Perhaps you are not sure in which preference a certain control or checkbox is located. Thanks to the power of Spotlight, you can search based on a function or feature you are trying to configure. You are not limited to searching simply based on the preference name. I’m not sure, but isn’t this the epitome of a first-world problem? You can set your System Preferences panel in this manner by going to View > Organize Alphabetically. Notice that you can choose any preference by selecting it directly from the View menu, and you can also choose any preference by selecting it directly.Īdditionally, something frequently overlooked is the search field located within the System Preferences panel itself. I seem to struggle less now when looking for a Preference icon. ![]() If you’re like me, seeing the Preferences icons sorted alphabetically makes things so much better. System Preferences are arranged alphabetically instead of by category. Starting in Lion, we are introduced to a new and better way to view System Preferences. To make things even more subliminally confusing, isn’t a microphone a piece of hardware? Shouldn’t it be listed in the Hardware category? Of course, we know that the Speech settings are not a function of the Mac hardware. Instead, I would look for the familiar little microphone icon and the word s-p-e-e-c-h. Notice how the various icons representing individual preferences are placed according to these categories: Personal, Hardware, Internet & Wireless, System, and “Other.” In retrospect, if I ever needed to open a particular preference pane, I never knew exactly into which category to look.įor example, if I needed to access the Speech preference pane, the thought, “Oh, I need to go into the System category to find Speech” never, EVER entered my mind. The default System Preferences view with Categories showing. We’ve been accustomed to seeing this since the days over a decade ago when OS X was but a cub: ![]() Take a look at how the System Preferences panel is laid out by default. Lion has MobileMe, while Mountain Lion has Notifications). The only difference will be some of the labels and a couple of the individual prefence panels ( i.e. Note that I’m going to show you how to do these things in Lion, but all of the tips hold true for Mountain Lion, too. ![]() Plus, there are some other nice hidden features to uncover. Unlike other user interface features introduced in Lion, this one is very easy to adapt to. I realized that an alternate view of the Mac System Preferences is actually quite handy. Just the other day, I had a revelation as I was preparing lecture notes for a class I’m teaching on OS X Lion this coming semester (right as Mountain Lion is coming out.
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