For the past couple posts I’ve been showing how to get the most out of the Tool Browser. Here’s a simple tip which will soon have you spoiled.

As you know, the disclosure triangles let you expand or collapse a section of the browser. But what if you can’t see the disclosure triangle? For example, the top level of the browser for most dictionaries is each letter of the alphabet. Expand one of those sections, and you’ll likely get a long list of articles beginning with that letter. As you scroll down through that list, you can very quickly lose sight of the disclosure triangle. Consequently, when you want to close that section of the browser, you first have to scroll up to find its disclosure triangle.

CloseBrowserLevel Or do you? In Accordance, you can drag your mouse to the left edge of the browser and the cursor will change to a black X. If you simply click the mouse button at that point, the current section of the browser will be closed, just as if you had scrolled up to click the disclosure triangle!

Back in the days of the classic Mac OS, I used List view in the Finder all the time (in OS X I now use column view). List view uses disclosure triangles just like the Tool browser, and I soon found myself trying to click in the left edge of Finder windows to close a folder whose disclosure triangle was no longer visible. Unfortunately, the shortcut only worked in Accordance, and I would then grudgingly scroll up to locate the disclosure triangle. As I said, when you learn this trick, you’ll quickly become spoiled by it. Consider yourself warned!