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Now browsing the files on your Mac is as easy as browsing music in iTunes. That’s the idea behind the new Finder in Leopard. You can access everything on your system by flipping through your files using Cover Flow or by clicking items in an iTunes-style sidebar.
See what you seek.
Now you can actually see your files in the Finder — not just as icons, but as they really look. Using Cover Flow, you can flip through your documents as easily as you flip through album art in iTunes. Cover Flow displays each file as a large preview of its first page, and you can click through multipage documents or play movies.
The sidebar steps up.
Leopard brings new power to your old friend, the sidebar. Items are grouped into categories: places, devices, shared computers, and searches — just like the Source list in iTunes. So with a single click, you’re on your way to finding what you need.
Search party.
Combine Cover Flow with Spotlight and you’ve got one amazingly powerful search tool. Just type your keywords in Spotlight or specify search criteria, then browse through the search results using Cover Flow. You can easily save your searches for future use. Or use the prebuilt searches in the sidebar, such as Yesterday or All Images. You’ll soon be doing less searching and more finding.
Closer connections.
With shared computers automatically displayed in the sidebar, you can find files on any Mac or PC on your network. You can even use Spotlight and Cover Flow when you search another Mac. But here’s where things get really interesting. When you click a connected Mac, you can use screen sharing (if authorized, of course) — which lets you do anything you could do if you were sitting in front of that computer. Change a system preference, publish an iPhoto album, or add a new playlist to iTunes.
Finder showcase
And now, back to my Mac.
Ever wish you could get something from your Mac when you were thousands of miles from home? It’s nearly impossible, considering your home Internet provider frequently changes your computer’s Internet address — and your router or wireless base station disguises things further. With Leopard and a MobileMe account, it's not only possible, it’s simple. Back to My Mac keeps an up-to-the-minute record of all your computers’ addresses on a MobileMe server. So when you’re on the road, you’ll see your MobileMe-registered computers in the Shared section of your Finder sidebar, just as they’d appear at home. They’re protected from any eyes but yours — and you can even browse their contents using Cover Flow in the Finder.
Look deeper.
From the Finder or the menu bar, Spotlight in Leopard lets you search for more specific sets of things. Use Boolean logic to narrow search results by entering AND, OR, or NOT in a search request. Search for exact phrases using quotation marks, or search for items by dates or ranges using > and < symbols. And now you can even use Spotlight to perform simple calculations. Just enter numbers and operators, then hit Return. Very handy.
