180

I would like to call for a place to list some little things that surprise you about Lion. There are so many articles and lists of all the new features with information overload, I would rather focus this spot of the site on tiny delights with a note why it makes a difference to you.

Please one topic per answer, this isn't a race to enumerate everything that changed. This isn't the place for massive topics like the implications of FileVault 2 on your entire workflow - just a stroll past some little gems, fun oddities or subtle changes specific to Lion.

Answers must relate to why or how you use the feature - links to official tips and tutorials are great, but the intent is to collect little gems that affect how the system gets used. Expect answers that are not specific to lion or lack a personal use case to be heavily edited or deleted.

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  • 10
    I can't wait until someone wrote "Natural scrolling" as one of the answers...
    – Enrico Susatyo
    Commented Jul 22, 2011 at 13:03
  • 8
    @the_great_monkey I will admit to being totally comfortable with "natural scrolling", and I've only been using Lion since Friday.
    – Cajunluke
    Commented Jul 25, 2011 at 19:03
  • 2
    @CajunLuke me too, only took me 15 minutes to get used to.
    – Enrico Susatyo
    Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 0:06
  • 5
    Natural Scrolling only makes real sense if you use a trackpad, if you try that with a scroll wheel, it drives you nuts :)
    – Martin Marconcini
    Commented Jul 29, 2011 at 11:38
  • 1
    I'm especially happy about the price of Lion ($29.99 upgrade from SnowLeopard), but this isn't worth putting as an answer.
    – bneely
    Commented Feb 8, 2012 at 5:42

107 Answers 107

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141

Using the FaceTime camera to add signatures to PDFs in Preview.

Click the annotations button in the toolbar and use the drop down menu next to the signature icon to grab your signature from a piece of paper you have written it on. Then just click and drag in the document to place it. Haven't really needed it yet, but it's implemented so nicely that I did it just for fun.

enter image description here

enter image description here

enter image description here

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7
  • Oh that's nice. Speaking of faceTime, I didn't buy it for 99c from the AppStore, but now I have it thanks to Lion.
    – TessellatingHeckler
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 19:23
  • This is the one I'm most excited about after just doing a bunch of loan documents.
    – Sam
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 21:32
  • I had no idea this existed. So convenient. Used to do that manually...
    – nearlymonolith
    Commented Aug 2, 2011 at 14:10
  • 3
    Nice! This pretty much replaces PDFPenPro for me.
    – whaley
    Commented Aug 2, 2011 at 19:59
  • Mac Pro users are hosed :p (aka: me)
    – Martin Marconcini
    Commented Aug 3, 2011 at 15:20
117

Finder - make a new folder with a selection of files

Given the number of times I'd have to do the Cmd-Shift-N/highlight/drag dance, this is by far my favorite:

New Folder With Selection

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  • 1
    Awesome! Any way to map a keyboard shortcut to that command?
    – peterjmag
    Commented Aug 6, 2011 at 2:38
  • 9
    There already is one! Highlight the items, and go to the Finder's File menu, and you'll see that it is Ctrl-Cmd-N.
    – Gauzy
    Commented Aug 6, 2011 at 4:22
  • 1
    This is really something I've wanted, but never expected to happen.
    – ocodo
    Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 23:19
  • 2
    That command being disabled when only a single file is selected could be the most annoying thing about Lion though.
    – Lri
    Commented Dec 12, 2011 at 11:41
112

Accessing accented characters has been made a lot easier.

Just hold down the letter and a list of alternatives will show. Awesome.

Example of OS X Lion accented characters popup menu

By pressing the number and continuing to type, the desired letter replaces the e and alows you to keep your fingers on the keyboard. Double Awesome.

This behavior can be turned off. Turning off this new feature allows the traditional key repeat function to work for all keys as shown in the keyboard system preference window. keyboard

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  • 22
    wha? I get the letter reppeeeeeeeeeeeating
    – Joel Spolsky
    Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 20:49
  • 4
    Looks like it depends on the app. It's working in Word but not in Chrome...
    – Joel Spolsky
    Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 20:50
  • That's strange. It does not work in the comment field or post editor for me either. Try in the URL, that should work. Should be universal, though...
    – Aron Rotteveel
    Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 20:50
  • 2
    Its WORKS for comments in Safari. Like these: áôćÿ :)
    – clt60
    Commented Jul 22, 2011 at 10:08
  • 8
    Actually this was the first thing I HAD to disable :) Never used accented chars and it keeeeeeeeeepsssss me from the repeating stuff :(
    – bisko
    Commented Jul 22, 2011 at 10:58
102

All window edges allow resizing

How about ability to resize windows from all edges of the window?

