This time we will learn useful tricks that will make your life much easier. Go!

Trick #1. Do not disturb!

Everyone knows very well that the “ Do not disturb» is enabled in System Settings from the Notifications section. However, with OS X Yosemite on board, this can be done much easier. To do this, press the key Alt and with a targeted mouse click we will hit the Notification Center icon in the upper right corner of the screen. Its color will change to gray. Once we open it, we will see that Do Not Disturb mode is indeed enabled.

Another way to do this if the Notification Center is already open: scroll down and the treasured switch will appear. Both methods will activate do not disturb mode for the rest of the day.

Trick #2. Open Notification Center for me. Fast!

If clicking on the small Notification Center icon in the far upper right corner is an overwhelming task, this item is for you. You can make the control center appear automatically when you hover your mouse over a corner of the screen. Same with Mission Control.

To do this, go to System Settings -> Mission Control. And select “Active corners”, where we configure everything at our personal discretion. And if, when selecting the desired action, you hold down the Cmd, Alt, Ctrl and Shift keys, then the selected one will be performed only when it hits the desired corner with the previously held keys.

Trick #3. More widgets

In addition to our previous one, revealing the essence Widgets, you can see for yourself the list of all applications that support the Notification Center and widgets for it. To do this, open the control center, click on “Change” and, at the bottom, on “ App Store" As a result, a branded application store will open, where a variety of software products with widget support will be offered.

Trick #4. We customize the control center for ourselves

OS X provides unlimited space for creativity and a variety of settings to suit the needs of the end user. The Notification Center works the same way. In addition to many options for displaying notifications in "System Settings -> Notifications", each application can be customized individually.

For example, in a standard email client Mail you can configure lists of contacts, notifications about letters from which will displayed. And in Messages There is an item responsible for displaying notifications coming from unknown numbers.

To view your own application settings, just press Cmd + “B” while the program is running.

Trick #5. Search notifications by date

Opening the tab Notifications in the control center, you can avoid scrolling down the list for a long time. To do this, just use the numbers on your keyboard. Clicking on any number will cause the list of notifications to move and the first of the events that took place on the selected date will be highlighted days ago.

A very interesting feature, but when it works, flaws often arise: navigation does not work the first time, notifications that are not selected are exactly what you expect. In general, Apple has some work to do, and I recommend that you try to find the notification you need yourself. Maybe you'll like the method.

Trick #6. Disable Notification Center

If you don’t like all of the above, and you don’t like the Notification Center itself, turn it off. To do this you need to open Terminal and run the following command:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist

This will completely disable the control center, including pop-up notifications. Restart your computer and the changes will take effect. Even though the icon in the corner of the screen will remain, you will no longer be able to open the Notification Center using it. To bring the control unit back to life, use this command:

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist

Trick #7. Pin pop-up notifications

Banners that pop up in the corner of the screen disappear within just a few seconds. This can be changed using the terminal. We insert the following command, and notifications will “hang” in the corner for 30 seconds. Likewise, by changing the number 30 to something larger, you can make toast notifications freeze in the corner for an indefinite amount of time until you click on them.

defaults write com.apple.notificationcenterui bannerTime 30

You can return the default settings like this:

defaults delete com.apple.notificationcenterui bannerTime

The last trick. Create your own notifications

Using additional software, you can create your own unique notifications that will pop up in the corner of the screen. To do this you need to download the following program:

sudo gem install terminal-notifier

After entering the password and completing the installation, the command for creating notifications will become available to you:

terminal-notifier -message "My notification text!"

On the official git of the project you can see the full list of available commands.

In the recently released OS X Yosemite, users now have the ability to add widgets for programs or services to the Notification Center. In this small selection we will talk about several of the most useful, in our opinion, of these widgets.

A widget for a new email client that recently finally left beta testing and appeared in the Mac App Store. The developers tried to make AirMail fast and easy to use - and the widget allows you to view incoming mail in the Notification Center.

Widget for a popular expense tracking application.

Deliveries is an application for tracking postal items. All major courier services are supported.

iStat Mini

Surely many of our readers are familiar with the iStat Mini application - with its help you can monitor the basic parameters of your computer: processor load, RAM usage, available storage space and data transfer parameters.

Version of iStat Mini with an increased number of controlled parameters.

The application needs no introduction. A powerful and multifunctional calculator - and with the help of the widget, calculations can be performed in the Notification Center.

The pop-up messages shown to us by the Notification Center sometimes get a little annoying and I want to somehow optimize this process. Here are some simple recommendations on how you can effectively customize the Notification Center to suit your needs, even to the point of completely disabling the service.

Activate Do Not Disturb mode

OS X, like iOS, has a Do Not Disturb mode. If you want to not be disturbed by various types of notifications, you need to activate it: press the “⌥Option” key and, without releasing it, click on the Notification Center icon located in the upper right corner of the screen. After this, the icon should take on a dull appearance. When you open Notification Center, you will see that the switch that turns Do Not Disturb mode on and off is in the activated position. However, the next day this mode will turn off. Do you want to better and more accurately customize the Notification Center? Then move on to the next point.

More precise customization of the Notification Center

Go to "System Settings"? "Notifications". A window appears in front of us with more advanced settings for the Notification Center. Here we can configure notifications for each individual application. In addition, here you can more precisely configure the inclusion of Do Not Disturb mode.

