OS X Mountain Lion Pocket Guide (16 page)

Wake for network access

If you use Back to My Mac or have a copy of Apple
Remote Desktop, you’ll probably want to leave this box checked; it
allows your Mac to wake up when you want to log in
remotely.

Slightly dim the display when using this power source (laptops
only)

This option is on the Battery tab. As you can
probably guess, it’s supposed to extend battery life by making the
display use less energy when you’re relying on battery power. In
practice, most people don’t notice the difference in battery
life.

Start up automatically after a power failure

Checking this box means that if the power flickers,
your Mac will start up again as soon as the power comes back on.
Your Mac doesn’t really know that the power has gone out; it just
knows that shutdown protocol wasn’t followed. If you accidentally
hit the off button on a surge protector, your Mac will start up
when the button is moved back to the on position, too. (For
obvious reasons, this option isn’t available on MacBooks’ Battery
tab.)

This tab has two sliders: the Key Repeat slider lets you adjust
how frequently a key will register if you hold it down, and the Delay
Until Repeat slider controls how long you have to hold a key down
before your Mac starts registering that key repeatedly. The Keyboard
tab also gives you the option to use all the numbered F keys as
standard function keys. If you turn on this option, those keys won’t
work the same as before; for example, pressing F10 won’t mute your
Mac, it’ll invoke Exposé instead (to mute your Mac, you’ll need to
press the Fn
and
F10 keys at the same
time).

Turning on the “Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in
menu bar” checkbox creates a menu extra that gives you easy access to
characters (arrows and such) with the Character Viewer and the
Keyboard Viewer’s simulated keyboard that shows what the modifier keys
do when pressed.

Click Input Sources to see the “Input source” list,
which lets you type in different languages; simply select the language
you want to type in from the list on the left. To save you some
scrolling, use the search box at the bottom of the window to find the
language you’re after. You can choose as many languages as you like
and switch among them at will using the flag menu extra that appears
in the menu bar automatically when you select multiple languages. So
that you don’t have to spend all day changing languages, you can
choose to assign the languages globally or locally using the radio
buttons labeled “Use the same one in all documents” and “Allow a
different one for each document,” respectively.

This is where you can adjust the key commands used by
your Mac. On the left side of the pane is a list of applications and
features so you can locate the ones you want to change. To change a
key command, double-click it in the list on the right and then press
the key(s) you want to use instead. You can use the function keys or
keys with modifiers as your new choice.
Figure 5-3
shows an
example.

Figure 5-3. Changing the key command for screenshots

To add a
new
key command, select
Application Shortcuts in the left column, and then click the + button.
You’ll see a pop-up menu of applications you can add keyboard commands
to. Select an application, type the
exact
name of
the menu command you want to create a keyboard shortcut for into the
Menu Title box, and then type the key(s) you want to use as the
shortcut. For example, there’s no keyboard command for customizing the
toolbar in the Finder. To create one, select Finder from the pop-up
menu, type
Customize Toolbar...
(
with
the dots) into the Menu Title box, and then
click the Keyboard Shortcut field and type your shortcut. After that,
when a Finder window is active, you can hit that key and the Customize
Toolbar window will show up. As a bonus, the key command you added
will also appear next to the command’s name in the Finder’s View menu.
If you tire of your custom key command, open the Keyboard preference
pane, click the shortcut once, and then hit the − key; your key
command will be banished from the preference pane
and
from the application. The Restore Defaults
button below the list of keyboard shortcuts will also ax your custom
key command and any other changes you’ve made.

Below the two lists, this tab also includes a setting
for Full Keyboard Access (a way for you to interact with your Mac
without using the mouse). If you switch this setting from the default
“Text boxes and lists only” to “All controls,” you’ll be able to use
the Tab key to move from field to field in most
applications.

If you used Lion, you probably either loved or hated its
default scrolling behavior, which was called “Scroll direction:
natural” and mirrored the way you scroll on an iPad or iPhone.
Apparently, a lot of people were in the “do not want” camp when it
came to this setting. In Mountain Lion, the default is the way you’re
used to if you’ve been using anything besides Lion. To get “natural”
scroll direction back, you’ll have to visit the Mouse or Trackpad
preference pane.

If you’ve got a Magic Mouse, the Point & Click tab
of this preference pane allows you to turn “Scroll direction: natural”
on or off, decide whether you want a secondary click (known as a
“right-click” to everyone but Apple) with your Magic Mouse and how you
want said click enacted, and turn smart zooming off or on. You also
get a mouse battery–level indicator and a slider for adjusting
tracking (how fast the mouse pointer moves on screen in response to
physical mouse movements).

On the More Gestures tab, you can turn on “Swipe between pages,”
“Swipe between full-screen apps,” and an option to launch Mission
Control with a double-tap. Each gesture comes with a nifty movie
explaining how to pull off the necessary taps and swipes. To watch the
movie, put your cursor over the gesture you’re interested in and the
instructional video will play automatically.

If you’re using a Mighty Mouse, you’ll find sliders for
adjusting tracking, double-clicking, and scrolling speeds. You’ll also
see pop-up menus for every part of the Mighty Mouse that can detect
pushes. Each menu lets you specify what happens when you press that
button. You can choose from a multitude of actions to assign to each
button, including secondary clicks and application launching.

After you’re done setting up the buttons, you can control how
the Mighty Mouse scrolls by choosing from the pop-up menu next to
Scrolling. You can turn it off, have it scroll vertically only, scroll
vertically and horizontally, or scroll 360 degrees.

You can also set up your Mighty Mouse to zoom by checking the
box next to Zoom. You get to select the modifier key that will invoke
zooming when you’re using the scroll ball. If you click the Options
button, you’ll find some settings that let you fine-tune its scrolling
behavior.

Some people don’t like Apple’s mice, and that’s OK—your
Mac will happily work with non-Apple mice. Some mice ship with custom
drivers, but most can work with your Mac straight out of the box. The
customization options you see in the Mouse preference pane depend on
the model you’re using.

In the Trackpad preference pane, you can adjust your
MacBook’s tracking speed, set up a Bluetooth trackpad, and configure
gestures. On the “Point and Click” tab, you can enable “Tap to click”
(which makes your Mac interpret a light tap as a click), “Secondary
click” (a.k.a. “right-clicking”), “Look up” (a feature that looks up
words with OS X’s built-in Dictionary), and three-finger
dragging.

When you click the Scroll & Zoom tab, you’ll find the
following options: “Scroll direction: natural,” “Zoom in or out,”
“Smart zoom,” and “Rotate.”

The More Gestures tab includes six different options.
You can turn on “Swipe between pages” and tell your Mac how you want
to gesture to invoke that function. You can do the same with “Swipe
between full-screen apps,” Mission Control, and App Exposé. Launchpad
and “Show Desktop gestures” aren’t customizable; you can only turn
them on or off.

As with the Magic Mouse, these gestures aren’t always
self-explanatory, so each gesture comes with a little movie showing
you how to pull it off. Put your cursor over the option you want
explained and the associated movie will automatically start playing.
(One supposes it has been a good time for hand models in the Cupertino
area.)