The reduced clutter of not having a resize nub is nice, but the power comes with these options (which can be combined):

  • shift - maintains aspect ratio while sizing
  • option - maintains the center point while sizing
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11
  • Actually, this was something that I was disappointed in. It was a stubborn aspect of the Finder, but I appreciated it because there was only one interaction. Now, the Finder is this hodgepodge of interface elements.
    – Andrew
    Commented Jul 23, 2011 at 4:00
  • 52
    And you can hold shift while resizing to maintain the aspect ratio, and alt/option to anchor the window at its center, and both for a combination
    – Jonathan.
    Commented Jul 24, 2011 at 1:41
  • @Andrew - Actually, there are less interface elements, with the exception of the "fullscreen" button. The "resize handle" is gone.
    – Moshe
    Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 14:16
  • 1
    @Jonathan That makes it stand out; Windows had edge resizing for some time now. Windows 8 will probably have aspect ratio resize!
    – Thaddee Tyl
    Commented Aug 1, 2011 at 9:40
  • @Moshe Yes there are fewer, but I should have been more specific. What I mean, is that the Finder now feels more "twitchy" than before. Scrollbars showing and hiding, bouncy scrolling, no margin/padding between the edge of the window and content (so you don't quite know where to grab the window). All of these things add up and make the Finder just "feel" less stable. Even though the resize handle took up space, it represented the one way to do something, and thus brought stability. I feel like I need to write an entire blog post on this just to explain, since it's very personal and ethereal.
    – Andrew
    Commented Aug 1, 2011 at 21:41
102

Stateful Terminal app

When you quit Terminal.app and re-open it it not only re-opens previously opened tabs (without restarting the commands that were running in it, of course), but it shows you the last 500 rows that were output in the closed terminal window.

This has two major advantages to me:

  1. I have the same history in the same tab as I had it
  2. Seeing the old output helps me bring the tab back to the state it was in.
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101

System Information is more visual and speedy

System Information in Lion (which used to be System Profiler in Snow Leopard) has gotten a facelift and a tune up. The information is presented in a much more usable and graphical format. Memory pane in Mac OS X 10.7's System Information

In addition to the facelift, the launch time of the app is optimized to be immediately responsive, delaying any lengthy discovery hardware and software until you ask for that level of detail.

This makes it much more useful to hop in and copy your serial number without waiting for the app to finish launching an inventory of all software on the mac.

Storage pane in Mac OS X 10.7's System Information

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0
78

tmutil is a command line interface into Time Machine.

time tmutil startbackup --block is full of win.

You can now start a backup, time how long it takes, and know how much data was saved, all from the command line!

You can flush your local backup store to free up disk space as well (or enable local backups if desired):

 sudo tmutil disablelocal
 sudo tmutil enablelocal

Managing Time Machine from the unix prompt is a bit of a geeky thing, but I wanted to call out this hugely useful tool that is hidden underneath the hood. Being able to analyze the difference between the current mac and the last backup with tmutil compare is also incredibly useful. Particularly useful in addition to managing the on/off and local/remote status of Time Machine, managing exclusion lists - these few commands seem particularly useful to me (and hence make me smile broadly, perhaps Lion-like):

  • calculatedrift
  • uniquesize
  • latestbackup

The man page is great and actually teaches how the backups work and encourage exploration of local storage, inheriting previous backups and much more. Someone deserves beers or better at the next WWDC.

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  • 3
    The best feature of tmutil, in my opinion, is tmutil disablelocal.
    – LaC
    Commented Aug 2, 2011 at 15:10
74

Quicklook previews within spotlight search results

I usually use Launchbar so I don't rely on Spotlight results (top-right) corner of the screen, but when I do, I always hated that I couldn't quicklook or even see the path of the results. Now it's possible if you wait on a result for a second, you'll see quicklook:

enter image description here

Now try ⌘ and ⌘⌥ combinations! With one you can see where in the file is the string located (like in the screen shot), and with the other you can see the file path.

Also using ⌘ and the arrows will move through the categories.

Nice details.

