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1.4. The Services Menu

Mac OS X's Services menu (Terminal Figure Services) exposes a collection of services that can work with the currently running application. In the case of the Terminal, the services operate on text that you have selected (the pasteboard). To use a service, select a region of text in the Terminal, and choose an operation from the Services menu. Mac OS X comes with several services, but third-party applications may install services of their own. When you use a service that requires a filename, you should select a fully qualified pathname, not just the filename, because the service does not know the shell's current working directory. (As far as the service is concerned, you are invoking it upon a string of text).

Here is a list of the services available in the Mac OS X Services menu:

Finder
The Finder services menu allows you to open a file (Finder Figure Open), show its enclosing directory (Finder Figure Reveal), or show its information (Finder Figure Show Info).

Mail
The Mail Figure Send To service allows you to compose a new message to an email address, once you have selected that address in the Terminal. You can also select a region of text and choose Mail Figure Send Selection to send a message containing the selected text.

Make New Sticky Note
This service creates a new Sticky (/Applications/Stickies) containing the selected text.

Speech
The Speech service is used to start speaking the selected text. (Use Speech Figure Stop Speaking to interrupt.)

Summarize
This service condenses the selected text into a summary document. The summary service analyzes English text and makes it as small as possible while retaining the original meaning.

TextEdit
The TextEdit service can open a filename, or open a new file containing the selected text.

View in JavaBrowser
This service browses Java documentation for the selected class name. This is available whether the selected text is a real Java class name or not. (Garbage In, Garbage Out applies here.)



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