it's not that i don't like the Services menu, it's just that i have no use for it.

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Good point; I changed the "don't like" option to include "don't need" as well.

-rob.

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I do use the menu, but very infrequently. I think Services are a great idea, but there are not enough of them, and they're "too hard" to get at. If the Services menu were available from all contextual (right-click) menus, I'd probably make more use of it.

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HotService 2.0 from DEVONtechnologies installs a second Services menu in the main menu bar. I think there's some hack that adds it to the contextual menu but I don't remember what it is.

I mostly (and frequently) use shortcuts for accessing items in the Services menu, reassigning them when necessary to avoid conflicts as I described yesterday in another comment. Command-( (Take Rich Note) is invaluable for capturing rich text snippets in DEVONthink. And I can't count how often I use command-F (Spotlight).

I'm surprised at the high responses for Never in this poll. Many things I do would be crippled without Services (and are, in apps that don't provide/support them).

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It's IceCoffee, but it uses APE. For now I have stayed away from applications that use APE.

-RLC

---
rlc

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no problems with APE, been using it since 10.2 for ClearDock, a necessity in my opinion.

I've never had a conflict or issue with it.

---
______
http://www.macskill.com/

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I think your idea is very practical and a darn good one. To take things a step further I think only the services which apply should be visible. For example, if you select text, then you should not see any greyed out services only things that apply like adding the selected text into a new textedit doc. Or perhaps, if you place your cursor over an image let say in Safari, doing a "right click" ----> "services" should show services which only apply to images......I think more people would become aware of services and would therefore use them if your idea was implemented.

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I've pretty much given up on Services after going several OSX releases with the menu broken in Carbon apps and without a GUI to edit them. The Carbon issue may be fixed now, but it's too little too late. Having to manually hack .plist files to disable useless and redundant items and to get a manageable list is just bad implementation. I'd much rather have 10 useful items then slog through 40-50 (really) submenus, and I hate having to clobber entries for programs I don't use like Mail, Safari, and Stickies after every OS update.

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Have you tried using Keyboard Shortcuts under System Preferences (indirectly referred to in my previous posting) and/or Service Manager instead of manually hacking .plist files?

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I don't find system-wide keyboard shortcuts to be efficient or safe for anything but the most basic universal operations (cut/copy/paste/open/close), and nothing in the Services menu qualifies as that necessary or frequent. Readily remembered and activated key combos should be reserved for application-specific functions, as that's where the work that pays the bills happens. As for Services Manager, it has access to only a small subset of available Services--not worth bothering with. It isn't capable of killing or modifying the most annoying/useless ones that Apple forces on us. ACP Web Services has a sort-of GUI control, but it cannot manipulate anything but its own items. Still, they're actually implementing some useful functions. Services in the contextual menu are a more sensible from the standpoint of having the GUI efficiently expose this functionality, but the menus are now one layer deeper and just as cluttered.

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I agree whole-heartedly..

And having to type in the exact text of a menu item to create a shortcut is a pain in the neck, and is also bad implementation. It looks like they decided to implement it because the framework architecture made it easy to do so, but without actually willing to support this option (hence, no GUI...).

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I know this is due to carbon vs cocoa apps, but I find that the services options are never available when i need them...

mainly grab screen / selection - they arent available even when using the finder. crazy. makes them next-to-useless, but I do try to use them on a monthly basis, and occasionally use the 'open selection as new textedit document' (when i can!).

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Have you tried using the various screencapture shortcuts instead of Grab services?

Did you expect so many complaints in response to this poll, Rob? :-)

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[i]I know this is due to carbon vs cocoa apps, but I find that the services options are never available when i need them... [/i]

Agreed.
Everytime I look at the services menu all the items are gray. I have not even been able to use this menu for taking a simple fsckin screen capture. I have no idea all the services items are always grayed out. This makes the services menus useless to me.


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Don't bother trying to use Services for making screen captures, just use the keyboard shortcuts that'll work anywhere.

