Oh Yes.... Sweet!!!!!!!!

solrac

Mac Ninja
Picture this:
you have a JPG picture stored somewhere deep in your hard drive, 20 folders deep. You open a finder window and navigate to it. You try to drag it to Program X.

Now you realize Program X can only access it with File.. Open.. (hey, this happens a lot. Even with cmd-opt-drag to dock. Or maybe you just have to upload it in Explorer through an HTML page such as a hotmail attachment.)

So you just wasted all that time navigating 20 folders deep in the Finder only to have to do it ALL OVER AGAIN in the File.. Open.. window.

This is the story of my life on Macs.

Even with a favorites folder... there's no doubt about it. Annoying as HELL. No matter what.

Now, though... with OS X.. I just tried this out of sheer frustration...

I DRAGGED my file which I navigated to in the Finder INTO the File.. Open.. window, and that window changed to the new location in the Finder. Automatic navigation!!! One of the greatest little tricks I've ever found in X.

-solrac-
p.s. If you could do this all along in OS 9 then I will sure feel stupid.
 
You could do it in OS 9. You're not stupid! It's not a very advertised feature really. Actually you can do it in 8.5 so long as the application concerned used Navigation Services.

I work like that all the time - it's the ONLY way to work. I get annoyed with an Open box that doesn't do it.

However... a LOT of Mac OS X open dialogs DON'T do it - which is really bad. And some OS 9 Carbon apps don't either - they seem to make themselves Modal and won't let you drag anything to them.

It's just another productivity enhancement that isn't on Windows!

I've noticed that OS 10.1.1 has given my PowerBook a MAJOR speed boost recently.

9.2.2 game be some hassle today though. Lost FireWire and Sleep. But a clean install of 9.2.1 and then update 9.2.2 and then tranfer all custom extensions solved all the problems.

Maybe we should start a Tips and Tricks thread for things like this??
 
Default Folder on OS 9 took this a step further, you could click on any open window (or use it's contextual menu to reach a hidden window) and the Open/Save box would jump to that location. I found Default Folder indespensible on OS 9 and would love to see it brought forward to 10. I was unaware that you could do this (drag a doc into the Open/Save box, maybe this means Default Folder functionality is possible?

-- Jason
 
Wow... I've been using Macs since 1993 and just learned something new today.... guess it just goes to show you, you never stop learning...
 
Back
Top