`pbcopy` and `pbpaste` for copying to / pasting from clipboard. Nice time savers!
Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
251–260 of 540 posts
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#252shift-ctrl-command-4 to crop a section of the screen to the clipboard. Then "File"->"New From Clipboard" in Preview to be able to save it as a file.
Cmd-shift-5 does this even better: it allows you to select a part of the screen with 4 drag handles, and gives you the option to capture to disk, clipboard, mail, with a timer, etc.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#253i posted mine yesterday[0], about being able to alt-tab between windows of all applications, not just between applications or tabs. i remapped that to opt-cmd-tab for easier access. does anyone know how to turn off wifi on startup via scripting? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24085803
I found this one annoying enough to install Contexts[0]. The free demo immediately sold me on their approach.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
literally just discovered this yesterday myself for the first time - still prefer Spectacle, but nice that it’s there.
Spectacle is no longer being maintained. Rectangle [0] offers the same functionally and is OSS [0] https://rectangleapp.com/
When I first saw Rectangle, I thought I saw there was one Spectacle feature it was missing due to APIs. I'm looking now and it looks like it has everything I use, which is great.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#255Show hidden files (dotfiles) inside any finder window or file open dialog: Cmd + Shift + . Discovered after ~10 years
This doesn't work on my Mac. Only Cmd + Shift + Fn + . works. Don't know why, tbh.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#256I recently discovered some nice helpers to resize windows: - Hold down the option key while resizing a windows (with the mouse) to also resize the opposite side. This also works when resizing the window on a corner to resize all edges at once. - Double click a window border to enlarge this side of the window up to the edge of the scereen. Hold down the option key to enlarge also the opposite site. - Double-click the…
Try divvy. Works for both Mac and Windows. It's the first app I install on any fresh box.
Here are some divvy shortcut ideas for the XDR Pro display: https://i.imgur.com/Tf4c6yo.png
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if there is a list somewhere around Apple of "Annoying Edge Cases We'd Have To Support If Smart Folders Worked At The Filesystem Level", and how long it is. Like, you're in a smart folder that contains files whose name includes "foo", and you try to create a file whose name does not include "foo", what happens? Do you get an existing filesystem error? Do you get a new "can't create new files in smart folders…
Also, duplicate filenames due to two files in two different locations both getting picked up by the smart folder.
Ooh, good one. Not a problem when it’s GUI-only, with the little display of the precise path at the bottom when you click it, but disambiguating this for CLI use requires a whole new approach.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#258You can add blank spaces on the dock using: defaults write http://com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}' Very useful for organizing icons.
It has been so very long since I’ve used the Dock that it always comes as a surprise when it comes up in macOS UX discussion as I forget that it exists. Can someone explain how it is useful to their workflow?
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#259I 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).
My favourite hidden function: Pressing space after Shift-Cmd-4 toggles window mode. In window mode, only the window you select will be captured.
Note also that menus are treated like windows, so you can screenshot a menu as well.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#260Smart 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…
I exclusively used smart playlists for my ipod nano (for date reference :), I pray that one day these smart folders appear on win/osx as a low level. Like smart symbolic links. Surely it cant be that hard!
It would seem such a thing vexed even Bill Gates himself “biggest regret”:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/bill-gates-biggest-microsoft-p...