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That's not the point. I agree with the GP and GGP - I've never once seen a Services option NOT greyed out. I understand there might be a slightly better way to do it, but why bother having a "Grab" menu if it's never enabled? The whole "Services" thing is non-intuitive and extremely frustrating for users.

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It is not clear how to use services most of the time. The menu items are gray out for most of them. This is a waste of time and more of a disservice than a service. The best services appear to be those with no sub menus. If they have have sub menus, they are harder to use.

thx
RLC

---
rlc

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Most of them operate on a string of selected text. Select any amount of text in a Cocoa app, then look at the Services menu again and you'll see a lot more of them enabled.

So far I use only the 'Open URL' and 'Search with Google' services, and only because I customized the keyboard shortcuts for both of them to my liking. But those come in handy a few times a day.

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...which wasn't an option. "Never" was closer that a couple times a week, though.

Every now and again I use the Define in OmniDictionary service, or the Summarize service, when I want to re-wrap a paragraph. However, many of the apps I use are not services-compliant, like Firefox, which I am using right now.

--Books

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For me very little of those services are of actual use to me. Sadly they take WAY to much time to make use of them. Shortcuts cannot be used for most of them, they have a terrifying tendency to conflict with other items/apps so I end up having to use my trackpad. (I'm always on the go with my powerbook and a rodent just unnecessarily adds to my backpack weight.) I'll stick with anything I can access with some shortcuts but having to reach for the trackpad or mouse is a no-go for me.

I implement my strange macros and shortcuts as Automator Workflows, shellscripts or whatever else can be called by a few keystrokes with the all-time-great LaunchBar.
Pepi

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I'd use the Services menu more if I remembered it was there.

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CalcService. I named it. Get rid of calculators and lousy widgets !

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well i think WordService is the best. doing all that caps conversions, or clean up text with hard line ends, or inserting time and date. available in several languages including czech.

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DEVONtechnologies has the knack for producing a higher-than-average number of products that I've continued to use almost every day. No doubt they're one of my favorite Mac developers, for both professional and personal reasons.

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Yeah, I use CalcService many times a day, and the items from WordService a lot too.
The thing I use most, though is probably the "open selection with ..." feature of various apps.
Like sending a web page to TextEdit, or code to BBEdit/jEdit.

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My problems with the services menu are:

1. I can't easily manage it. (mine seemingly has dozens of entries now.)
2. The few times I tried to use it, the one I wanted to use was greyed out.

Because of #2 I've just never gotten in the habit of using it.

---
Everyone loves a clown, but no one will lend him money!

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The fact that it can't be managed is the deal-breaker for me. "Open in Real Player"? "Connect to Quake Server"? Seriously, how often am I going to need to select text and connect to a Quake server with it?



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Ok, so I voted in the "Never" category, but I actually use it a few times a month. However I'd second other sentiments here, there are too many items in it, and I can't easily change that.

The menu should be configurable via System Preferences. Apple, are you listening (not holding my breath...) ?

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try

<http://blacktree.com/apps/servicemanager/index.html>

I do love it, and it looks quite reasonable in what it does...

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There's really only one service I use on any sort of a regular basis, but that one service so perfectly fills a need that I have to say I really like the services.

Specifically, there's a relatively obscure app that can generate the HTML Unicode entities for any character. It would be hard to use, but it provides a service for (among a lot of other conversions) converting the selected text from Unicode to HTML entities. When coding chunks of Japanese text into an English web page, this is so much of a timesaver it's not even funny.

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That "relatively obscure app" is UnicodeChecker. :-)

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You can also select and drag any single character into the 'well' of the Character Palette, which will show it among others in a relevant set. Hold the mouse pointer over a highlighted character in the list to see its codes.

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Really, all that thing does is take up space. As I pull it down right now, there's not a single thing on it that's actually accessible -- all actual entries are grayed. Even stuff that might conceivably be useful, like Grab: Grayed.

Useless. A waste of cycles, both on the system and in my brain.

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For many of the Services to become available, you must first select something within the application you're using. For example, select some text and you'll be able to make a new sticky from it; create a TextEdit document with it; look it up in the dictionary; send it via e-mail; have the text spoken to you; summarize it; search for the string with Spotlight. Some of the services seem trivial perhaps, but they do function according to the context of your selection.

