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Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?

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Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?

#101

Post by JadeNB »

GavinAnderegg wrote: post #96
JadeNB wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ctrl-Opt-Space for the character/emoji picker. I think this may not be the default; it doesn't work for me. While speaking of the character picker, does anyone know a way to get less broken search in the picker? For example, I frequently find myself looking for math italic characters in Unicode. Despite the description being, say, "MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL A", it doesn't come up when I search for 'small'. In this…

Oops! Sorry! I meant Cmd-Opt-Space here. Also, yeah, the search is pretty janky in my usage as well.

> Oops! Sorry! I meant Cmd-Opt-Space here. Also, yeah, the search is pretty janky in my usage as well.

Indeed, I thought that might be what you meant … but that opens the Finder search window for me, so I think that that shortcut also is not universal. Probably some of these differ depending on whether you've got a fresh install or an updated system that may carry along shortcuts from an older release.

EDIT: adsche (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24092377) suggests ⌘⌃␣, and that works for me.

Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?

#102

Post by eddyg »

Using the Touch Bar to adjust volume, brightness, etc. doesn’t have to be a two-step process... no need to tap, lift and re-position your finger to the slider that appears. Instead, just touch-and-hold the icon of the thing you want to adjust, and slide from there.

Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?

#103

Post by hjnilsson »

frankjr wrote: post #90
frankjr wrote: post #68

Smart Folders (Finder -> File -> New Smart Folder). It's not exactly hidden but I never paid too much attention to it. It's essentially a way to create a folder whose content is dynamically updated based on your search conditions. For example, you can create a smart folder that contains all PDF files matching a certain name pattern within a given directory (or the whole disk) [0]. You can get really advanced, there's…

Oh and I almost forgot - there's also a similar concept of Smart Playlists within iTunes (Command+Option+N) [0]. [0] https://i.imgur.com/eXmwb42.png

And in Photos. I use it to create albums for different cameras and lenses I’ve had / have, very useful!

Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?

#104

Post by haddr »

house9-2 wrote: post #50
corytheboyd wrote: post #7

The keyboard shortcut in finder to take you to your home directory, cmd + shift + h if I recall correctly. Makes it trivial to keyboard navigate to anything when you can easily start from the same place every time!

cmd + shift + h = home directory cmd + shift + a = applications directory cmd + shift + d = desktop directory Semi-related, type `open .` in terminal to open that directory in Finder

And when you are in terminal and want to change dir to some different path, just drag and drop it from finder (either a file or just a icon from the title bar)

Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?

#106

Post by eddyg »

If you run:

    defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture yes
then when you hold ctrl-opt-cmd (the three keys to the left of the space bar, so easy to remember) you can click-and-drag a window from anywhere, not just the title bar. (Note: need to restart app first)

Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?

#107

Post by cefstat »

Vincenttermini wrote: post #99
browningstreet wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a strange name/label for an awesome feature.

I know, right? Been using Macs for 25 years and discovered it a few months ago on accident. Not sure how long it's been there, but definitely a dumb name!

I remember this from the classic Mac OS days (i.e. System 7) circa 1994. It’s probably even older than that.

Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?

#108

Post by DamnInteresting »

I have long used Shift-Command-4 to take screenshots, but I only recently discovered Shift-Command-5, which provides finer control (and it's much easier to use when I'm working at my treadmill desk).

Also, Command-K to clear out a terminal window (also often works in similar places, such as the MAMP error log viewer).

Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?

#109

Post by throwawaw »

house9-2 wrote: post #50
corytheboyd wrote: post #7

The keyboard shortcut in finder to take you to your home directory, cmd + shift + h if I recall correctly. Makes it trivial to keyboard navigate to anything when you can easily start from the same place every time!

cmd + shift + h = home directory cmd + shift + a = applications directory cmd + shift + d = desktop directory Semi-related, type `open .` in terminal to open that directory in Finder

Is there a reverse version of that last one? For navigation I prefer Finder over `cd; ls`, but once I end up where I want to be I generally need a terminal.

edit: Another user replied with what I want as I typed this! Thank you haddr.

Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?

#110

Post by adsche »

JadeNB wrote: post #81
GavinAnderegg wrote: post #53

Cmd-Ctrl-Space (⌘⌃␣) for the character/emoji picker. Also, under Keyboard in preferences, check the "Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar" option to get it as a menu-bar icon. This also includes the keyboard viewer, which is handy to figure certain Shift-Opt-Whaterver combos for seldom-used characters. EDIT: Updated with the actual default command.

> Ctrl-Opt-Space for the character/emoji picker. I think this may not be the default; it doesn't work for me. While speaking of the character picker, does anyone know a way to get less broken search in the picker? For example, I frequently find myself looking for math italic characters in Unicode. Despite the description being, say, "MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL A", it doesn't come up when I search for 'small'. In this…

It is ctrl+cmd+space for me and I don't remember changing it.

Completely agree about the search. E.g., I sometimes want the cmd sign (⌘), which is named "place of interest". Sure, that makes sense from unicode and in other contexts but I would expect to find it as cmd or command in macos.

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