This is probably the least used feature of Mac OS X, and yet it’s present in almost every application you might use. I’m talking about the Services menu of course, tucked in under the application name in your menubar. I must admit, for the longest time, I never really paid much attention to it. At the surface, it seems like something useless (most of the options are greyed out anyway), so why bother? Well, it turns out that the Services menu is so awesome, that you would be a fool not to use it.
Square One
You see that application name right there in the menubar? Finder, Safari, etc? Under that menu is a “Services” flyout menu. Inside you will find a variety of commands that ‘sort of’ make sense. However most of these are greyed out because all services are activated only in context. In TextEdit or any other application with a text input field, select a little text and go to Services » Speech » Start Speaking. Getting the hang of it?
A Multitude of Usage Scenarios
- Compose emails with files attached by selecting a bunch of files in Finder, and then going to Services » Mail » Sent File
- Need to go through a long article quickly? Select the text in Safari, and then go to Services » Summarize to bring down the content.
- Select a word or phrase, and go to Services » Spotlight to create a spotlight search window.
- My favourite: Services » TextEdit » New Window Containing Selection.
Customizing Shortcuts
Why go through all that trouble you must be thinking? Much better to just drag and drop your way around right? Well since the Services menu is a menubar item, you can customise keyboard shortcuts for any command. You can perform any of the service actions by adding keyboard shortcuts using the Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts preference pane.
Extending Services
The beauty of the services menu is that it’s highly extensible by third party plugins. Many third party apps like Coda, Things, The Hit List, will automatically add their own menus for executing tasks related to their apps. For instance one can quickly create new tasks in Things by selecting text in Safari and then hitting a shortcut.
There are also some special ‘plugins’ for adding functionality to the menubar.
WordService
Created by Devon Technologies, WordService is a boon for writers and publishers. The plugin adds things like converting to lowercase, changing straight quotes to smart quotes, as well as more advanced commands like ‘Trim Line Endings’, ‘Windows to Mac encoding”. My personal favourite? Remove multiple spaces for all those spacebar happy articles that I come across.
LargeType
This adds a service for displaying any selected text in large type, much like the phone numbers are displayed in the Address Book. Very useful if you want to leave a message like “Don’t Touch Anything!” for the next user.
KavaServices
Costing $25 for a license, KavaServices adds a bunch of (potentially) useful commands like text translation, currency conversion, search engine integration, calculating mathematical expressions, and a whole lot more.
Print Selection
Copy any text from any application, and hit the Print Selection to bring up a dialog box with your text loaded.
Service Scrubber
Not a plugin as much as a full blown applications to reorganise your services. You can disable third party services, customise keyboard shortcuts, and basically give it a much cleaner look.
Adeu
Okay I admit it. Services are less important these days in this Exposé drag and drop world, where everything is controlled by the mouse and being prepped for touch. However there are some interesting uses for them, because at the end of the day, nothing saves time like a bunch of keyboard shortcuts!
