Comments on: Script to Show/Hide Preview Pane in Mail

By: Dana Kashubeck

Dana Kashubeck — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:08:33 +0000

@Trevor: Perhaps that is under Tiger, because I don’t have the “Preview Pane” option in Leopard.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:41:09 +0000

The preview pane “show/hide” is under View->Preview Pane->Show/Hide. If you use the keyboard shortcut method in the system preferences, go to the keyboard & mouse preferences pane, click the ‘+’ sign to create a new shortcut. Select Mail from the Applications drop-down menu, type ‘Hide’ for the menu item and choose your keyboard shortcut. You will have to make a second shortcut for the ‘Show’ function as well, as the word changes depending on the current view. You can use the same shortcut for both. Hope this is what you’re looking for. It’s a lot simpler than an AppleScript.

By: Ricky Buchanan

Ricky Buchanan — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:42:54 +0000

@David: I didn’t think there *was* a show/hide preview pane menu item? I can’t find it in Leopard’s Mail.app – where’s it hiding? For people with vision impairments like mine it’s very hard to be exacting enough with the mouse to click on the tiny dot and show/hide the pane – I would prefer a regular keyboard shortcut sans AppleScript if it’s possible though.

By: Dana Kashubeck

Dana Kashubeck — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:03:27 +0000

@lar3ry: Absolutely, if you use Spaces, then binding this to the F8 key won’t be the best choice. I never got into Spaces, so for right now, F8 is fine for me.

By: David Chartier

David Chartier — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:28:29 +0000

You can also simply use the Shortcuts List in Keyboard and Mouse System Preferences Pane to assign a keyboard shortcut to the menu item in Mail. That way you don’t have to worry about this shortcut disappearing when Quicksilver crashes, and it can be a bit snappier at times than waiting for the AppleScript engine to kick in.

By: lar3ry

lar3ry — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:24:26 +0000

Of course, binding the F8 key may not be the best key, since it activates Spaces’ preview screen in Leopard… Perhaps Ctrl+F8 or Command+F8 or something else would be better…