Month: November 2011

Bring back one tap dragging in Mac OSX Lion

The Webernets0 comment

One Tap Drag LockSomething else that has been bugging me lately about OSX Lion is that “One Finger Tap Dragging” has changed to “Click and Drag”. By default, you can’t just move the cursor to the windows top bar, tap once and drag it around the screen. It’s really difficult to break the habit if you have been a Mac user for several years. Thankfully, it is still available in Lion, but it is REALLY hidden away.

I spent ages going through every aspect of the “Trackpad” preferences pane, and watching all the little videos on gestures, but it turns out that this feature isn’t even in there. To turn One Tap Dragging back on, you need to go into “Universal Access”! How do you like those APPLES! Thanks APPLE!

Universal Access Preference PaneOnce you have opened Preferences and clicked Universal Access, click the “Mouse & Trackpad” tab, and then “Trackpad Options” towards the bottom.

Trackpad PreferancesNow, by checking one simple checkbox, all of that anguish and suffering will go away! Simply check the box next to “Dragging” and One Tap Dragging is restored. And if you were used to the “Drag Lock” feature in previous versions (where you have to tap again to release”, you can also restore that feature in the drop down to the right of “Dragging” as well.

Dragging Check Box

Below is a screen capture of an option I would REALLY like to see Apple implement in coming versions of their operating system.

Trackpad Option Recommendation for future OS's

How to stop OSX Mac Mail threading/grouping emails and conversations together

The Webernets20 Comments

Grouped Conversations in Mac MailMac Mail has a feature now that groups emails with the same subject line together into a collapsed “forum thread” like manner, which saves space when you are looking at your inbox. The problem I find with it is that there just aren’t enough bells, whistles and foghorns to catch my attention when a new email arrives and its a reply to something in that thread. I need more than just the number in the bottom right corner incrementing. As a result, I have lost/not read some emails lately.

Thankfully, there is a solution for this, but it requires a bit of patience to implement as it is not a global fix. For some reason, emails are grouped by default, and you have to ungroup on a thread by thread basis…….Thanks Apple.

To do so, highlight the thread you want to ungroup, then in the menu bar select “View” and uncheck the option that says “Organise by Conversation”

Turn Off Email Grouping

Now you will see each email as a single item in your inbox again, and new and unread emails will go back to having that little blue dot to the left. If you want to continue to see threads from specific contacts in an ungrouped way, you can just ad a rule (in the rules tab in mail preferences pane) to highlight email from them with a unique background colour.

Ungrouped Email Conversations

Again, as I said, this isn’t global, its thread by thread. So if you REALLY hate this feature, a quick way to start making it go away is to select all messages in your inbox simulataneously (Highlight one, then click command and A) and then uncheck “Organise By Conversation”.

Change All Threads

If you are using Mac Mail as an RSS reader, this method also works to ungroup new posts on sites you are following.

If you have any other idea’s on how to work around this annoyance, please reply in the comments.

Disable and stop that annoying delete confirmation dialogue box in OSX Lion

The Webernets0 comment

delete-dialogue-boxI know that dialogue warning boxes are there for a reason, and they protect us from accidentally deleting stuff we don’t really want to delete, but I work with dozens of files, and dozens of versions of files at a time. If you are someone who has the need to delete files a lot, and likes to see the “Empty” trash can icon (like me) it is possible to disable that annoying “Are you sure you really want to empty your trash can, even though you just specifically right clicked on the icon and purposely selected the “empty trash” option?” dialogue box.

Click on your desktop to activate the finder, then under the “Finder” menu, select preferances.

delete-confirmation-dialogue-boxOnce you have selected “Preferences” and the preferences pane is open, its just a simple matter un-checking the “Show warning before emptying the Trash” option.

delete-confirmation-dialogue-box

Its only a little thing I know, but if you are a true “Power-User”, this is a godsend that can save you a lot of extra clicks.