I’ve been poking around Address Book (seeing if there’s a way out of MS Entourage for me, too, since Alex has found hers). The first address I wanted to add was Will Pate’s, from Raincity Studios. And, this being Will, I wanted to add the company’s web address.

After several minutes of poking around in Address Book’s interface and — as a last resort — opening the Help menu, I’d hit a wall. I could add Will’s name, company name, any number of phone numbers, e-mail addresses and mailing addresses, plus notes (“nice guy, has Firefox shirt, stickers on iBook”)… but not his web site.

Apple’s support site to the rescue: in particular, the very well-written Mac 101 pages. If you’re new to the Mac — or even a grizzled veteran who happens to be using a Mac app for the first time — these are a fantastic starting point.

On the Address Book page, I found my answer: use the Card menu. Choose “Add Field > URL”, and the field will appear in the card you’re editing.

Obvious? In retrospect. But one of the great beauties of Mac apps is how rarely you have to use the menu; so much can be done right there in front of you, in the document window, that it’s easy to forget the menu even exists. And with so many people having an online presence, shouldn’t an URL be one of the fields on an Address Book card by default?

Well, it can be:

• Go to the “Address Book” menu, and choose “Preferences”.
• Click on the “Template” button in the toolbar.
• Pull down the “Add Field” selector, and choose “URL”.