Hiding, Force Dock & Spaces

January 27th, 2009

Hiding Others

spaces

When you’re concentrating on one program and don’t want to see everything else you have open in your peripheral vision, click on the name of the program in the upper left corner of your screen. Look towards the bottom for “Hide Others.” All other programs will disappear. To get them all back, click on “Show All.” To get just one back, click on its icon on the dock. Or use Command-Tab to pick it from the Application Switcher menu.

Force Dock to hide programs on switch

You can force OS X to hide all open windows by holding down Command and Option before clicking on a program in the Dock. With these keys held down, the clicked-upon program will come to the foreground, and all your other programs (and their windows) will be hidden.

Use Spaces

Spaces is Leopard’s innovative feature that allows you to turn your screen into 4 or more distinct zones, each with its own programs. Switch between them to only see a few windows at a time! For example, you can have Mail & Safari in Space 1, Microsoft Word and Excel in Space 2, iPhoto and iTunes in Space 3, and your Poker and Bejeweled games in Space 4. See the photo above! Turn Spaces on in System Preferences. You can drag programs from Space to Space, or assign them so that they display in the same zone every time.

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