Not a shortcut exactly, but turn on the "zoom" accessibility feature bound to something like CMD. You can then zoom in anywhere on the screen by holding the shortcut and doing a two finger gesture. Useful for reading small text, checking some CSS rendering close up and to point out a feature on the screen to someone nearby.
Ask HN: The most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts?
121–130 of 140 posts
Re: Ask HN: The most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts?
#122Cmd + Shift + F3 is one that I'm using periodically. This will show your desktop (files).
Re: Ask HN: The most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts?
#123Cmd-space Type a few characters: start or switch to an app. Just hide the dock. Keeps your hands on keyboard and your eyes where you want them to be. Control-cmd-F makes most apps full screen (or toggles back) ^k, ^y, etc...standard text widgets accept basic Emacs commands.
Four finger swipe on keyboard slides between full screen apps (or spaces)
You mean on a trackpad?
Re: Ask HN: The most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts?
#124cntrl+a: go to start of a line cntrl+p: go up one line cntrl+n: go down one line cntrl+k: cut line proceeding cursor cntrl+f: forward one char cntrl+b: back one char These work everywhere you can type text on Mac: including in this HN text box, in the url bar, etc. I absolutely love these shortcuts...
You missed the best one, ctrl+t: swap the left and right characters adjacent to cursor. Fixes about 90% of typos.
> These work everywhere you can type text on Mac
Supposedly they even work on iOS if you plug in a keyboard, which is pretty unexpected if you think about it.
Re: Ask HN: The most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts?
#125Re: Ask HN: The most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts?
#126Command-e, put the selected text on the find clipboard. Then command-e, command-g (find next) will search for the selected text without sacrificing the copy/paste clipboard. Also, the find clipboard is shared between apps, so you can command-e in Safari, then command-g in Xcode.
Note, cmd+e seems to be a safari thing; no such luck in chrome. I just cmd+f again.
> cmd+e seems to be a safari thing
Works fine on Firefox. I'd say breaking it is a Chrome thing.
Re: Ask HN: The most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts?
#127Not exactly a shortcut, but https://contexts.co/ completely changes Cmd+Tab; without it I would be materially less productive
That looks nice. Is it working well on Mojave? Last update 8 May 2018, and the release notes don't mention anything. I own a similar app called Witch[1] from Many Tricks (the guy behind Moom). Also a nice Cmd+Tab upgrade. [1] https://manytricks.com/witch/
Was wondering the same thing, the developer indicated it does via Twitter: https://twitter.com/contextsapp/status/1138209813714821120
Re: Ask HN: The most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts?
#128Re: Ask HN: The most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts?
#129Not a shortcut exactly, but remap caps lock to ctrl. So much easier in terminal and for using shortcuts like ctrl-A & ctrl-E for beginning and end of line, etc.
I found mapping Caps to Ctrl caused too much RSI. It's better to use a full size keyboard and use two hands for keyboard combos, e.g. for Ctrl+A use right Ctrl, for Ctrl+N use left Ctrl, for Ctrl+E use right control. Takes a little while to master but it puts much less pressure on your fingers. Mapping Caps to Esc is a good choice though.
It causes more RSI than using ^ in its regular spot?
I like your Esc idea though. I know someone that remaps it to esc when pressed alone and ctrl when chorded.
Re: Ask HN: The most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts?
#130Hot corners. I have top right corner as put display to sleep. So I can just walk away from my Mac at work if I want to go grab a coffee or something.
Me too! It’s a great tip