Chapter 9. Utilizing Services
IN THIS CHAPTER
Using services
Understanding Finder services
Using Grab
Mailing messages
Using Stickies
Using Speech services
In Mac OS X, certain applications are able to share useful functions with other applications. Apple refers to these functions as services (yes, with a small s), and they can save you time and effort. However, using them can seem a little tricky because the way services are set up is somewhat counterintuitive until you know what you're doing. Here our objective is to provide you with all the information you need to make use of services.
This chapter takes a look at the services available in Leopard and shows you how to work with them. We spotlight the services provided by the Finder, Grab, Mail, Stickies, Speech, Summarize, and TextEdit. The other services available in Mac OS X are described at the end of this chapter.
About Services
Services appear as an item in the Application menu of every Mac OS X-compatible application. (The Application menu is the one that appears when you click the application's name in the menu bar. But you knew that.)
Choosing Services in Leopard opens a submenu containing 12 items, none of which seems to work! But looks can be deceiving. Yes, at first glance, some of these items appear grayed-out, most of their commands are inaccessible, and their functions are not immediately apparent. How very mysterious! No wonder many people move on and don't give the Services item a second thought.
The idea of services is to ...
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