7215 A very convenient feature in of OS X since the release of OS 10.3 Panther is "Fast User Switching." On all previous versions of OS X (or OS 9), if another user wanted for needed to log in, even for just a minute to check their email or to take a quick peek at a document, the current user would be obliged to close down all his/her open documents and applications and formally log out; then log back in again and start up and reopen everything from scratch when the second user was finished.

Normally when a user logs out of the computer, any open documents and applications close. If you want to leave applications running and documents open when users log out, you can set up the computer to allow "fast user switching."

Happily, with OS 10.3 and OS 10.4 things are much more convenient. Fast user switching allows you to leave your work environment as it was, and let another user log in, then leave their user account running if they wish when they log out and you log back in.

If you have a Quartz Extreme enabled Mac (at least 16 megabytes of video RAM with a RADEON for GeForce video accelerator - ie: pretty much every Mac since about 2002), switching user environments is accompanied by a spectacular animation in which the separate user environments are depicted as faces of a rotating cube, sort of like sets on a rotating stage in a theater. However, on older Macs with punier video support like my Pismo PowerBook, the screen just goes blue and then the alternate user environment appears.

Interestingly, users of two or more running accounts can access the same application program(s) simultaneously, although this does not apply to Classic Mode. If Classic Mode it is activated in one account, it can't be started up in another. If you want to restart or shut down the computer while other users are logged in, you will need adminstrator privileges, and unsaved work in the other accounts will be lost.

If Permissions are set at the defaults, anything intended to be accessible to all users must be placed in the Shared folder inside the Users folder. It is possible to expand accessibility, but that's another movie.

One aspect of Fast User Switching that may not immediately spring to mind is that it can be very useful even if you are the only a user of your Mac.

It may be convenient, especially if you tend to have a lot of different projects on the go simultaneously, to set up two or more user accounts of your own, and treat them as separate work environments, leaving windows open and processes running as you switch between/among them with quick logins and logouts.

To enable Fast User Switching, just check the box in the Accounts Preference panel. You need to have a demonstrator privileges to turn Fast User Switching on and off.

With Fast User Switching enabled, an account menu will appear in the far right of the menu bar with the name of the currently active account displayed. You can specify whether you want the user name, short name, or just the user's icon to appear in the menu. The icon takes up the least space, and is my preferred option. To change active accounts, just select the desired one from the menu and the login dialog will appear allowing the owner of that account to log in.

***


Digg this


del.icio.us



Charles W. Moore

Tags: Blogs ï Hands On Mac ï Hot Topics ï News ï

Login † or † Register † †