So the first part of our Leopard review is up; my thanks to those who read it and left their comments. The second part will cover the Finder and Spotlight, and should be posted tomorrow (November 1). To hold you over until then, though, here are some more observations on some of the smaller changes made to Leopard.

It brought up the right card!!

Here’s an awesome little touch. Mail in Leopard has a feature called data detectors that recognizes various sorts of information like phone numbers and addresses. My brother had moved, and a few days back I emailed him asking for his new address. He replied yesterday with his new address. It was a perfect time to test out data detectors. I moused over the address he had given me; as expected, Mail recognized the address and put an outline around it, along with a down-pointing arrow indicating a pop-up menu. I clicked the arrow and selected “Add to Existing Contact...”. I fully expected to be presented with a dialog box or something asking me to pick a contact, but Mail saw that it was my brother and pulled up his address card automatically, giving a preview of the card with the new address. Sweet.

Pick a network, any network

Mac OS X has always had the option to let you know about WiFi networks in the vicinity if it can’t find any of your preferred networks. Leopard improves upon this feature by listing the available networks when notifying you instead of picking a network.

I can see right through you!

CoverFlow respects an image’s transparency. I have a folder full of various Leopard screenshots I have taken for use in articles. In this example, I took a screenshot of a sheet from Safari. Mac OS X uses the PNG format for screenshots, which supports transparency. Note how you can actually see through the screenshot of the sheet and see the other images:

Speaking of CoverFlow...

If you drag a file into a Finder window set in CoverFlow view and drop the file into the CoverFlow portion of the window, the file won’t be added to that folder. Instead, you need to drop the file into the file browser pane in a CoverFlow window.

Options are nice

Holding down the option key while pressing the Quick Look button in the Finder toolbar will drop you into full-screen preview mode, much like what Tiger had with its integrated slideshow feature. Also, if you select multiple files at a time then invoke Quick Look, you can view the index sheet just like in Finder slideshows in Tiger.

Don’t feed me!

Adding RSS feeds to Mail is an interesting choice. I can understand adding notes and to-dos to a mail application, but I don’t quite get RSS in Mail. It’s not really a bad thing, per se, but I sure would like a way to turn it off. UPDATE: Well, that was simple enough. Just delete whatever feeds show up! Duh!

More Mail fun

It appears the option for large mailbox icons in Mail is no more. I guess Apple decided to standardize its source list style?

Still more Mail fun!

One last Mail tidbit: you can now specify what the unread message count in Mail’s Dock icon refers to. You can have it show you the number of unread messages in your inbox, any smart mailboxes, or all mailboxes. This could be useful if you only want to know at a glance whether you received any work-related emials, for example. Nice addition!

Hitting the target, sort of

In an article similar to this one that I wrote for Tiger, I noted the following:

When exporting images to JPEG, earlier versions of Preview had a “target size” field where you could enter how large you wanted the exported image file size to be (in bytes). This was useful for posting on online forums, many of which have restrictions on the sizes of files you can upload. Now you are left to guess. Bummer.

Apple addresses this in Leopard. You can’t specify the exact file size you want, but as you set a value on the Quality slider, Preview will give you an estimate of the file’s size. Yay!

What’s that widget do?

Pretend for just a moment that you are an average consumer who paid no attention to Steve Jobs’ WWDC 2007 keynote. If you saw this widget, would you think it was anything more than a movie poster viewer?

Yeah, me neither. There’s nothing to the widget that indicates to users that they can click it and see movie listings in their area.

RIP Sherlock 1998-2007

I know I’m not the first one to mention it, but I would like to take a moment to honor our beloved friend Sherlock. Sherlock was a dear friend and companion for nine years, always eager to help us search. At one time, Sherlock was a marquis feature to the Mac OS, both Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X. I personally still used its language translator, since it gave me some sort of feedback that it was working, unlike the translator widget. While we mourn its passing, Sherlock serves as a reminder to younger generations of Mac OS features that while they will have their moment in the sun, the day may come where they too are put out to pasture. Sherlock, you may be gone, but you won’t be forgotten (by some of us, anyway).

Wide load

System Preferences’ window is a bit wider than is used to be. Older preference panes now have thick bands on the sides. I assume this was to make room for an extra icon or two.

Docklings live - sorta

Am I the only one who has noticed that the special Dock icons for invoking Dashboard, Time Machine, Exposé, and Spaces are basically like enhanced Docklings? Also, am I the only one who finds most of these absolutely useless?

Look it up

The Apple dictionary in Dictionary.app has no entry for “kernel panic,” “Cocoa,” “Carbon,” or “XCode”. I take it this isn’t the unabridged version? Also, I can tell you that the definition for “Cover Flow” was written before Leopard’s feature set was finalized, because it makes no mention of the Finder.

High security

Are you a little paranoid when it comes to data security on your computer? If so, you’ll be happy to know that the Finder now has a checkbox to make Secure Empty Trash the default Trash-emptying method. Checking the “Empty Trash securely” box will assign command-shift-delete to the Secure Empty Trash command and change the “Empty” button in the Trash window to “Empty Securely”.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our Leopard review, and have a fun and safe Halloween!