New In Mac OS X 10.1: Screenshots From The Finder!

by , 8:00 AM EDT, October 2nd, 2001

We received a note from an unnamed Observer who pointed out an important new feature in Mac OS X 10.1 that we missed in yesterday's "What's New In Mac OS X 10.1" guide. Screen shots from the Finder are back, so one no longer has to use Grab.

Using this feature is just like doing it in Classic Mac: Shift-Command-3 captures your entire display in a TIFF file called Picture.tiff. That file is deposited on your desktop. Shift-Command-4 turns your cursor into cross hairs that you can use to select exactly which section of your desktop that you want to capture. Unfortunately, Shift-Command-Capslock-4, the command in Classic that lets you target an entire specific window by clicking on it, does not yet seem to be enabled.

We would also like to point out that all of the Classic Mac screen capture commands work in Classic from within Mac OS X, including the Shift-Command-Capslock-4 option.

Thanks to the Observer who clued us in. If you find something in Mac OS X that we haven't mentioned, please let us know.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Working with Grab was clumsy, awkward, and slow, and we are more than delighted to see this outstanding feature of the Classic Mac OS make its way to Mac OS X. It's the little things like this that made Classic Mac such an easy intuitive OS to use for the last 17 years, and by including them in Mac OS X, Apple can perpetuate that legacy going forward. We have little doubt that the company will continue to work in these sorts of features to the OS, including a host of new features we haven't thought of before, as the development team continues to plug away at Mac OS X.

Mac OS X