New switcher... questions...

[pdpardue]

So okay, I have a few questions, maybe thought the community could answer some of them...

1. with ical, is there a way for it to display something other then jul 17th without me opening it?
2. Or, is there a way to add the date to the menu bar (right now it is just the day and time)?
3. forgive me if this is dumb, but comming from win xp, there was the "thumbnail" view that would load an image of the graphic. Is there a way to force the finder to do the same? Some files (when saved) create the icon, but there is a crap load of others that I have that don't have any icon other then the standard preview icon.

The last piece of information is that I am running 10.3.9... Would tiger address this, and if so, is there anything I can do untill i get tiger?

thanks

 

[buryyourbrideau]

im pretty sure its a no to all of your questions.

 

[eva01]

for question 3. I know the photoshop makes images into thumbnail. also if you press "command + i" on an image it shows a preview (at least for me on tiger it does)

 

[buryyourbrideau]

for question 3. I know the photoshop makes images into thumbnail. also if you press "command + i" on an image it shows a preview (at least for me on tiger it does)

yea but that brings up the info window, you cant just surf through the finder and look at thumbnails of the image. i am using 10.4

 

[link92]

For question 3, try using Pic2Icon: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13226

 

[Applespider]

Answer 1 is no tho you could launch it at startup and then you'd never notice it being July 17 except on July 17

Answer 2 is no but if you click on the time, it will show you the date. In Tiger there are various Dashboard widgets that act as a calendar and display today's date. If you have a look around Versiontracker there might be something that works in 10.3 to add the date somewhere obvious for you

Answer 3 - I've always found the column of thumbnails too small to be much good. When you come to a folder of images that you want to browse, click on icon view (the 4 boxes in a square) on the Finder, and OS X will generate thumbnails for you to look at. Again, if you update to Tiger, then you have the option to select a group of images and view them as a slideshow which also has the option to display them all on one screen.

 

[Sogo]

I recently leared that you can press apple-J and you will get a little window where you get the optoin to show icon preview. Its basiclly the thumbnail view. Oh and you can make the icons bigger, so you can actually see what the pictures are.

 

[yellow]

Actually, the answer to # 2 is YES.

This hint is for Panther, I don't know if it'll still work in Tiger, but it's something to build on. Add the date to your menubar clock
Please make a backup copy of .GlobalPreferences, just in case.

If doing this worries or scares you, no problem. There are also some 3rd party apps that you can use to replace the clock in the menubar. I use iClock, but there are others. CalendarClock, for instance.

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

What do you mean by your last "question?"

If you upgrade to Tiger, yes, it will address this, because, well, it's 10.4!

 

[mkrishnan]

Answer 3 - I've always found the column of thumbnails too small to be much good. When you come to a folder of images that you want to browse, click on icon view (the 4 boxes in a square) on the Finder, and OS X will generate thumbnails for you to look at. Again, if you update to Tiger, then you have the option to select a group of images and view them as a slideshow which also has the option to display them all on one screen.

Just to add to this, first, you may need to select view options once you change to icon view, and then turn on the "show icon preview."

Also, you can set different icon sizes for different windows. I recommend setting the icon size of your Pictures folder to be the max possible (128x128), which will give you pretty good thumbnails. Unfortunately, I don't know an easy way to make this change cascade not to all finder windows, but only to all the subfolders. So if you want to go through iPhoto subfolders, you have to manually change them. Although, I think folders might inherit parent details by default, so that if you change the root iPhoto folder, it will also affect new iPhoto folders as it creates them for new updates.

 

[rugonnaeatthat]

RE question 3

Maybe you are not giving the finder enough time to make the thumbnails. If for example you open a folder with 200+ tiff scans and scroll right down to the bottom, you'll have a preview icon until the computer catches up to you. You'll find one by one the files at the top are having a thumbnail icon created for them - I think this will happen to all files where a thumbnail is not embedded.

Anyways, when I'm searching through images I either select them all and drag them to preview - try this if you haven't, or I use the column view in the finder and scroll over them one by one. Each case is much better than the XP solution.

On a more personal note - I switched over about 2yrs ago now and initially found some things annoying and easier to do on my old PC. You get used to your old system and ways of working, but rest assured this feeling disappears as you begin to know your system better. And soon you wont be able to sit in front of a PC without telling someone how bad it is! I started with a mere emac and have just bought my second mac two days ago in the form of an imac. My girlfriend (also a switcher) is extremely happy with her ibook which she bought having used my emac. I guess what I'm trying to say is, expect frustration but it will be worth it in the end.

 

[mduser63]

RE question 3
I switched over about 2yrs ago now and initially found some things annoying and easier to do on my old PC. You get used to your old system and ways of working, but rest assured this feeling disappears as you begin to know your system better. And soon you wont be able to sit in front of a PC without telling someone how bad it is!

This is very true for me as well. I switched last fall and at first I kind of felt uncomfortable in OS X. Now I get on a PC, and it's really annoying because it seems like it takes forever to do anything.

As for your other questions, I'm not sure about the first two, but as the other have mentioned, OS X has the same feature as XP. When you're in a Finder window with image files go to the View Menu -> View Options (or just hit command-J) and check "Show Icon Preview." I usually like to set the icon size up higher too so that thumbnails are easier to see. One nice feature in Tiger is that you can select a bunch of images and do a slideshow right from the Finder. It seems like XP has the same feature, although I can't remember for sure.