Comments on: 6 Ways to Maximize Productivity on Small Screens & Mac Laptops

By: dummybeginner

dummybeginner — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:27:53 +0000

For those of us who don’t know, start with the apple menu, Dock, Autohide! (I had to ask a more experienced user to find that, why isn’t this out there somewhere?)

By: Auto-hide the Dock on your Mac | HotAgency.eu

Auto-hide the Dock on your Mac | HotAgency.eu — Sat, 05 May 2012 22:37:30 +0000

[...] 6 Ways to Maximize Productivity on Small Screens Mac Laptops | OS X Daily [...]

By: Modernape

Modernape — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:49:00 +0000

I find there’s an annoying brief delay before the active App regains focus when switching desktops in Lion, there was never any delay in Snow Leopard – does anyone else find this irritating?

By: David Collantes

David Collantes — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:43:34 +0000

Ah, found out! It is the number of active downloads. Having a very fast connection, I never see that number.

By: David Collantes

David Collantes — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:35:37 +0000

What does the number one (on green) on Chrome means, and where does it comes from?

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 03 May 2012 08:49:39 +0000

Daniel, there are plenty of reason not to have an external monitor, keyboard and mouse at home. Not wanting to sit in one location, doing work on the couch, not having a table or desk all being good reasons.

By: Björn Lindström

Björn Lindström — Thu, 03 May 2012 06:28:01 +0000

I do all this already, so obviously I’m a genious. Command+Option+H also illustrates that it is really worth it to give the list of shortcut commands: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343

To add to the recommendations of BetterTouchTool, it lets you resize windows using gestures or keyboard shortcuts, in addition to dragging to sides and corners.

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 03 May 2012 05:34:25 +0000

You can really get by with just a lot of Command-Tab switching if you get good at it!

By: bud

bud — Thu, 03 May 2012 04:42:35 +0000

I found that in Lion it is possible, if you configure launchpad correctly, to use desktops/full screen to operate in a very similar way to the iPad. I also use BTT (Better Touch Tool) to configure my trackpad to operate more like iPad multitasking gestures. It’s a breeze to swipe back and forward between apps then invoke launchpad with a 4 finger pinch (instead of using the dock) to launch apps saving that dock space.

I imagine this would work great on a MacBook Air. (I have a Mac Mini).

By: Sidebar

Sidebar — Thu, 03 May 2012 03:14:06 +0000

Since vertical space is more precious than horizontal on these widescreens I find it preferable to move the dock to the side of the screen. I can still keep it visible and keep an eye on it this way too.

By: Daniel Roderick

Daniel Roderick — Thu, 03 May 2012 02:10:12 +0000

Anyone with a laptop needs to use another monitor and use an external keyboard and mouse, there is no reason not to when you are stationed at work or home.

By: Mike Fenty

Mike Fenty — Thu, 03 May 2012 00:37:28 +0000

I use a program called “better touch tool” (BTT). It allows you to configure your trackpad (or magic mouse) gestures. For instance, if I tap the top left tip of the trackpad it cycles to the virtual desktop to the left. If I tap the top right tip of the trackpad it cycles to the virtual desktop on the right. Better touch tool also allows you to configure split screen windowing. If you drag a window to the top it makes it full screen. If you drag a window to the left of the screen it makes it half screen (left side). If you drag it to the top left or right corners it makes it a quarter screen.

If you want to minimize a screen you can assign “minimalization” to a gesture. BTT can manipulate almost anything through a gesture providing you know the keyboard shortcut.

By: Shenbo

Shenbo — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:57:48 +0000

I keep different desktops for similar tasks and use full screen apps for focus.

- Messages, IRC, Twitter, Sparrow contained in a communications desktop

- iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, MPlayer in a media desktop

- Evernote, iCal, in a tasks desktop

- Full screen Safari, iWork, iPhoto