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4
  • That is seriously incredible. I've always kept spotlight around and had LaunchBar use ^-space (control-space) instead of taking over for spotlight. This will come in very handy once I remember it's there!
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Jul 29, 2011 at 16:41
  • 3
    I also like the addition of Control-Option-Space to bring up a search in a Finder window (which I use much more than Spotlight itself).
    – Matt Gallagher
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 8:13
  • I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but could you tell me how you type those characters. (command, option, up arrow, etc?)
    – Jamie
    Commented Aug 5, 2011 at 19:32
  • @Jamie Sure, you can find all about those KBD links here: meta.apple.stackexchange.com/questions/193/… - also the symbols itself you can find in the Edit -> Special Characters pane that’s available to most Cocoa applications.
    – Martin Marconcini
    Commented Aug 7, 2011 at 17:07
74

Quicklook natively supports animated GIFs

Freaking awesome.

enter image description here

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0
67

It doesn't qualify as a tiny thing, per se, but since it came up in the comments...

Natural Scrolling

It took a couple of days to get used to it but now it really does feel natural: moving your fingers across the trackpad the same way you would move your hand if the content was on your desk (or iPad) fits and actually makes sense.

I know it's not popular with everyone but the only reason the traditional scrolling direction feels normal is because we're used to it; the scroll wheel on a mouse and the old trackpad response was about moving the scroll thumb in a given direction, not the content.

Even before Lion when I'd been using my iPad for an hour or two and then sat down with the trackpad on my Mac I'd end up using the trackpad wrong for a moment. Why couldn't I push the web page up if I wanted it to move up?

Me, I'm a fan.

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11
  • On a trackpad I love it, too.
    – XQYZ
    Commented Jul 24, 2011 at 11:50
  • 1
    Despite feeling like riding a bike backwards (something you can force yourself to do, but lack trust or good feelings about the change), I can see a month down the road absolutely abhoring "the old way". Moving something is simpler than moving a control that moves data underneath my fixed viewport. Challenging to adapt to this reversal, but I predict most will switch to "riding our bikes backwards" soon.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Jul 24, 2011 at 19:34
  • 1
    It's a nice feature but I had to turn it off because it really messed me up when I tried to scroll on a Windows or Linux box.
    – Ferruccio
    Commented Jul 25, 2011 at 12:59
  • 3
    I love it. Got used to it in about an hour. As for who to blame for the traditiona scrolling with mouse scrollwheel: most likely Microsoft. IIRC they came with first scroll wheels (brilliant idea), but, alas, did not think hard enough and mapped the wrong directions :)
    – Rimantas
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 19:20
  • 12
    I donno, it was/is really annoying for me. On the iPad, stuff moves with your finger and you're physically touching it, so it this style makes sense. On the Mac, the monitor is actually perpendicular to your trackpad and the whole thing is disorienting and doesn't feel intuitive at all.
    – Tejaswi Yerukalapudi
    Commented Aug 1, 2011 at 2:26
67

Login sheet for WiFi network TOS negotiation

Lion will open a little window immediately upon connection to a WiFi network that requires a webpage to 'agree' to any terms of service (TOS)

This really helps if you have apps that use http in the background like twitter since those programs might "receive" the agreement form and disregard it before we as the users know to open our browser and see the terms. Most routers will give up after sending the first terms causing a broken network connection for many users.

Also, as a bonus, WiFi is now called WiFi instead of AirPort.

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  • 6
    Pedantically, mine's called Wi-Fi, which I find really annoying for some reason.
    – Jodi Warren
    Commented Jul 24, 2011 at 21:28
  • This would have been so helpful about 2 months ago...
    – Jason Salaz
    Commented Jul 25, 2011 at 16:34
  • @Magnakai: Wi-Fi is the correct spelling; the logo is just trying to confuse you. ;)
    – Sophie Alpert
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 23:01
  • 2
    Sadly, the login sheet seems to fail if the Wi-Fi network redirects to a non-validating SSL page. Such "broken" logon pages are unfortunately typical in the enterprise world.
    – Andrew
    Commented Aug 9, 2011 at 7:56
  • Isn't this typically called a captive portal?
    – sudo rm -rf
    Commented Mar 22, 2012 at 2:04
63

Clamshell Mode simplified for external displays

In Lion, if you want to use an external display with a closed notebook (also known as clamshell mode), you can do the following:

  • Attach the external display and power adapter to the notebook.
  • Close the notebook.
  • The external display stays on!

