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Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

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Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#102

Post by al_borland »

out-of-ideas wrote: post #91
al_borland wrote: post #45

First, I'll say that you should take the time to get to know the features of the OS, before running out and getting a bunch of 3rd party utilities. In terms of built in stuff you may or may not already know about if coming from another platform... - Spotlight: (⌘space) launch apps, universal search, basic calculator, etc - QuickLook: (space when a file is selected in Finder, space again to close it) Preview a wide va…

i disabled spotlight after it stopped searching the system preferences and also they reordered some items where apps which used to be at the top of the list (after entering a few chars in search) became 3rd place by default-apps that are part of the read-only system that macos provides... took me only a day to forget i ever used apple+space for apps (though for non cli apps i still open finder to app-window to find s…

I just tried searching for a few things the system prefs with Spotlight and it worked, I guess they brought it back.

I'm not always a fan of the order, but it's good enough for me. I used to head down the power user road for everything (I used Quicksilver in the pre-Spotlight days, used LaunchBar for a bit, PathFinder, etc), but I like being able to use a system without having to do a ton of setup. It also seemed like the people who had so many little utilities running that they needed yet another utility, like Bartender, to manage their menubar complained about their system being slow a lot. So the less I can run the better. These days something has to be really worth it, I tend to avoid installing something that replaces an OS function if it's just a marginal improvement.

I've toyed with the idea of not installing any 3rd party apps to see how far that takes me, but that's tough given my current wants/needs.

Is there a reason you go to Finder to open apps instead of using Launchpad? I throw it down in my dock, and even if I want to avoid the iOS-style full screen menu, a right-click on it works kind of like the start menu in Windows, listing all the apps/folders.

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#103

Post by ffsm8 »

> MacBook Air.

A little off topic, but were you aware that you'll never be able to use more then 1 monitor with that before your purchase?

I use a MacBook pro for work. I would've preferred the air variant to, but the artificial segmentation forced me to go for the heavier Pro

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#104

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

- LittleSnitch per-application firewall, mostly for selectively granting outbound access but also controls inbound access (In general, you also need the built-in firewall setup and running correctly too.)

- BlockBlock, KnockKnock, and RansomWhere, but not LuLu because it caused TCP connections to drop nondeterministically

- ScrollReverser to fix standalone mouse scrolling behavior because macOS only has one mouse and trackpad reverse setting

- KarabinerElements for key remapping

- BusyCalendar

- Dash for dev docs

- MacDown for markdown

- Bodega for checking the latest versions of all Sparkle apps (While the main app was discontinued years ago causing an error message on launch, the Sparkle update checking continues to work)

- DaisyDisk to check disk usage

- HardwareGrowler + Growl for hardware and network monitoring (Yes, it's old and nothing else uses Growl notifications anymore, but noticing when the Ethernet adapter is being temperamental is handy)

- A fork of Breakaway for the rare times when I used my headphone jack to auto mute volume if it were to become disconnected unexpectedly

- AppZapper to really nuke apps, their data, and their config (Also, old but it still works)

- Pacifist to sneak a peak inside .pkg's

- OmniGraffle of course, the "Visio" for Mac

- Ascension .nfo viewer

- WineSkin for running some Windows apps on Mac when you know exactly what runtimes they need (I ran Altera Quartus Pro/II with it fine once upon a time™ for an overseas cloned FPGA devkit)

- Probably already mentioned: iStat Menus, Bartender, ForecastBar, Paste, Postgres, MacTracker, iTerm2

- Don't use anymore: CoconutBattery, TotalFinder, QuickSilver, Axure RP, Reveal, Reinteract, VMware Fusion, EndNote, Papers, Bookends

- I wish I had or could afford: a full-featured license of IDA Pro

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#105

Post by pmarreck »

afloatboat wrote: post #22

Raycast - Replaces Spotlight for opening applications - Replaces Magnet for window management, same features but don’t have to run a separate app now. - keeps a clipboard history - allows me to convert colours and units - integrates with my calendar to show me upcoming meetings, shows them in my menu bar and lets me join them with one click - allows me to prevent my Mac from sleeping (for certain durations) with caff…

Link?

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#106

Post by al_borland »

ffsm8 wrote: post #103

> MacBook Air. A little off topic, but were you aware that you'll never be able to use more then 1 monitor with that before your purchase? I use a MacBook pro for work. I would've preferred the air variant to, but the artificial segmentation forced me to go for the heavier Pro

You can connect 2 monitors to the M3 MacBook Air, if the laptop is closed.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/117373

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#107

Post by al_borland »

noahtallen wrote: post #73
glial wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also take a screenshot and save it to the clipboard with ctrl+cmd+shift+4 (for a selection) or ctrl+cmd+shift+3 (for the entire screen). The same keys but without the 'ctrl' key will save them to file. It seems like a ridiculous keyboard shortcut but I use it so much, it's motor memory now.

The great thing about Shottr vs system screenshots is the annotations you can put up very quickly. E.g. 1. $hotkey for screenshot 3. Hit enter to edit 4. Press A to draw an arrow with the mouse 5. Cmd-c to dismiss the edit window and copy & paste wherever. So it basically only takes as long as you take to click down an arrow with your mouse

I usually use Markup for drawing on screenshots. It's not a rich as Shottr, but I'm usually just drawing a box around something or making an arrow to draw someone's attention.

Re: Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?

#109

Post by al_borland »

pseudo_meta wrote: post #42

- Alfred: Launcher and general productivity app - Hammerspoon: window management and general purpose automation app, configured in lua. - sketchybar: menu bar replacement, configured in bash/zsh - Karabiner elements: keyboard remapper - homebrew: package manager - Obsidian: note-taking app. Also longform writing (with the right origins) and social scientific QDA (with the right plugins) - WezTerm: terminal, configure…

I'm really surprised Hammerspoon isn't more well known. I search for something like it for months before I stumbled across it a while back. It felt much harder to find than it should have been.
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