5 Tip Friday 109: Click-right
Friday, 10 February 2012
1/ Right-click adds features — Even if you don't turn on the right click, with activates the right bottom corner of your trackpad as a different click, or use the *right front corner of your mouse – you can use one at any time by holding down the Control key on your keyboard and doing a normal click.[* The smooth-topped standard Apple mouse has dozens of micro-switches under the top shell, enabling scrolling, strokes and swipes ... and also a right-click.]
4/ Copy URLs — Another really handy feature is URL copying from hot-links. A hot link normally looks like a word or two in blue and underlined; the link it refers to may be many characters long, though.
2/ Added features — Try right-clicking (or control-clicking) on anything – even in the Dock new features appear, and contextual menus pop out adding all sorts of capabilities.
3/ Instant notes — Sometimes when I'm adding a page to this site, I get halfway through a lengthy piece and the browser reloads and all my work is lost. It's really frustrating! So now, when I've done enough, I go Command A (Select All) and then right-click on top of the selected test. Then I choose Services>New Text Edit Window Containing Selection.
Now, if my work disappears, I can switch to Text Edit, re-copy the test and paste it back into my site management page.
This trick is useful, though, for taking almost-instant notes from any text – documents, web pages, anything.
4/ Copy URLs — Another really handy feature is URL copying from hot-links. A hot link normally looks like a word or two in blue and underlined; the link it refers to may be many characters long, though. You can click on the link, go to that page and copy the long link out of the URL bar in the browser, sure, but boy, that's tedious!
Try this, as it's way quicker: right-click on the link and choose Copy URL – way quicker, and very convenient.
Now just choose Paste and voila.
5/ Sick of that desktop background on the Finder? Sure, you can open System Preferences and click on Desktop & Screensaver blah blah blah ... But once again, as another example of a right-click speedup, try just right-clicking on your desktop picture. Choose Change Desktop Background and the right System Preference boots straight away.
Additional tips — When you right-click on a selection (image, text, whatever), see what other Services and options you can choose from. I can almost guarantee you will find other useful facets and features.
