In many OS X applications (Safari, Finder, Firefox, etc…), pressing and will move you backwards and forwards respectively.

Backspace Key

[Submitted By Brooke]

Looking for an easy way to cycle through your active windows? Pressing will allow you to switch to the next application just like Alt+Tab allowed you to on Windows.

You can also cycle backwards by holding Shift, so will take you to the previous application.

If you only want to cycle through the current application’s windows, press (The ` is the key above tab key).

Alt+Tab

[Submitted By Brooke]

Update:

Ryan Schwartz adds in the comments that pressing while the switcher panel is open accomplishes the same thing as . This is much easier on the fingers than stretching for that Shift key, thanks Ryan!

Eric Kornblum (via E-mail) and Matt (via Comments) have added that you can also hit Q to quit or H to hide an application while selected on the switcher panel.

If you’re looking for an easy solution for word completion in OS X–while typing a word, hit option+escape. This will popup a dialog box of possible completions.

[Submitted By Thomas Ingham]

Oh no! My ploy is out. You see, my plan was to create a great Mac site for Mac users all over the world. A place where beginner, intermediate and advanced users can come together and share their knowledge. Oh, and make the site crash for Windows users.

I’ve been getting reports from various places saying the site crashes IE on Windows.

I really wish I could say that the site crashing was part of my marketing plan to start WW3 between Mac and PC users, unfortunately the truth isn’t as glamorous as it may seem.

The truth is I have no idea why it crashes for some people. I booted up the old PC yesterday and it seemed to work fine. So, if I could ask for a little more information on what’s happening when it crashes, hopefully I can fix this problem.

Update: It looks like the problem was with the DOCTYPE, the problem has been fixed. Thanks everyone who offered feedback.

If you use the Terminal a lot, you might find this tip handy.

Normally if I want to change to the Sites/ directory, I would type cd Si<tab>. By hitting tab, the following command would be given, cd Sites/. Exactly what I was looking for.

However, if I typed cd si<tab>, the command wouldn’t be completed because it didn’t find any folders that started with “si”.

Here’s where insensitivity comes in.

To make it so we can type cd si<tab> and get cd Sites/ we have to change a variable called completion-ignore-case:

set completion-ignore-case on

However, I had to use the following command to get it to work on my Mac:

bind "set completion-ignore-case on"

Now you should be able to use tab to complete even insensitive cases.

Note: If you’d like to start terminal with this setting, simply add the command to .bashrc or .bash_profile and login/logout.

Note: This is for Bash only

[Via Thomas Ingham]

In the comments of Customize Prompt On Mac OS X, jh asks how to color your command prompt:

How about the colored bits below the command prompt?
I’ve noticed that when I do an ‘ls’ on my own mac it tends to be monochromatic, however, when I’m ssh-d in to a linux machine and ‘ls’ I tend to get output that colors directories, and executables differently.
Why is this? And is there any way to get my own mac’s output to be color coded as well?

Of course there is!

Open up ~/.bash_profile and add the following two lines:

export CLICOLOR=1
 export LSCOLORS=ExFxCxDxBxegedabagacad

Save, exit, log out, log in, and there you are!

Update: For tcsh users, I was able to get the same effect putting the following in ~/.tcshrc:

setenv CLICOLOR "1"
 setenv LSCOLORS "ExFxCxDxBxegedabagacad"

For iTerm users, add the following to ~/.bash_profile:

export TERM=xterm-color
 alias ls='ls -G'
 alias ll='ls -hl'

While not one of the most practical Mac tips, it sure is fun to look at. To create the slow motion effect while minimizing a window, hold shift as you double click the titlebar. This will send the window off to the Dock in slow motion.

Similarly, you can hold shift while clicking an item from the Dock to see the same effect in reverse.

This tip isn’t just limited to windows, however. When you activate Dashboard, hold shift. When you use Expose to show your desktop, hold shift.

As you can see, with pretty much any transformation, you can slow it down by holding shift.

Neat huh?

Need an easy way to get the path of the current folder in Finder? Simply the titlebar, and you’ll be greeted with a hierarchical path of your current folder.

After weeks of hard work, I’m proud to announce that MacTips has launched.

MacTips strives to provide the best Mac tips on the Internet–but we need your help!

If you have a Mac tip that you think other Mac users would find useful, go ahead and submit a Mac tip.

Take a look around, you just might learn something!