By Graham K. Rogers

There have been a number of changes to System Preferences in OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion. The Bluetooth panel was cleaned up with the update to OS X 10.7, Lion compared to earlier versions of OS X (pre-Tiger) so at first glance the panel will be familiar to users. The Bluetooth preferences panel has seen some slight changes from what was available in OS X 10.7, Lion.

The Bluetooth icon is displayed at the top left. Alongside this is information relating to the computer. The panel may open with information here about the name that other devices will see when making connections. We may click on (or near these words) and the information will change to show MAC number (Media Access Control), manufacturer of the chip and Bluetooth software version.

Below this information and above the main panel are two checkboxes: On; and Discoverable. At the bottom of the panel (to the left) is a checkbox that allows the Bluetooth icon to appear in the menubar: the wording here has been simplified to "Show Bluetooth in menu bar". When the top checkbox "On" is deselected, the menu bar icon is greyed out. If Discoverable is not selected, the computer cannot be seen by other devices.

The main panel is in two parts. Paired devices are shown in the left section. The second part displays information about any highlighted device. This information may be expanded by use of the "Show more info" item in the gearwheel menu (below). The gearwheel is one of three controls at the bottom of the left half-panel. The others are + and - for adding or removing a device. When the - icon is clicked a panel appears asking if the user is sure about this action. The default button is Remove. There is also a Cancel button.

The gear icon allows actions, depending on the information panel display. When basic details of a highlighted device are shown, there are 3 actions: Rename, Edit Serial Ports . . . and Show More Info.

Rename opens a panel that allows the device to be given a new name if wanted. Edit Serial Ports opens a panel that details the serial port of the highlighted device, allowing additional ports to be added (pressing this one time duplicated the default port) or removed.

Below are port settings: name, a button for the protocol and a button for the Service. Protocol options were RS-232 and Modem. Options for the Service were Wireless iAP (The iPod Accessory Protocol) and Handsfree Gateway. It is not recommended that any of the settings are changed unless you really know what you are doing.

Two check-boxes below are marked "Require pairing for security" and "Show in Network Preferences". Below the checkboxes is information about the Path.

When full details of a highlighted device are shown, there are 6 actions: Rename, Edit Serial Ports . . . and Show More Info, this time with a checkmark beside it; plus Add to Favourites, Update Name and Update Services.

At the bottom right are two further buttons, Sharing Setup and Advanced. The first of these provides a direct link to the Sharing Preferences panel in which there is a specific checkbox item for Bluetooth Sharing which may need to be selected for full services. The Advanced button reveals an additional panel in which there are four controls for when attaching or using Bluetooth devices:

• Open Bluetooth Assistant at startup if no keyboard is detected (for assistance in connecting to such a device);
• Open Bluetooth Assistant at startup if no mouse or trackpad is detected;
• Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer;
• Reject incoming audio requests.

At the bottom of the panel a window displays the serial ports used by devices. The + or - controls allow us to add (or remove) serial ports if required. OK closes the panel.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.