Show hidden files (dotfiles) inside any finder window or file open dialog: Cmd + Shift + . Discovered after ~10 years
This is awesome.
Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
21–30 of 540 posts
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#22Focusing the menubar with Control-F2.
You can then navigate by arrow keys or typing. Space bar activates the highlighted menu/submenu.
It makes life so much better.
Control-F2 itself was slightly broken in 10.14 (IIRC), so I hacked up a dumb workaround in my Hammerspoon config:
https://github.com/NateEag/dotfiles/blob/99f6b641151f85f6f78...
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#23Cmd + Shift + ? = Easy way to access menus via keyboard
dope. thank you.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#24my favourite feature is how the title bar icon in any app that’s editing a file (textmate/ word etc) is a pointer to the actual file unlike windows.
- you can drag that file anywhere to move it.
- CMD click it to see a breadcrumb menu showing where it is and navigate to the folder
on a similar vein, dragging a file into an open file modal box makes it browse to the containing folder. In windows, dragging a file would move the file into that folder.
I combine the above two quite a bit. Editing a file in app A, need to upload it somewhere via browser. Drag file from title bar into open dialog box, done.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#25You can hover/long press on the green traffic light item to tile your screen.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#26Wait until you find out you can change which directory screenshots save to. I have a dedicated "screenshots" directory in my home directory. And then a stack in the Dock for it similar to the one for the Downloads folder.
Any idea if there is a way to remove the preview that shows up in the bottom right corner? OSX doesn't write the screenshot until after that disappears which is annoying
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#27I believe desktop Stacks is only a version old (10.14) so you probably haven't been missing it for too long fortunately. Another good tip for screenshots is disabling the floating thumbnail. Just open the screenshot app and disable it in the options menu.
On the topic of screenshots, one I didn’t know was hitting space before you take a screenshot will make it capture an entire Window, including the shadow instead of having to drag a region
Plus holding option while you click takes a screenshot without the shadow, which I find vastly preferable. I only found out about that a couple of months ago, after a long time being annoyed.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#28Wait until you find out you can change which directory screenshots save to. I have a dedicated "screenshots" directory in my home directory. And then a stack in the Dock for it similar to the one for the Downloads folder.
Any idea if there is a way to remove the preview that shows up in the bottom right corner? OSX doesn't write the screenshot until after that disappears which is annoying
> Another good tip for screenshots is disabling the floating thumbnail. Just open the screenshot app and disable it in the options menu.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#29The 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!
If you don't know, that shortcut also works in Open/Save dialogs. The same is true for nearly all the shortcuts in the Finder > Go menu (go to Desktop switches to Command-D in those dialogs).
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#30Wait until you find out you can change which directory screenshots save to. I have a dedicated "screenshots" directory in my home directory. And then a stack in the Dock for it similar to the one for the Downloads folder.
Any idea if there is a way to remove the preview that shows up in the bottom right corner? OSX doesn't write the screenshot until after that disappears which is annoying
[deleted]