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Topics

Overview

Accessing Window Tamer Through the Contextual Menu

Saving and Applying View Options

The Control Panel Interface

Entering Your Registration Code

Overview

Window Tamer is an extremely powerful tool, but to use it you must learn how it works. This documentation is very complete, but it is not lengthy. I have used many examples of real-world situations to make it as easy to understand as possible.

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Accessing Window Tamer Through the Contextual Menu

To access Window Tamer's commands, control-click in any standard Finder window. (If you click in an Info Window or in the Clipboard Window, Window Tamer's commands will not be available.) A submenu named Window Tamer will appear near the bottom of the contextual menu, depending on how many other Contextual Menu Plugins you may have installed. If you have just installed Window Tamer, you will see the following list of options:

By default, there are two options available. Default Settings is a set of saved view options. You can apply them to the window if you wish by selecting that option. However, you will most likely want to add your own settings to this menu.

The last option will always be Save View Settings.... Choosing this option will enable you to save the settings of the window in which you've clicked. Any settings you save will be added to the top of this menu (above the divider line) and will be displayed in alphabetical order.

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Saving and Applying View Options

Window Tamer's usefulness lies in its ability to save and recall view settings for Finder windows. When saving view options, keep in mind how you want to organize your windows. Since you can save lots of different settings, you can have an unlimited number of "schemes" which will enable you to efficiently manage your Finder windows. Below, I've included a complete example of how to save and apply settings.

I like most of my Finder windows to be viewed as a List, showing the Size column, and placed to the diagonal right of the window in back of it. Here's an example of a typical Finder window on my desktop:

To save the settings for this window, control-click in the window and choose Save Settings... from the Window Tamer submenu, as described above. After a short pause, the Window Tamer control panel application will be launched. (If you have not registered Window Tamer, you will have to click the Not Yet button in the registration dialog.) Shortly, you will see the following dialog box:

You may wish to give your settings a more descriptive name than My Settings. The limit on the name length is 255 characters, and all printable characters are allowed (so you may use colons until your heart is content!) The only thing left to do is choose a positioning option. For a complete description of positioning, see Positioning 101. Of course, you may choose anything you wish, but for this example, I'm using Diagonal Right positioning, so choose Diagonal Right from the Positioning popup menu shown above.

Clicking the Save button will save these settings. That's all there is to it! You will see these settings in the settings list dialog, described in the section on the Control Panel Interface. At this point, you can close the control panel by clicking the close box in the settings list dialog, or by choosing Quit from the file menu.

Now, to make use of these settings, open up a Finder window to which you'd like to apply these settings.

Control-click in the window you wish to apply settings to, and choose the settings you want to use from the Window Tamer submenu, as described above. The settings will be applied to the window, and for this example, the result will look like this:

That's it! The process of saving and applying settings is quite simple, yet it yields very powerful results. For more information please see the following topics:

Positioning 101: a complete description of all of the positioning options available.

The Control Panel Interface: managing saved settings and advanced options.

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The Control Panel Interface

The Window Tamer control panel manages your preferences and advanced settings. To open the Window Tamer control panel, click on the Apple Menu, and locate the item Window Tamer in the Control Panels submenu. Alternately, open your startup disk, locate and open the System Folder, locate and open the Control Panels folder, and finally, locate and open the item named Window Tamer. If you have not registered Window Tamer, you will be presented with a dialog box asking you to enter your registration code. Clicking Not Yet will close the message and allow you to use the Window Tamer Preferences window. More information on registering Window Tamer is available from the Registration page.

General Options

When the Window Tamer control panel starts up, the default pane will be the General pane. In this pane, you can perform operations such as get information about settings, rename settings, and delete settings. The general pane is shown below:

Getting Information for Settings

To get information about settings, simply click on the name of the settings, and a brief description will appear in the Description box, shown above. This information includes the view type, positioning type, and the version of Mac OS under which these settings were saved.

Renaming Settings

To rename settings, click on the name of the settings you wish to rename, and then click on the Rename... button. You will see the following dialog:

Type a new name for the settings, and hit return or press the OK button. Changes take effect immediately; if you open the contextual menu in the Finder, the new name will be shown.

Deleting Settings

To delete settings, click on the name of the settings you which to delete, and then click on the Delete... button. You will see a warning similar to the following dialog. (Of course, Default Settings will be replaced by the name of the settings you're deleting.)

Pressing the Yes button will permanently delete the settings. This operation cannot be undone. Pressing the return key or clicking No will cancel this operation. Changes take effect immediately; if you open the contextual menu in the Finder, the settings you deleted will not show up.

Advanced Options

The advanced options retain the functionality of Window Tamer 1.x. The Advanced pane is shown below:

As in Window Tamer 1.x, you can apply settings by clicking the zoom box of a Finder window. To enable this feature, click the Enable Taming by Zoom Box checkbox, shown above. There are options you can set:

Modifier

From the Modifier popup menu, you can choose the modifier key that must be pressed when clicking the zoom box to apply settings. Your choices are None, Command, Option, and Shift. I don't recommend using None, because it interferes with the normal operation of the zoom box. However, I've provided this option because can be extremely convenient.

Settings

From the Settings popup menu, select the settings you wish to apply when the zoom box is clicked in conjunction with pressing the selected modifier key.

To use the Tame by Zoom Box feature, do the following:

1. In the Finder, locate a window to which you wish to apply settings.
2. Press the modifier key selected in the Modifier popup menu while clicking the window's zoom box.

A Note About Changing Advanced Options

Any changes you make in the Advanced options panel will not take effect until you restart your computer.

A Note About Deleting Settings

If you delete the settings that are selected in the Settings popup menu, the Enable Taming by Zoom Box option will be turned off. To continue using this option, you will have to re-enable it and choose different settings from the Settings popup menu.

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Entering Your Registration Code

To enter your registration code, follow these steps:

1. Open the Window Tamer control panel. To do this, click on the Apple Menu, and locate the item Window Tamer in the Control Panels submenu. Alternately, open your startup disk, locate and open the System Folder, locate and open the Control Panels folder, and finally, locate and open the item named Window Tamer.
2. You will see the dialog box shown below. Enter your name and registration code exactly as it appears in the e-mail you received. If you've entered the information correctly, the Register button will no longer be dimmed.
3. Click the Register button.

The Window Tamer registration dialog box.

If you have problems entering your registration code, please see the Contact Information and Bug Reports page. For information on registering Window Tamer, see the Registration page.

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