Quick access to Notification Center

To quickly access the notification center, you can use the shortcut keys that you need to pre-assign:

• go to "System Settings"? “Mission Control” and click on the “Active Corners” button;
• select the angle we like, press any key combination that will later be used to call the Notification Center and assign the “Notification Center” menu item to this combination.

Now, when you press the programmed keys or move the courses to the selected corner, the Notification Center will open.

Adding widgets

The notification center, in addition to working with the notifications themselves, contains a variety of widgets, the list of which can be expanded. Most users launch Notification Center solely for this feature. The “Edit” button in the Notification Center will open a list of installed widgets that will be displayed on the right side of the window. Along with the list, an “App Store” button will appear, opening a virtual store with available widgets for installation.

Search notifications

By launching the Notification Center and going to the “Notifications” tab, you will see a complete list of all incoming messages. If you need to find a notification for a certain date, you can speed up the search by using the numbers on the keyboard. For example, to highlight all messages that arrived 3 days ago, press the number “3” key on your keyboard. This function does not always work correctly, so you should be careful when using it.

Notification display time

Some notifications configured in the form of a banner disappear from view too quickly after they appear, making it almost impossible to perceive the information received. “Terminal” and the command will help us cope with this:

Defaults write com.apple.notificationcenterui bannerTime 15

where "15" means the number of seconds to display the ad. This value can be changed at the user's discretion. To return all settings to default, enter the following command into the terminal:

Defaults delete com.apple.notificationcenterui bannerTime

Disable Notification Center

If you are completely tired of the incoming notifications and want to completely disable the Notification Center, the terminal and the following command will help us again:

Launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist

Immediately after the system reboots, the changes made will take effect and the Notification Center will no longer bother you. The icon, although it will remain in its original place, will not be active.

In order to return everything as it was and use the Notification Center again, go to the terminal again and enter the following command:

Launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist

after that we reboot.

It became the most important release in Apple's line of desktop operating systems. The platform continues the direction set with last year's launch of OS X Mavericks, offering users an even cleaner design and even more iOS-inspired features.

A worthy successor to the tradition is the updated OS X Yosemite Notification Center, which has been expanded with a “Today View” mode for the calendar, reminders, weather, promotions and social networks. At the same time, the sidebar functions can easily be expanded with third-party widgets that are downloaded from the Mac App Store. At this point, the developers have offered dozens of useful widgets for OS X. MacDigger offers the best solutions that use useful features of Apple's new operating system.

Wunderlist

Deliveries

With this you can very conveniently track postal items. All you need to do is launch the program and indicate the tracking number (reference number of the shipment). Now tracking is assigned to parcels for almost any shipping method. The widget can track parcels from all major courier services.

Airmail

is an innovative email client that supports Gmail, Google Apps, iCloud, Yahoo!, AOL and IMAP services. The application has been in beta testing for a long time and has recently been available for download in the Mac App Store. When creating the Airmail design, the developers were inspired by the official Twitter client for Mac.

PCalc

is a powerful calculator for Mac that allows you to add a widget to the Notification Center. Combines the advantages of a regular calculator (sequential calculations, quick execution of functions from the keyboard) and a calculator that calculates expressions. The program has an original appearance, a fully customizable interface and various types of design. iOS version available.

iStat Mini

It is a simple and convenient widget for the Notification Center. A small mini-application allows you to monitor CPU, RAM, storage, and network bandwidth in real time. All data is conveniently displayed in the OS sidebar in the form of pie charts.

Monity

is an advanced version of iStat Mini. Allows you to control processor load, memory, battery, disk drive usage, computer continuous operation time and a number of other system parameters. The widget displays system statistics in the sidebar, which saves space on the desktop and looks concise and aesthetically pleasing.

PhotoDesk

For Instagram, it allows you to view, receive news and notifications, save images and videos, tag and even download photos and videos from the social network. You can upload content using simple drag and drop. You can save beautiful photos in albums or set up automatic sync of images to a selected folder. The widget allows you to view a feed of photos with the number of likes and publication date.

Chronicle

It makes it easy to keep track of your expenses. The program is designed to become a reliable assistant. Thanks to the reminder function and widget for the Notification Center, the user will not forget to pay bills and will always know when, how much and for what he paid. There is synchronization with the version of the application for iPhone and iPad.

With the advent of OS X Yosemite, the idea of ​​so-called widgets for Notification Center. Such widgets can not only expand the functionality of the “today” tab, but also improve the performance of the Finder and, in general, any application on the Mac.

Brightness control widget

Dropbox

Popular cloud storage Dropbox did not miss the opportunity to improve its client for OS X, and as part of the Finder extension, it became possible to manage files and “cloud” actions on them directly from the right-click context menu.

The extension can be enabled in the settings of the official client for OS X.

DockPhone

With the latest update to OS X, it became possible not to interrupt your work in a specific application, putting aside your smartphone and sitting down at a computer with desktop OS X. And vice versa. This principle also applies to telephone calls. Tweak DockPhone allows you to make phone calls from your Mac with the same convenience as from your iPhone. An exact copy of your favorite contacts in iOS appears in Notification Center. To start a telephone conversation, just click on one of them. Of course, for the extension to work correctly, your Mac and iPhone must be connected to the same iCloud account.

DockPhone is available on the App Store for just 59 rubles.