one Desktop.
Although Spaces is technically an app, it's such an integral part of working in the Finder that I'll discuss it here. In System Preferences > Exposé & Spaces you can create up to 16 virtual Desktops that you can quickly jump to by using a modifier key of your choice with the arrow or number keys, a pull-down menu item, or the Spaces app itself. You can also assign - or as Apple calls it, "bind" - specific apps to specific numbered Spaces
I know it was only a couple of paragraphs ago that I said that Quick Look and the Cover Flow view were reason enough to upgrade to Leopard. Let me assign Spaces to that group, as well. I designated one Space for all my Web work (email, browsing, and the like), another for image work, another for website design, and a fourth for writing (Word and Dictionary), and I flip quickly between them using the default Control-Arrow key set-up. It's easy to change the order of the Spaces, and simple to move apps among them; just click on the Spaces icon in the Dock and you're presented with a modifiable top-down view of all your Spaces that Apple calls the “bird’s-eye view” - drag and drop to your heart's content.
After working with Spaces for a day or two, I had to go back into Tiger for some system maintenance and backups, and was immediately frustrated with all the windows that cluttered my single "space" while I tried to get some work done during the long backup. Sure, Exposé helped, but Spaces is so much more elegant and so much easier to use that I was already spoiled by it.
One Spaces niggle: An Apple rep told me that I could move windows from one Space to an adjacent one by simply dragging the window and "bumping" it into an adjacent Space, but this seems to work only sporadically. Which brings me to…
Next: Bugs
If you want to skip around, click on one of the links below.
1. Introduction
2. The Finder & the Desktop
3. Screen Sharing, Stacks, & Spotlight
4. Quick Look & Spaces
5. Bugs
6. Time Machine
7. iChat
8. Other Apps (Mail, Safari, Preview)