Snow Leopard: Improved Services Menu

August 31, 2009 in How-To, Tips & Tricks by Bob Faulhaber

An often forgotten feature and underused feature of OS X is the Services menu, found in the Application menu of most applications; it has powerful automation functionality that will make you life easier. Snow Leopard brings lots of improvements to the Services menu that can streamline many of your computing tasks.

Services in Snow Leopard is now context-sensitive. Until Snow Leopard the Services menu contained any and all Services options leading to a cluttered, confusing pull-down menu. Here is a sample of what the Services menu can look like under Leopard.

Now under Snow Leopard, only applicable services and options will be displayed. As an example, when you click on a file in the Finder and select the Services menu, only services applicable to that file type will be displayed.

All in all, services are more simplified and helpful and most importantly contextual, so only the services appropriate for the application you are using are available on the menu.

Plus, all services are customizable, allowing you to configure what services are available, assign keyboard shortcuts and even create new services using Automator.

This enhancement in Snow Leopard make Services a useful tool that will not only help improve user interaction, but also save time while simplifying normal routine everyday tasks.