The process is much easier because Lion assumes that closing the notebook doesn't mean "put my Mac to sleep" if you also have an external display attached.

Lion also assumes that opening your notebook means that you want to use its display, so there's no need to manually force display detection.

In Snow Leopard, if you wanted to use an external display with a closed notebook, you'd need to do the following:

  • With the notebook open, attach the external display.
  • Close the notebook. Wait as the Mac goes to sleep, and the external display goes dark.
  • Wake the notebook from sleep (using an external keyboard or mouse) to activate the external display.

If you then opened the notebook so that you could use its display as well, you'd need to force the Mac to detect displays.

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8
  • I don't think this is new. Clamshell has worked for me (exactly as you describe at the top of your post) for years - since Leopard and possibly earlier!
    – dan8394
    Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 18:29
  • Interesting. I've seen the Snow Leopard behavior described above with multiple MacBooks Pro.
    – cobra libre
    Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 22:28
  • I think this has to do with whether or not your power cord is plugged in.
    – jtbandes
    Commented Jul 30, 2011 at 8:12
  • Ah - I always have my power-cord in when working with an external monitor. That probably makes the difference.
    – dan8394
    Commented Jul 30, 2011 at 16:31
  • 2
    Woah. I thought this was a bug in Lion. Because, naturally, when I close the lid of my MBP, I want the secondary display to go off as well. Thanks for sharing.
    – ayaz
    Commented Aug 1, 2011 at 19:42
62

Battery, Time and WiFi shown on Login Screen

The clock, battery charge level/status, and wifi status indicators that are now displayed on the Login Screen; three very useful pieces of information even when you're not yet logged in.

enter image description here

Here's a snippet of the top right portion of an iMac showing WiFi and time (default settings).

If you enable a hidden preference, clicking the time will show in order:

  • The mac's sharing name
  • The version (10.7) and build (11A511) of OS X that is installed
  • The IP address of the mac

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo true

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1
  • 2
    It does have a small bug (I raised a radar on it) that shows the time in 12-hour format even when the computers regional settings indicated 24-hour clock.
    – Damien
    Commented Aug 7, 2011 at 11:17
57

Apps like Preview can quit themselves when not needed

Previously, when you opened something in Preview and you were finished with it, it was left running (in the background).

Now, when you close whatever you're previewing and switch focus to another app, Preview quits. This behavior of saving the work and/or closing the app when the last document is closed is a standard feature in Lion for many apps to use.

I'm a bit anal about keeping not required apps running, so was glad that has been introduced in Lion.

The system will quit apps too if resources are low

This is covered in detail at Lion is a Quitter from TidBITS, but the system will step in and automatically terminate apps which adds to confusion for people that pay attention or are habituated to the old way where users had to intentionally quit apps for them to disappear from the dock and app switcher tab.

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  • 4
    It's not only preview.app, see here: arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/…
    – Agos
    Commented Jul 24, 2011 at 9:55
  • 2
    As Agos is referring to, it only does so when you are low on needed resources and when it is clear you are not using it. For example, with more capable computers, this will not happen so much.
    – John
    Commented Jul 25, 2011 at 7:07
  • 1
    @HandyRandy well, in my case Preview closes no matter how many resources I have available. With 2GB of RAM completely free an unused it still quits the moment I focus on other application.
    – Michal M
    Commented Jul 25, 2011 at 7:14
  • I believe you. It does the same on my dad's Mac Mini; TextEdit too. However I do not see any such termination happening on my own newer Mac Mini with more RAM.
    – John
    Commented Jul 25, 2011 at 7:32
  • 2
    Doesn't close 8GB (MBP 2011).
    – Cedric H.
    Commented Aug 7, 2011 at 9:43
53
+100

Finder merging of folders and files

I must say that the most smile-worthy thing I have come across is the merge folders / keep both feature. I still cringe a little when I even think about dragging a folder named pictures onto another folder named pictures, but once I learn to trust it, I will be more willing to clean up YEARS of old documents scattered in creaky nested folders named "old" "cleanup" "2002" "Documents from old Mac" and such.

It is a little thing, but boy is it fun to feel like I have an intelligent tool to automate what I want to have happen - and not just having one folder overwrite the other as past versions of OS X felt was the best choice.

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  • 9
    That might be the last feature I'll try in Lion. It's certainly well done and works like a charm, but 20 years of muscle memory will still prevent me for a long time from doing what I've always assumed to be a huge, unrecoverable mistake. Guess old habits die hard.
    – Cyrille
    Commented Jul 21, 2011 at 13:12
  • 3
    @Cyrille - oh, it's recoverable alright. You are backing up with Time Machine, are you not? :-D </troll>
    – Harv
    Commented Jul 24, 2011 at 1:42
  • 1
    How is this feature triggered/accessed?
    – finiteloop
    Commented Jul 27, 2011 at 17:42
  • @segfault this feature is automatic but the folders must have unique filenames inside them. If you duplicate a folder and try to copy it onto itself, this feature will not appear (because without unique names, no merge will occur). If there are unique names in each folder, then "Each folder has unique items such as 'Name A' and 'Name B'" will appear as part of the Copy dialog and the Copy dialog will offer a "Keep Both" button that will merge the two folders (obviously: identically named items will be overwritten).
    – Matt Gallagher
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 8:09
  • 1
    Hm... No matter what I do, I cant get this functionality to occur.
    – finiteloop
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 23:05
51

Safari offers to set up Mail, Calendars and Chat

When logging into a Gmail account in Safari for the first time (and if that account hasn't been added to "Mail, Contacts & Calendars" in System Preferences yet), Lion will offer to add that account. Great attention to detail that made me smile.

enter image description here

MobileMe, gmail, yahoo all worked for me so far.

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3
  • I wonder if that's a Lion feature, or Google's feature utilising Lion?
    – Enrico Susatyo
    Commented Jul 22, 2011 at 13:42
  • It's native to Safari (it's not a web overlay or something, it's an actual modal sheet), so I doubt that.
    – René
    Commented Jul 22, 2011 at 14:19
  • It's listed as a new Safari feature in Apple's gigantic Lion feature list: apple.com/macosx/whats-new/features.html#safari
    – Ross Churchley
    Commented Jul 29, 2011 at 23:50
49

Multitouch gesture to activate the dictionary/thesaurus/Wikipedia

A three fingered double tap will highlight the tapped word and then bring up a nice sheet with all the results relevant to the selected word.

enter image description here

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  • 10
    Control + Command + D has always done this.
    – X-Istence
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 21:31
  • It's a nice feature, but the gestures like "three fingered double tap" are so obscure that there's not a chance I'll ever remember them.
    – calum_b
    Commented Oct 7, 2011 at 16:39
  • Really nice, the look has been upgraded too! +1 for the tip and the bonus meta reference
    – Agos
    Commented Dec 12, 2011 at 14:35
  • That gesture and many more are configurable System Preferences -> Trackpad. I've turned that one off as it's too confusing for me. I do like the three finger drag and some of the other more esoteric gestures. They've made a really nice preferences panel, too. Love the animations.
    – Old Pro
    Commented May 28, 2012 at 6:51
47

Drag flocking with multiple selections

Drag flocking:

enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here

The nice animations of collapsing all objects to a neat pile while dragging and then smartly re-exposing the individual components as you hover over a potential destination helps you understand better what will happen if you end the drag with a drop at that point.

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3
  • 2
    I like this so much that I want it to happen sooner with less delay. If anyone knows how to shorten the delay for this transition, let me know!
    – John
    Commented Jul 25, 2011 at 7:04
  • 6
    I don't think I like the sensation of the thing I'm picking up wriggling under my fingers!
    – joerick
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 16:54
  • @HandyRandy agreed, I'd like this if it happened instantly. as it stands it happens about midway through my drags, which disorients me as what I'm dragging is flying all over the places.
    – Gauzy
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 23:36
45

Multi-touch swiping of page history in Safari.

The animation for swiping back and forth through pages in Safari makes me smile every time. It's also a great example of transforming a slightly clunky (IMO) interaction into a useful and delightful one with a slight interface lift.

enter image description here

The animation is smooth and fluid.

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5
  • This has me stuck for a while before I relished that the swipe action is inverted to the 3 finger swipe of SL.
    – Jonathan.
    Commented Jul 24, 2011 at 1:42
  • So far, it's the most successful example of physical analogue in Lion that I've found. I'm using a Magic Mouse, so maybe there are better ones on a Magic Trackpad.
    – Jodi Warren
    Commented Jul 24, 2011 at 15:04
  • 7
    One major "gotcha" is swiping will easily trash whatever comments you have entered into most web pages. Normally, the system warns you before navigating away from a text entry, but this swipe just undoes whatever you have done on most occasions causing you to lose work :-(
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Jul 27, 2011 at 18:34
  • Too bad the image of the old page is saved using JPEG compression. The artifacts make me cringe.
    – Zr40
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 14:52
  • 3
    And an off-guard item: other things in Lion which have back/forward buttons such as the System Preferences or the iTunes store do not work with the two finger back/forward gesture.
    – TessellatingHeckler
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 21:13
44

Show a message when the screen is locked

Set this in the Security system preferences panel and the message shows up at the bottom of the lock screen. Great for setting a "please return to..." message.

Security system preferences screenshot

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2
  • 3
    That is a great use case!
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Aug 1, 2011 at 20:17
  • 6
    You can set this text in Snow Leopard too but you'll have to go into Terminal: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText "This computer belongs to ..."
    – root
    Commented Oct 7, 2011 at 18:09
42

Man page viewer / smart data selectors in Terminal app

I like how right-clicking on any text in Terminal and selecting Open man Page brings up a GUI-fied manpage window. It is far easier to read and navigate the manual while still having the original context in plain view.

enter image description here

The apropos and spotlight menu items are useful as well if the man page doesn't hit the article you hoped.

enter image description here

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4
  • 2
    Since you're at the command line it might also be worth mentioning that immediately after typing a command you can type Command-Option-? to open this window.
    – Samuel Mikel Bowles
    Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 14:36
  • Nice, I hadn't spotted this one.
    – calum_b
    Commented Oct 7, 2011 at 16:40
  • Works also for URLs! Just right-click on one.
    – Carmine Paolino
    Commented May 11, 2014 at 21:31
  • 1
    It needs to be command-control-shift-?.
    – ganbustein
    Commented Dec 28, 2014 at 23:28
39

Safari opens new tabs relative to the current tab

Opening new tab in safari does not go to the rightmost tab, but immediately adjacent to the current tab. Multiple tabs spawning from one page stack up with the next one after the prior - but all as a group before other existing tabs.

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8
  • 1
    So its like Firefox now.
    – GEdgar
    Commented Jul 22, 2011 at 15:25
  • 2
    @GEdgar - Chrome. Chrome did this tab behavior first.
    – Fake Name
    Commented Jul 22, 2011 at 21:40
  • I think firefox did this even before chrome was out in 2009.
    – Enrico Susatyo
    Commented Jul 22, 2011 at 23:43
  • 5
    Most. Awesome. Thing.
    – XQYZ
    Commented Jul 24, 2011 at 0:27
  • 5
    well it's about time.
    – John
    Commented Jul 25, 2011 at 6:53
38

QuickLook in Stacks

You can now press space over any item in a Stack:

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37

Safari download controls and animations

I love the new Safari download controls (menu bar / pop-up dialogue / iPad menu thingy).

enter image description here

It's great to have downloads not be another loose small window cluttering my workspace. Sorting by recency of download is nice as well.

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10
  • I'm not sure if this is Safari 5.1 or Lion, but probably should remain nevertheless.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Jul 25, 2011 at 18:04
  • 1
    It does not work like this in Safari 5.1 on SL.
    – jpc
    Commented Jul 25, 2011 at 22:02
  • 3
    I wish there was a way to assign the old KB shortcut to this without needing to use a script (like this). It's a nice solution, but I'd rather not a separate program just to assign that shortcut.
    – Gauzy
    Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 2:25
  • 1
    Too bad I cannot have the downloads as a separate window that I don't have to click every time. This is a huge letdown for people who use keyboard shortcuts as this is not possible anymore. Costs some time every time I need this. (Apple sadly has removed a lot of keyboard controle in Lion.)
    – MacLemon
    Commented Aug 1, 2011 at 12:26
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    You can also drag from the download list to move the downloaded file in the finder. You can drag to your desktop and the file will move from your downloads folder.
    – ridogi
    Commented Aug 2, 2011 at 21:13
35

Right clicking on dock icon gives a list of recently opened items.

Particularly handy for apps like TextEdit and Pages!

Also: If you activate Application Exposé, via ctrl+down arrow, or hot-corner, it shows the recent items as icons.

If you assign a mouse gesture to App Exposé (via Preferences - Trackpad - More Gestures), you can use it to activate App Exposé for any application in the Dock. Just hover over the app icon with your mouse and do the gesture. The application doesn't need to have the focus.

enter image description here

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  • you can also do a ctrl-down on a focussed app to get the same effect.
    – Vaibhav Bajpai
    Commented Oct 10, 2011 at 15:36
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    Four finger down sweep will also do this if you enable it. This is one of my most commonly used features now.
    – qubyte
    Commented Dec 12, 2011 at 10:07
33

QuickLook runs in the background

I often use QuickLook as a de facto replacement for QuickTime X because they do essentially the same thing (minus trimming and exporting, of course). Now that I can click away from the Finder and the QuickLook window will continue to play, it makes everything so much simpler for me!

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33

The redesigned lock screen

The lock screen is a small, relatively unimportant thing that made me smile. (Quite literally, when I was asked for a photo at the end of set up.) I like the fact that there's that little window that appears over the Andromeda Galaxy wallpaper. It simply feels more polished than the old black screen.

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  • Ah, that would annoy me. I have an unreasonable hatred of wallpaper. Give me a flat gray or black background and I am happy. Is that configurable?
    – Chas. Owens
    Commented Jul 22, 2011 at 16:13
  • @Chas.Owens - Not sure, sorry!
    – Moshe
    Commented Jul 24, 2011 at 1:35
33

Interface buttons are now RoundRects

The rounded "Aqua" buttons of previous OS X versions have now been replaced with RoundRects in the style of Classic Mac OS.

The new buttons and the animated pop-in of the dialog boxes etc. is way better than what it used to be.

enter image description here

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  • Do they actually call them square buttons and not rectangular?
    – GEdgar
    Commented Jul 31, 2011 at 18:47
  • LoL oops...you're right..."rectangular"
    – AJ digitalFocus
    Commented Aug 1, 2011 at 1:39
  • Technically, they were RoundRects before, with corner radius maxed out at half the buttons' height. :)
    – Lanny Heidbreder
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 20:05
32

OS support for full screen apps!

I only have a 13" laptop, and when building iPad apps I never see the whole UI of the iPad in XCode - which is a slight nuisance. Now with XCode supporting fullscreen, that issue is less painful.

Also, Pages & Safari just look beautiful in full screen.

With Pages, if you have a second monitor, it will use that for palettes e.g inspectors, fonts and colours. Not all apps appear to support this yet, but it makes full screen much more sensible on multiple monitors. .

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  • 37
    "Fullscreen" is an absolute nightmare for multi-monitor users. It completely disables any secondary or tertiary monitors. Fullscreening an app currently sends the app to the primary monitor with no option of changing it. One of the biggest workflow fails in Apple history in my humble opinion.
    – Nick Bedford
    Commented Jul 27, 2011 at 22:42
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    Sad to hear that - I love working multi-mon, just haven't yet had a chance with my laptop. Hopefully a future version will address this...
    – Martin S. Stoller
    Commented Jul 28, 2011 at 1:40
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    Yeah this is actually one of those facepalm moments. I don't actually know how they could have wanted this...
    – Nick Bedford
    Commented Jul 28, 2011 at 3:43
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    At least it's possible to see the dock if you drag your mouse over the lower side of the screen and then drag again (weird gesture). If you do that, the dock appears.
    – Martin Marconcini
    Commented Aug 1, 2011 at 17:34
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    Doing anything when you make a window full-screen other than obliterating all secondary monitors is a non-trivial UI problem. For novice users — for whom full screen mode is surely mostly intended — it could quickly get very confusing. Apple doesn't implement features until it fully believes they are ready for prime-time; someday they will figure out (what they think is) the best way to do something useful in this situation.
    – Lanny Heidbreder
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 20:03
30

Mail.app is full of smiles and neat animations

It's gotten a VERY serious overhaul, and feels integral and integrated into the OS itself. For the first time since I started using my gmail account full-time, I'm not using a browser window to get my mail.

Tiny, unexpected, smile-producing behavior?

  • When you hit send, the message you've just composed whooshes up the screen and off into the internet.
  • The concertina effect when quoted text expands
  • animations when moving from grouped message to another (or grouping happens)

These little animations don't help the mail app do it's job, they help us see and visualize what is happening. Altering the age-old phenomenon of sending email isn't something I expected to enjoy, but I love it.

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