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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?

#311

Post by zitterbewegung »

I've been using Apple devices for ~25 years now and I think the best feature I have used was the summarizer service (actually I would think that services in general in macOS you should look through). What it does is if you select some text it will summarize it.

While I was in Brazilian jujitsu class they had an MMA brand that needed "organic content" based on articles from wikipedia and I bartered with them so that I would receive a Jujitsu Gi for summarizing 150 articles. This allowed me to accomplish the above task in only a few hours.

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

#313

Post by SPBS »

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.

windows recently got this feature as well, it's Win + ;

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

#314

Post by asveikau »

sgt wrote: post #226

I wonder how someone can read this thread and NOT realize that macOS is probably the most advanced desktop operating system out there.

Uhh... By hiding a bunch of functionality in obscure keyboard shortcuts that professional users don't discover after years, sometimes decades of use?

I have thought Macs were pretty cool since I first used system 7. But I would not apply such blinders. This thread could also be taken as criticism even if nobody intends it to be so.

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

#315

Post by m463 »

house9-2 wrote: post #80
bredren wrote: post #17

Has anyone found a way to name desktop spaces anything other than Desktop 1, Desktop 2 etc?

Not a built in feature: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/211954/how-can-i-n... Some people on this post are using ‘Stickies’ app to put a label on each one? Otherwise, there are 3rd party apps that do it.

I used to use stickies years ago but it became too cumbersome. Something would happen and I would have the individual stickies back to their workspace.

I wish there was a workspace-specific description - big letters describing the workspace that fade, or a watermark for the background image.

I mean something designed into the window switching.

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

#317

Post by sircastor »

Jakobeha wrote: post #270
awinder wrote: post #166

I’ve been using windows more recently since my personal Mac bit the dust and I’m trying to decide if there’s really that much reason to own a personal Mac. So now I realize for years I’ve been using this silent feature of macs for years called “not totally jacked up font rendering”. I would never have imagined this was a feature, but apparently there is a collective insanity in windowsland where the quality of font r…

I remember watching a speech from Steve Jobs where he specifically said he learned about calligraphy or typefacing (I don’t remember the specific terms) to implement proper font rendering on macs. This was also before OSX came out. It was interesting because I realized how subtly difficult font rendering is. Unless you’re using a monospaced font all of the characters have different widths, you have to figure out how…

I don’t think it was specifically for the Mac. I think this might be from the speech he gave at Stanford where he talked about dropping his required classes and going to ones that he just was interested in. He later applied what he learned though.

[1] https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/

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

#318

Post by SPBS »

baryphonic wrote: post #211

Batch renaming files in Finder.[1] It's quite useful and one of the few GUI-based looping operations that takes me less time than fat-fingering the shell incantation. [1] https://osxdaily.com/2015/05/28/batch-rename-files-mac-os-x-...

what the hell that's really useful. I used to open emacs (I'm a vim user) just for the bulk rename

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

#320

Post by com2kid »

awinder wrote: post #166

I’ve been using windows more recently since my personal Mac bit the dust and I’m trying to decide if there’s really that much reason to own a personal Mac. So now I realize for years I’ve been using this silent feature of macs for years called “not totally jacked up font rendering”. I would never have imagined this was a feature, but apparently there is a collective insanity in windowsland where the quality of font r…

This is a holy war topic.

Some people, myself included, prefer how Windows render fonts. Others prefer MacOS.

From what I recall the last time this came up on HN, MacOS tries to render true to the font as if in a professional work flow that ends with a physical product. Windows aims for on screen legibility as it's primary goal.

Also remember that most Windows machines have a much lower DPI screen that what comes with or is hooked up to a Mac, so what is being optimized for there is also different.

Honestly hooked up to my large 1440p screen, MacOS's font rendering isn't /that/ nice, it becomes a wash vs Windows, and on a 1080p laptop I'll take Windows don't rendering.

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