Tools Your Mac Already Has


Apple includes a long list of applications with Tiger to help you get started using your Mac. Some of them, such as Preview, Font Book, and DigitalColor Meter, can help you work with the files you use as a designer. Others, like Get Info, Disk Utility, and Activity Monitor, are useful for troubleshooting and maintenance chores. All of them are included with Tiger and are in your Applications folder, or can be accessed by choosing Applications > Utilities. If you find that you spend a lot of time going to your Utilities folder, drag it into a Finder-window sidebar. That way it's only a mouse-click away whenever you need it.

Preview

Preview (Figure 8.1) is an amazingly powerful and flexible yet limited application, compared with Adobe Acrobat. It recognizes and opens documents in a wide range of image formats, as well as PDF. It includes some basic image-editing features, and it can convert images from one format to another. It also launches quickly and tends to open and render images and PDFs fairly quickly. It does not, however, offer the range of editing features you'll find in Acrobat.

Figure 8.1. Apple's Preview is a capable image-viewing application and PDF reader, but its real power for designers is its ability to quickly convert graphics from one format to another.


Image conversion

For many home users, Preview can easily handle their image-viewing, PDF-viewing, and image-editing needs. For professional designers, however, Preview just doesn't have the feature set to meet your requirements. One of its best features for designers, however, is the file-conversion tool. If Preview can open a file, it can convert it to any other format it recognizes. Here's how:

1.

Open the file you want to convert in Preview. Then choose Applications > Preview.

2.

Choose File > Save As.

3.

In the Save As dialog, select the file format you want to convert to from the Format pop-up menu (Figure 8.2).

Figure 8.2. Use the Format pop-up menu in Preview's Save As dialog to convert images to different formats.


Preview recognizes several different formats:

  • BMP

  • JPEG

  • PICT

  • TGA

  • GIF

  • PDF

  • PNG

  • TIFF

  • JPEG-2000

  • Photoshop

  • SGI

For example, let's say your in-house marketing department wants to use a clip-art graphic in a new client proposal, but the graphic is from an old image-collection CD that they found on a back shelf someplace. The image is in PICT format, and they want to drop it into a Word file on their Windows PC. You can open the PICT file and save it as a JPEG for them in under a minute, and then get back to the project you really need to be working on.

Tip

Need to look at several images at once? Drag them all onto the Preview icon at the same time. A new Preview window opens with a drawer on the side showing a thumbnail version of each image. Click a thumbnail to view it, and use the magnifying glass icon in the toolbar at the top of the window to increase or decrease each image's size.


Image editing

Preview includes a basic Image Correction palette (Figure 8.3). You can find it in Preview's menu bar under Tools > Image Correction. Image Correction includes sliders for exposure, gamma, saturation, contrast, brightness, and sharpness. It also includes a sepia slider that lets you create sepia-tone effects, and allows you to set white and black points (Figure 8.4).

Figure 8.3. Preview won't be competing with Photoshop anytime soon, but its Image Correction dialog lets you perform very basic color corrections. Preview can also crop, rotate, and flip images.


Figure 8.4. If you need to demonstrate color changes in an image at a client's office where Photoshop isn't available, Preview's Image Correction palette can help you get by until you get back to your workstation.

© iStockPhoto


You can also rotate, flip, crop, and assign ColorSync profiles from the Tools menu.

Preview vs. Acrobat

Preview is free and included with Tiger. It can open a long list of file formats, handles file conversions, includes basic image-editing tools, and is easy to use. So why not avoid Acrobat and the price tag that Adobe attaches to it? Simple: Preview is not a professional-level image and PDF application.

Preview doesn't use the same PDF rendering engine as Acrobat, so it doesn't render transparency as well. It also doesn't deal with PDF forms very well, can't edit text, isn't compatible with all password-protected PDFs, and doesn't always handle embedded notes and comments correctly. That's not to say that Preview is a bad application. It's great for quick reviews of images and PDFs, and for fast file conversions, and sometimes it opens PDFs that crash Acrobat and Adobe Reader.

Use Preview as an internal tooljust don't let clients see files with transparency effects in them. You are likely to see the telltale white grid lines that let you know your transparency effects didn't render correctly.


Get Info

If you want to know when a file was made or modified, or where it lives on your hard drive, or you want to add your own searchable notes, the Get Info window is the place to go. The quickest way to view information about a file, folder, or application is to click the item's icon once, and then press Command-I to open the Get Info window (Figure 8.5).

Figure 8.5. A Get Info window is like a central repository of information about a file or folder. You can see when a file was created and modified, where it is on your hard drive, and more.


From here, you can see the exact size of a file or folder, which is useful if you need to know how much space your project files will fill up on a CD or DVD, and how large a file is before e-mailing it to a client.

Be sure to check out the additional Get Info features online to see how you can use Get Info to help keep track of files, choose a different application to open specific file formats, and more.

Visit the companion Web site for additional information about Get Info.

Font Book

Understanding that a high percentage of Mac users are professional designers, Apple developed its own font-management application, called Font Book. Font Book performs some of the functions we've come to expect from a proper font-management application, but not quite everything.

It can open and close TrueType, PostScript, and OpenType fonts, and it lets you create font sets so that you can organize your vast font collection. It does not, however, auto-activate fonts. Other font-management applications, such as Suitcase Fusion, from Extensis, and Insider Software's FontAgent Pro, can reference the fonts you want to use without moving them. If you are in the market for a font-management application, or you aren't quite sure what that means, refer back to Chapter 2, "Fonts," for some help.

If you are a professional designer, you need professional tools, and Apple's Font Book just isn't one.

Dashboard and Widgets

Tiger includes an interesting feature called Dashboard that temporarily slides an alternate interface over your Desktop (Figure 8.6). In the Dashboard interface, you can run mini-applications called widgets. A widget is little more than a small part of an application that can't run outside of the Dashboard environment. Widgets typically handle one small task, saving you from having to launch a full application to look up some piece of information, like a client's phone number so that you don't have to launch Address Book. Some locate information on your hard drive; others hunt down information on the Internet.

Figure 8.6. Dashboard overlays an alternative workspace on top of the Finder. From here, you can run mini-applications called widgets that find information for you, track shipping information, and more.


The concept is that instead of running a bunch of different applications to keep track of client information, view your schedule, and hunt for images on the iStockphoto Web site, why not have a single application with little plug-in modules that each handle a single task? That's what Dashboard does.

Tiger includes widgets that look up names and phone numbers from Address Book, a weather checker, a calculator, and more. But the real power in Dashboard comes from third-party widgets. There are thousands of widgets available that do everything from follow the daily news to upload files to FTP sites for you.

Tip

You'll never find the widgets you need if you don't know where to look. Apple maintains a database with thousands of widgets at www.apple.com/downloads/ dashboard.


To activate Dashboard, press the F12 key on your keyboard. All of your active widgets will appear on top of your Desktop. To leave Dashboard, either click outside of a widget or press the F12 key again. Your widgets will all disappear, and your regular Desktop workspace will return.

Launching and quitting widgets

To launch a widget, Dashboard needs to be active.

1.

Press F12 to launch Dashboard.

2.

Click the plus (+) icon in the lower left corner of your display to open the widget drawer.

3.

If you don't see the widget you want to launch, use the arrows at either end of the drawer to scroll through your installed widgets.

4.

Click the widget you want to open.

5.

Click the plus icon again to close the widget drawer.

You can move and arrange widgets by dragging them, and if you have multiple displays connected to your Mac, you can use all of them to display your open widgets.

Tip

If F12 is a key you use regularly in any of your applications, you probably don't want Dashboard taking over your Desktop everytime you press it. You can reassign or disable Finder keyboard commands to avoid conflicts. Check out Chapter 1, "The Tiger Finder," to see how.


Most widgets have preference settings you can modify. As you roll your pointer over the corners of a widget, look for a lowercase italic letter i (Figure 8.7). Click it to reveal the widget settings. Apple's specifications call for the information and settings icon to be in the lower right corner of a widget, but that's not always where it ends up.

Figure 8.7. Click the lowercase i in the widget's lower right corner to access its settings. Some widgets don't conform to Apple's standards, so you may have to try the other corners, too.


Some of My Favorite Widgets

The design world is full of fantastic little widgets to make your job easier. Here are a few of my favorites, and they are all free:

  • CharacterPal (www.tacowidgets.com/widgets/characterpal). There are far too many special characters to remember, and keeping track of every keyboard combination to type them is nuts. CharacterPal gives you a grid showing symbols such as Greek characters, the trademark symbol, and mathematic symbols. Just pause your pointer over a symbol to see the keyboard combination required to create it.

  • ColorBurn (www.firewheeldesign.com/widgets). This widget displays a new palette with four colors each day. I think of it as a "what if" tool that shows you color combinations you might not have considered before. The odds of today's project needing the colors you see aren't that great, but down the road that combination will be right for some other job. It's a nice creativity enhancer.

  • iClip lite (http://inventive.us/iCliplite). Copy and paste is great for moving content around in your documents, but what happens when you want to have several things in your clipboard at once? iClip lite can store several different clipboards at the same time, letting you keep several images, text clippings, or URLs, or anything else you can copy and paste, stored away for use. It even remembers each clipboard's contents if your Mac is restarted.

  • iStockDash (www.istockphoto.com/downloads.php). IStockphoto has a huge library of royalty-free images you can purchase at surprisingly low prices for your client projects. iStockDash gives you an easy way to search for the images you need in a compact window, and it remembers your most recent searches.

  • Package Tracker (www.monkeybusinesslabs.com/software-packagetracker.html). If you ever use FedEx or UPS to ship proofs or contracts to a client overnight, you understand the frustration of not knowing exactly where your package is. Package Tracker can find the current location of any package shipped via FedEx, UPS, or DHL.

  • Type Cast (www.code-line.com/typecast). Deciding which typeface to use for your next project can be tedious if your client says, "Just use whatever." Type Cast lets you preview different typefaces at varying sizes, and you can switch between black on white and white on black. It has cut down my font-perusing time dramatically.


If you don't need a widget open anymore, hold down the Option key while you move your mouse. As the pointer crosses over a widget, an X in a black circle will appear in its upper left corner (Figure 8.8). Click the X to close the widget.

Figure 8.8. Hold down the Option key while mousing over a widget to display its close button. The close button is always in the widget's upper left corner.


DigitalColor Meter

Most design applications include some type of eyedropper tool for sampling color from different objects, but there are times when you need to sample colors outside of Photoshop or InDesign. That's where DigitalColor Meter comes in (Figure 8.9). This utility shows you the average color value around your mouse pointer in several RGB formats, CIE, and Tristimulus. If you aren't familiar with the various color formats DigitalColor Meter uses, take a look at Chapter 5, "Color Management."

Figure 8.9. DigitalColor Meter shows the RGB or CIE values for the color under your mouse pointer but doesn't have any way of exporting the color values.


To access DigitalColor Meter, choose Applications > Utilities.

DigitalColor Meter is a pretty simple tool. You can use the pop-up menu to choose which color values you want to display. The Aperture Size slider lets you increase or decrease the color-sample area. You can't copy the color values out for use in another application, so you will have to either remember them or write them down.

This isn't a tool you will use every day, but it is handy when you need to find the RGB values for a color on a Web page or in a Finder window.

Disk Utility

Disk Utility is a kind of multitool application that handles routine disk maintenance as well as reformatting, and shows you some statistics about your drives. The left side of the window shows all of the connected drives, including internal, FireWire, and USB hard drives, USB flash drives, iPods, and disk image files on your Desktop. The bottom of the window shows the format for the selected drive, how many files and folders are on it, the storage capacity of the drive, and how much space is being used. The right side of the window holds the controls for repairing, erasing, and creating disk images (Figure 8.10).

Figure 8.10. Disk Utility is the first place to go when it's time for disk maintenance, erasing hard drives, and creating or restoring disk images.


Let's take a look at each of the panes.

First Aid

The features in the First Aid pane let you repair disk permissions and directory damage. Repairing permissions is covered in Chapter 9, "System Maintenance," so we'll focus on repairing disks here.

If your Mac has either crashed or been turned off without going through a regular shutdown, you should repair your startup drive. Tiger will attempt to do this for you when your Mac starts back up, but sometimes you need to run the repair utility yourself. If your office had a blackout and your Mac shut off unexpectedly, it may not start up properly. First get the installer CD or DVD that shipped with your Mac and place it in the optical drive, because that's where you'll boot from.

If you have a slot-loading Mac:

1.

Turn on your Mac.

2.

Immediately slide the CD or DVD into the CD slot.

3.

Hold down the C key to boot from the CD or DVD.

If you have a tray-loading Mac:

1.

Turn on your Mac.

2.

Hold down the mouse button until the drive tray opens.

3.

Put the CD or DVD into the tray, and then give it a gentle nudge to close it.

4.

Hold down the power button until your Mac shuts off.

5.

Turn your Mac back on.

6.

As soon as you hear the startup chime, hold down the C key to boot from the CD or DVD.

Once you see the blue startup screen, go ahead and release the C key. Your Mac will show you the Mac OS X Installer window after the boot process finishes. Here's what to do next:

1.

Choose Installer > Disk Utility from the menu bar.

2.

Select your hard drive's name from the drive list on the left.

3.

Click the Repair Disk button.

4.

If Disk Utility finds and repairs problems, click the Repair Disk button again because sometimes fixing one problem uncovers another.

5.

Quit Disk Utility.

6.

Quit the Mac OS X Installer.

7.

Click the Restart button.

If your Mac still doesn't boot to the Desktop or Login window, it's time to jump to Chapter 9 and try DiskWarrior or Drive Genius. If your Mac still doesn't start up correctly, it's time to call your IT department or favorite Mac consultant.

Tip

In a manner of speaking, your drive shows up twice in Disk Utility's drive list. The first is the physical description of your drive. Below and indented is the name of your drive. Always choose the indented drive name when you repair permissions or repair your drive.


Erase

In the Erase pane, you can delete all of the files and folders from a disk, or reformat it. If you use an extra hard drive as a scratch disk for Photoshop, erasing the drive will clear space for scratch files without altering the disk's format. Here's how:

1.

From the drive list on the left, select the name of the hard drive you want to erase.

2.

Click the Erase tab.

3.

Click the Erase button.

4.

In the Erase Disk confirmation pane, click the Erase button to delete everything from the disk (Figure 8.11), or click the Cancel button to leave the disk unchanged.

Figure 8.11. Disk Utility gives you one chance to change your mind before erasing a disk. Click Cancel to leave your drive unchanged, or click Erase to erase its contents.


You can also change the format of a disk in the Erase pane. Let's say you have a FireWire hard drive you use to store extra files, and you need to use it to move files to a Windows PC. Odds are the drive is formatted for your Mac, so the Windows machine won't be able to read anything off of it.

Before you change the drive's format, back up any files you don't want to lose. Everything will be deleted from the drive. Once your files are backed up, do the following:

1.

From the drive list on the left, select the description of the hard drive you want to reformat. That's the nonindented version of your drive in the drive list.

2.

Click the Erase tab.

3.

Choose MS-DOS File System from the Volume Format pop-up menu.

4.

Click the Erase button.

5.

Click the Erase button in the Erase Disk confirmation pane to delete everything from the disk, or click the Cancel button to leave the disk unchanged.

Erasing or reformatting a disk is a one-way path. Unless you plan on reinstalling your operating system and applications, don't do this to your startup drive. You will lose all of your applications and documents.

Tip

If you buy an external hard drive at your local electronics store, like Best Buy, Fry's, or CompUSA, it's probably formatted for Windows. Even though your Mac can use the drive as is, change its format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) if you don't plan on sharing it with a Windows PC. Sometimes, files get corrupted and become unusable if you copy them to a Windows-formatted drive.


RAID

A RAID is a series of disks that work together as if they are one giant drive. Some RAIDS also duplicate your data as a part of a backup strategy. If you think you are ready for a RAID, call your IT department or Mac consultant. Even though Tiger makes it simple to create a RAID of your own, there are a lot of factors that go into creating one that's fast, efficient, and reliable. You'll need someone to help you set yours up correctly.

Restore

You can create an image of your hard drive, complete with Tiger and all of your applications, in the Restore pane (Figure 8.12). This is a fairly painless way to create a snapshot of your Mac after everything is set up exactly the way you like.

Figure 8.12. Disk Utility's Restore pane lets you back up your hard drive to one big file. If catastrophe strikes, you can use that file to restore your Mac back to working condition.


Making an image of your hard drive

Before you get started, make sure you have an extra hard drive that's big enough to hold everything on your Mac. If you have a 120 GB hard drive built in, consider getting a 160 GB or larger FireWire drive to hold your image.

1.

Launch Disk Utility (choose Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility).

2.

Select the name of your drive in the drive list.

3.

Choose File > New > Disk Image from (Macintosh HD). If you have renamed your hard drive, the menu will show your drive's current name instead. For example, on my PowerBook, that would look like File > New > Disk Image from (digi-book).

4.

In the Convert Image dialog, enter a descriptive name for your disk image in the Save As field.

5.

Browse to your FireWire drive that will store your image.

6.

Choose "read-only" from the Image Format pop-up menu.

7.

Unless you want to require a password when you need to restore your image, leave the Encryption pop-up menu set to "none."

8.

Click the Save button.

9.

After Disk Utility finishes creating your disk image, select it in the drive list.

10.

Choose Images > Scan Image for Restore.

Keep your drive's disk image safe, because if you need it, you are probably in a high-stress situation and trying to get your Mac back in working order so that you can meet client deadlines.

Restoring an image of your hard drive

If your hard drive physically fails, or if somehow Tiger, your applications, your files, and your e-mail are damaged to the point that you need to start over, it's time to grab the disk image you've been guarding so closely. These steps assume that you have a new, blank hard drive in your Mac, or that you are OK wiping your drive clean and starting over. I'm also assuming that you have your client files, e-mail, and other important files backed up elsewhere, like on CDs or an external hard drive. If you don't have a full backup strategy in place, take a look at Chapter 9.

1.

We need two Macs for this to work: The first Mac is the one that you want to restore your hard-drive image to; we'll call this the destination Mac. The second Mac will manage the restoration of your image file to the destination Mac; we'll call this one the restoration Mac. It needs to have Tiger installed already.

2.

Make sure the restoration Mac is turned on.

3.

Power on the destination Mac, and hold down the T key when you hear the startup chime to launch Target Disk Mode. You should see a blue screen with an orange FireWire symbol bouncing around.

4.

Connect the hard drive with your disk image on it to the restoration Mac with a FireWire cable.

5.

Connect the destination Mac to the restoration Mac with a FireWire cable. The destination Mac will show up on the restoration Mac's Desktop just like any other FireWire hard drive (Figure 8.13).

Figure 8.13. Holding down the T key while your Mac starts up turns it into a FireWire hard drive. Connect it to another Mac, and you have access to all of its files.


6.

Launch Disk Utility on the restoration Mac.

7.

Click the Restore tab.

8.

Drag the disk image of your original drive into the Source field (Figure 8.14).

Figure 8.14. Add your hard-drive disk-image file to the Source field, and the hard drive to which you want to restore your Mac to the Destination field. Restoring from your image file sets up the hard drive exactly as it was when you originally created the image.


Tip

If you are in charge of maintaining several similar Macs, you can use a disk image as a standard installation setup for your workstations.

9.

Drag the drive icon from your destination Mac into the Destination field.

10.

Check the Erase Destination box.

11.

Click the Restore button.

After the process finishes, you can eject your Mac's hard drive and the drive that holds your disk image from the restoration Mac's Desktop. Hold down the power button on your Mac until it shuts off, and then press it again to start up the Mac again. Your Mac should boot to your Desktop or Login window.

Once your Mac is up and running again, you need to run Software Update to make sure that your Mac has all of the latest updates installed, and you need to restore the most recent versions of your client files, e-mail, and other data from your backups.

Grab

Mac OS X includes a basic screen-capture function via the Command-Shift-3 keyboard shortcut, which takes a picture of your entire Desktop. With the Grab application, you have far more control over your screenshots (Figure 8.15). You can take screenshots of your entire Desktop, an individual window, or a section of your screen, or a time-delayed capture of your screen. You can access Grab by choosing Applications > Utilities > Grab.

Figure 8.15. Grab gives you more control over creating screenshots than the Command-Shift-3 keyboard shortcut. You can find it in Applications > Utilities > Grab.


A screenshot is just a snapshot graphic that shows what your Desktop, or a section of it, looks like. If you are designing a flyer or other promotional piece for a client, and they want a picture of their Web site in a browser, a screenshot is the way to do that.

To take a screenshot of your Desktop with Grab, do this:

1.

Launch Grab.

2.

Choose Capture > Screen.

3.

An instruction dialog opens, telling you to click anyplace on your Desktop to take the picture.

4.

Your screenshot image opens in a new window. To save it, choose File > Save.

If you want to take a screenshot of a section, or just a window, choose one of those options from the Capture menu instead. The Timed Screen option gives you a 10-second countdown before taking the screenshot. This is handy if you want to create a picture of your Desktop with a specific menu open, since you can start the screenshot countdown, open your menu, and then wait for Grab to take the picture.

Grab saves images in TIFF format.

Tip

If you take screenshots all the time, consider investing in Snapz Pro X, from Ambrosia Software (www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzpro). It lets you compose your screenshots, choose the file format they are saved in, apply special effects, and even create movies of your actions. Snapz Pro X costs $29, or $69 if you want the movie option.


Activity Monitor

Activity Monitor is useful when your Mac suddenly gets painfully slow and the fans kick on (Figure 8.16). It's then that you know something is using every bit of horsepower your Mac has, and if you know which application is sapping your Mac's speed, it's easier to figure out if the application is causing the problem, or if you are processing a file that is pushing your Mac to its limits. Activity Monitor will show you which application is using more than its fair share of your Mac, and it lets you force-quit applications that stop responding. You can access Application Monitor by choosing Applications > Utilities > Application Monitor.

Figure 8.16. Activity Monitor gives you a glimpse under your Mac's hood. You can see a list of every application that is active, how much of your processor each application is using, how much of your Mac's memory is being used, and more.


I set up Activity Monitor so that I can watch for applications and widgets that are hogging my Mac's processor. Here's how:

1.

Launch Activity Monitor.

2.

Click the % CPU column heading.

3.

If you have never used Activity Monitor before, the list shows lower numbers at the top of the list and higher numbers at the bottom. Click the CPU column heading again to sort from highest to lowest.

Now I have a dynamic list of every application that's running, and the ones that are using the highest percentage of my PowerBook's processor are at the top of the list. If any application starts running out of control and takes all of my processor, I can tell which one it is, and if it stops responding, I can select it and then click the Quit Process button to shut it down.

The bottom of the Activity Monitor window has five tabs: CPU, System Memory, Disk Activity, Disk Usage, and Network:

  • CPU. The CPU pane shows the percentage of your processor, or processors if your Mac has more than one, currently in use (Figure 8.17). It shows the percentages as numbers and as a graph. Green indicates applications that you are running, red is for system-related applications and tasks, blue indicates the amount of your processor the two are cooperating to share, and black indicates the unused, or idle, part of your processor.

    Figure 8.17. Activity Monitor's CPU pane shows the current status of your Mac's processor. The harder it is working, the higher the graph spikes.

    It's normal to see spikes in processor usage. It's a problem when the usage spikes and doesn't drop back off. That means an application is using all of your processor and may have crashed.

  • System Memory. In this pane, blue is good. The System Memory pane shows how much of your Mac's memory is currently being used (Figure 8.18). If there is little or no blue, or inactive memory, you probably need to buy some more RAM. Depending on which model Mac you buy, it ships standard with either 512 MB or 1 GB of RAM. A design workstation needs a minimum of 1 GB of memory, and more is better.

    Figure 8.18. The System Memory pane shows how much of your Mac's RAM is being used. If your Mac always runs slow, and you don't see much blue in the pie chart, you probably need to add more RAM.

    Add the Wired (red) and Active (yellow) numbers together to show how much of your Mac's RAM you are using.

    Tip

    Tiger supplements the physical RAM in your Mac with virtual memory. Virtual memory works by temporarily storing some of the data that is currently in RAM to your hard drive. You should try to keep 20 percent of your drive space open so that virtual memory can work properly, If you have less than 20 percent available, virtual memory will slow down, and your Mac will slow down, too.


  • Disk Activity. This tab shows how much data is being written to or read from your hard drive, and how fast it's happening (Figure 8.19). Red indicates data written, green indicates data read. This is one place your IT department or Mac consultant may check when they are troubleshooting a Mac that is performing poorly. They can check the specifications for your drive and compare the numbers to the information that Activity Monitor is providing. If the numbers are way off, that can help determine if there is a problem with your hard drive.

    Figure 8.19. The Disk Activity pane shows how much data is being read from or written to your hard drive. A faster drive can handle the data more efficiently than a slower drive.

    Tip

    An iBook, PowerBook G4, or MacBook Pro can hold up to 2 GB of RAM, and you should have at least 1.5 GB installed, but 2 GB is better. A Power Mac G5 can hold up to 16 GB of RAM, and you should have at least 2 GB installed.


  • Disk Usage. In this tab, green is good. Disk Usage shows how much of your hard drive is filled with data (Figure 8.20). The bigger the green area, the less space is being used. Lots of blue means it's time to start clearing the old jobs off of your drive. A drive that's nearly full will impact your Mac's performance.

    Figure 8.20. The Disk Usage pane shows just how much space your files and folders are taking up. A large wedge of green means you have lots of space available.

  • Network. This is another pane that's useful for your IT department or Mac consultant (Figure 8.21). If your network seems uncharacteristically slow, they can check here to see if your Mac is sending or receiving a substantially larger amount of data than other computers on your network. A large amount of data passing through doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem with your Mac, but it can help to track down the source of performance issues.

    Figure 8.21. The Network pane shows how much information your Mac is sending or receiving through your network. Turning file sharing off will improve your Mac's network performance, which means that file copies and print jobs will move faster for you.

Built-in File Compression

Tiger can create Zip archives of your files and folders so that they take up less space on your hard drive and take less time to e-mail to your clients. Although there are several other compression formats, including Allume's StuffIt, I have found that most Windows users aren't aware of them. If you are looking for the highest likelihood of cross-platform compatibility with your compressed files, stick with the Zip format. If you want to learn more about file compression and archiving files, turn to Chapter 1, "The Tiger Finder."

To compress a file or folder using Tiger's built-in Zip compression, do this:

1.

Control-click the file or folder you want to compress.

2.

Choose "Create Archive of" from the contextual menu.

The compressed version of your file or folder will be saved in the same place as the original, and will include .zip at the end of the archive filename.

Automating Workflows

Some of the tasks you do as a designer are hopelessly repetitive. A few are quick, such as compressing and e-mailing a file to a client, but some take substantially longer, such as preparing a folder full of digital images for the Web. On tasks that can be automated through tools like AppleScript, Automator, and Photoshop actions, you can save yourself lots of time.

Tip

Although AppleScript is designed to let people like us write our own scripts and mini-applications, it can be difficult at times to figure out. If you are interested in learning more from the best of the best, check out the upcoming AppleScript 1-2-3, by Sal Soghoian (New Riders, 2006). Sal is the AppleScript product manager for Apple, and he knows more than almost anyone else about the language.


AppleScript

AppleScript is a language designed to give mere mortals the power to automate their Macs and manipulate the information inside documents. Some people compare it to the kind of macro language that Microsoft Word and Excel use to manipulate data, but it's far more than that. AppleScript works along with Tiger to let you automate activities at the system level as well as at the application level and across multiple applications.

For you to get the most out of AppleScript, developers need to include AppleScript support in their applications. If they don't, you probably won't be able to do much more than write a script that prints a document or saves a file.

Apple includes a utility for writing your own AppleScripts, called Script Editor (Figure 8.22). You can find it by choosing Applications > AppleScript > Script Editor. You can use Script Editor to write scripts, run them, and check to see if an application is scriptable. Scriptable applications include an AppleScript Dictionary, which explains every command the application recognizes, as well as how to use those commands.

Figure 8.22. Script Editor is included with every Mac so that you can write your own AppleScripts. AppleScript can help automate the process of creating complex documents, such as catalogs, in InDesign or QuarkXPress.


Here's how to see what level of AppleScript support an application includes:

1.

Launch Script Editor by choosing Applications > AppleScript > Script Editor.

2.

Choose File > Open Dictionary.

3.

Choose the application you want to check from the application list.

4.

If Script Editor's Dictionary window only shows the Required Suite, the application isn't very AppleScript aware, and you won't have much control over what you can automate. Applications with several suites are far more scriptable (Figure 8.23).

Figure 8.23. InDesign and QuarkXPress include a long list of AppleScript commands so that you can automate nearly anything the applications are capable of doing. This is the AppleScript Dictionary for QuarkXPress 7.


Folder Actions

Instead of showing you how to build several scripts, let's take a look at a script that's included with Tiger and works great as a Folder Action. A Folder Action is a script that is linked to a folder in the Finder. When something in the folder changes, such as the addition of a document, the script automatically runs.

Why AppleScript Is Worth Learning

As if you need another project to work on, AppleScript really is worth exploring. If you are responsible for creating a catalog that changes every few days or weeks, you can turn a project that otherwise would take days of your time into a task that takes hours or even less time.

Let's say you lay out a flower seed catalog that gets updated every six weeks to reflect seasonal buying patterns. The catalog includes product descriptions, images, and prices, and that information is stored in a FileMaker Pro database. You can build an AppleScript that takes the database records you choose and places the information in an InDesign template file for you.

All you have to do is select the appropriate FileMaker Pro records, launch the AppleScript, and go to lunch. When you come back, your catalog is fully laid out and ready for proofing.


If you prepare graphics for Web pages, at some point you probably end up with a bunch of images that need to be converted to JPEG format. Let's set up a folder that automatically handles the image conversion for you.

1.

Create a new folder on your Desktop, and give it a descriptive name. I called mine Convert to JPEG.

2.

Control-click the folder, and choose Attach Folder Action from the contextual menu.

3.

Choose the Folder Action Scripts folder.

4.

Choose Image - Duplicate as JPEG.scpt (Figure 8.24).

Figure 8.24. Tiger includes several premade AppleScripts for you to use, including some that let you change images from one format to another, rotate images, and check to see if something has been added to a folder.


5.

Click the Choose button.

Tip

Tiger includes several premade scripts for you to experiment with. The Folder Action Scripts folder includes several scripts for image manipulation, as well as a script that lets you know if something has been added to a folder.


Using your folder to convert images into JPEG files is easy: Just drag the images onto the folder. Each image is duplicated as a JPEG and placed in a new folder called JPEG Images inside your original folder.

Tip

Selecting an application in the Library column filters the Action column to show only the actions that are related to the application you selected.


Automator

Automator lets you build automated actions, called workflows, through a drag-and-drop interface (Figure 8.25). The nice thing about building scripts, or workflows, with Automator is that you don't need to learn a scripting language, such as AppleScript, first. You can find Automator by choosing Applications > Automator.

Figure 8.25. Automator helps you build scripts called workflows without requiring you to become a programmer.


Automator's window is divided into sections. The Library column shows all of the Automator-aware applications on your Mac. The Action column shows all of the available Automator Actions. Below both columns is a tip window. To the right of the columns is your workflow layout space.

Fine-Tuning the E-mail Workflow

The Email File Automator workflow is easy to customize for your needs. The Create Archive and New Mail Message actions include fields letting you add more information that Automator will use when your workflow runs. The default name for your Zip file, for example, is archive. You can change that in the Create Archive Action.

The New Mail Message Action includes everything you need to set up a preaddressed message, including To, CC, and BCC fields, as well as Subject and Message fields. If you have more than one e-mail account, you can choose which one the workflow uses from the Account pop-up menu.

Automator workflows are fairly simple to create and modify, and they can save an amazing amount of time by performing repetitive tasks for you. There's also more than one way to set up a workflow, so feel free to experiment and build something that does exactly what you need.


Since you probably have to e-mail files to clients and other designers on a regular basis, let's build an Automator workflow that compresses a file or folder using the Zip format, launches Apple's Mail application, creates a new message, and attaches your archive to it.

1.

Launch Automator by choosing Applications > Automator.

2.

Select Finder in the Library column to weed out the actions you won't be using.

3.

Drag the Get Selected Finder Items Action from the Action column into the workflow layout space.

4.

Drag the Create Archive Action so that it sits below the Get Selected Finder Items Action in the workflow layout space.

5.

Select Mail in the Library column. The rest of the actions you need will show up in the Actions column.

6.

Drag the New Mail Message Action below the Create Archive Action.

7.

Drag the Add Attachments to Front Message Action below the New Mail Message Action.

8.

Choose File > Save as Plug-in.

9.

Give your workflow an appropriate name, like E-mail File.

10.

Choose Finder from the "Plug-in for" pop-up menu.

11.

Click the Save button.

Here's how to use your new Automator workflow:

1.

Click a file or folder to select it.

2.

Control-click to open the contextual menu.

3.

Choose Automator > email file (Figure 8.26). If you named your workflow something different, choose that name instead.

Figure 8.26. Automator workflows that you save as plug-ins show up in the Automator contextual menu.


Your workflow will automatically compress your selection in Zip format, create a new e-mail message in Mail, and attach your compressed file to it. Enter the e-mail address you want to send the file to, add a subject, and click Send. That's it.

Photoshop Actions

Unlike the other workflow automation tools we've looked at that let you control your Mac at the system level and across applications, Photoshop Actions work only in Photoshop. If you spend time doing the same thing over and over in Photoshop, such as resizing and changing the color space on images, you can build an action that does that for you, saving you time and improving your efficiency. For more about Photoshop Actions, see the sidebar "Photoshop Actions vs. Automator."

Photoshop Actions vs. Automator

Photoshop includes its own built-in scripting tool, called Actions. Tiger includes Automator. Both give you an easy way to automate repetitive tasks. Which one is better? The answer is neitherboth are valuable when used correctly.

  • Photoshop Actions. Photoshop Actions are essentially recorded scripts of the tasks you do in a Photoshop document. One project I work on, for example, requires that I take a screenshot of an iTunes window, scale it, and apply a drop shadow. I built a Photoshop Action that edits my screenshot in seconds instead of the 2 or 3 minutes I usually spend. Seconds versus minutes may not sound like a big deal, but that time adds up over the week or month.

    Photoshop Actions are easy to create, too. Make sure the Actions palette is visible (Figure 8.27). If it isn't, choose Window > Actions in Photoshop. Here's how to create an action to record your image edits:

     

    1.

    Click the Create New Action button at the bottom of the Actions palette.

    2.

    Click the round Record button.

    3.

    When you are finished, click the square Stop Recording button.

    4.

    Name your action.

    Figure 8.27. Photoshop Actions automate the tedious tasks you perform over and over on your images, just as Automator handles repetitive tasks outside of Photoshop. Taking a few minutes to build a Photoshop Action can save you hours of time.

    To use your action, select it in the Actions palette and then click the Play button.

  • Automator. Automator is best suited for automating the exchange of information between documents, much as AppleScript is. Since Photoshop isn't Automator aware, you can't easily use it to control Photoshop.

Use Photoshop Actions to automate repetitive workflows in Photoshop, and use Automator to automate workflows outside of Photoshop.





Designer's Guide to Mac OS X Tiger
Designers Guide to Mac OS X Tiger
ISBN: 032141246X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 107
Authors: Jeff Gamet

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