Your source for indispensable Apple and Macintosh news and reviews, plus the best-selling Take Control ebooks.

 

Mac OS X Services in Snow Leopard

Mac OS X Services let one application supply its powers to another; for example, a Grab service helps TextEdit paste a screenshot into a document. Most users either don't know that Services exist, because they're in an obscure hierarchical menu (ApplicationName > Services), or they mostly don't use them because there are so many of them.

Snow Leopard makes it easier for the uninitiated to utilize this feature; only services appropriate to the current context appear. And in addition to the hierarchical menu, services are discoverable as custom contextual menu items - Control-click in a TextEdit document to access the Grab service, for instance.

In addition, the revamped Keyboard preference pane lets you manage services for the first time ever. You can enable and disable them, and even change their keyboard shortcuts.

Submitted by
Doug McLean

 

 

Recent TidBITS Talk Discussions
 
 

More Podcast Coverage from Macworld Expo

Curious about just how we go about covering the Macworld Expo keynote each year? Our entire Macworld Expo team - me, Tonya, Glenn, and Rich Mogull - sat down with Chuck Joiner of MacVoices in the Macworld Podcast fishbowl during the show to talk about why we don't do liveblogging and just how much effort goes into our Macworld Expo coverage. It's a 20 minute podcast.

Also be sure to listen to the 28 minute MacNotables podcast where Tonya and I chatted with Chuck about some of the interesting things we'd seen at the show, along with some commentary about the audio versions of TidBITS and the overall health of the expo.

 

Microsoft's MacBU: Supporting Mac users with Office 2008.
Straighten up your Office with the latest updates to Word,
Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage. Update today at Mactopia!
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx>