Finder Tip
Most Mac users are aware that they can hold down the Option key before clicking a menu to have variations of the menu options displayed. It's a nice way for developers to have a double use for a menu item.
Well, here's an often forgotten and little mentioned fact that option trick can be used with contextual menu's as well, that's right the old Right-Click can also provide different options.
My FAVOURITE one of all time and the most easily forgotten is the ability to Option-Right-Click the Finder icon in the Dock. As the image below reveals there's not only variations in menu items but a whole new and very useful "Relaunch" menu item. (Maybe if I didn't mess with my System so much re-launching the Finder wouldn't be a big issue for me)
As you can see "Relaunch" appears and the option key also toggles the "Hide" option to "Hide Others" - this little Finder Dock trick has been around for a while now at least since Tiger (10.4). While we're on it the Finder icon in the Dock now has some extra functionality apart from the list of open windows (which its had since day zot I think). Personally I like the "New Smart Folder" and the "Connect to Server..." the rest eh...
So next time the Finder's beachballing on you Tiger users try the Dock rather than waiting for that network connection to time out!