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I am baffled by the responses to this poll. I find services to be one of the most useful features of OS X. While I agree that, by itself, Apple's implementation feels unfinished, frustrating, and disappointing (they are prone to this, are they not?), developers have provided all the tools necessary to realize their potential. These include Service Manager to prune the menu and assign shortcuts, (and perhaps KeyCue to refresh your memory from time to time), Quicksilver, which has a Service Menu Module, ICeCoffEE to make the Services menu a contextual menu item (I use an older version that does not rely on APE), and Hot Service to put a second Services menu in the top level of the menu bar. Finally, you can create your own services with Text Wielder.

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I'm interested in the Services Manager you mention. I can't find it. Can you provide a URL?

My favorite service: Word Service. And I use IceCoffee (or however you capitalize it) too.

Thanks,

Jessi

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The url is:

http://www.blacktree.com/apps/servicemanager/

I should mention that this app has been at "beta 1" since 2003. In particular, it has not been updated for 10.4 and it works much better in Panther. Maybe the developer can be coaxed into updating it if we show some interest.

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And/or submit feedback to Apple to bundle a services manager with OS X. But lately they seem more interested in wasting time on "frivolous" features like Dashboard. ;-)

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I use Services quite frequently too -- especially when browsing macosxhints.com!

Try this:

Whenever a hint features a Finder path to navigate to, save yourself a load of mouseclicks and folder-finding by:

Highlight the path's text, go into the Services menu, and try out the options under Finder. You can open or reveal the highlighted path.

Try it out on this:

/System/Library


I also use the Speech entry regularly. I get Victoria to read aloud a few paragraphs from Groklaw whilst I'm working on something else.

I agree the Services menu needs some additional thought from Apple. But the underlying notion is incredibly powerful.


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Thanks for reminding me to add some shortcuts for those Finder services. :-)

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Foo, that won't work because the service names are too generic -- Open, Reveal, Show Info.

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NEVER.. Mine's so crowded with useless crap from various apps I've installed (I've done upgrade installs on my iBook since jaguar) that it's impossible to navigate and daunting to try and appreciate.

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I used Service Manager to condense/contain the dreaded gray-out phenomena, and leave only the services I actually use and need (Calc Service, Word Service, Dictionary, Text Wrangler's New Window From Selection, and a few others)

---
--
Adam C.

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how about "hardly ever - I rarely ever think to use it"



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I never refer to the "Application Name > Services > " menu a lot other than sending E-Mails.

But for sending E-Mails, and for the occasional inclusion of selected text in a new text editor window, the Service menu appears to be quite useful. Mostly though, I use it to mail URLs from Safari, or to mail documents.

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As many people still have trouble with this one, here is a how-to use the Grab service:

1. Open e.g. TextEdit.

2. Click somewhere within the window to activate the insertion point.

3. Choose the Grab service you want.

4. Grabbed image is inserted into the TextEdit document at the insertion point.

Simple. Quicker to use key combos to take a screenshot of course, but...

I use a number of Services infrequently, but find them invaluable when I do:

WordService
CalcService
CalendarCreator
Make New Sticky
TextEdit>New Window Containing Selection
Define in OmniDictionary
Nisus Thesaurus

---
PB G4, 1.5 GHz, 2x512MB RAM, 128MB VRAM, 80 GB 5400rpm HD, SuperDrive, MacOS X 10.4.2

Visit www.thelandgallery.com for nature-inspired British Art

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Oops, forgot to emphasise that it is the *second* point that is the most important - you have to be using an app that can accept images, and you have to have an insertion point for the grabbed image.

---
PB G4, 1.5 GHz, 2x512MB RAM, 128MB VRAM, 80 GB 5400rpm HD, SuperDrive, MacOS X 10.4.2

Visit www.thelandgallery.com for nature-inspired British Art

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Sorry to be dense, but nothing on the grab submenu is _ever_ available. How can I insert something if I haven't grabbed anything?

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They're active in TextEdit, like JKT's example describes.


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