Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 540 posts

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

#341

Post by coreyoconnor »

donatj wrote: post #91
frankjr wrote: post #68

Smart 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’ve been sad since they were introduced that they don’t work at the file system level, hence not in CLI applications. Support for them in desktop apps that open directories is also spotty. I would LOVE them if they were reimplemented as a fuse style file system instead of a userland macOS trick.

"hence not in CLI applications" is that specific aspect accurate? I'm no longer mac user but thought mdfind (https://ss64.com/osx/mdfind.html) was the command line version of what smart folders use. Not the same as a filesystem but usable for many CLI apps.

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

#342

Post by frankjr »

swyx wrote: post #303
frankjr wrote: post #68

Smart 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…

is there a way to use this to rebuild the missing "All My Files" on Macs?

I think so. Just create a new Smart Folder, set the condition to something that matches all files, for example "Created is after 1970" and sort by "Date Created".

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

#343

Post by Hamuko »

m463 wrote: post #266
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 think newer versions of mac os x might have messed with your font rendering again. They turned off subpixel anti-aliasing and it looks worse on older displays. (I can't help but think of the "slowing down older iphones" thing) search for "fix blurry fonts mojave"

I managed to fix the font rendering on my Mojave Hackintosh, but everything is still fucked on my 16-inch MacBook Pro running Catalina.

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

#344

Post by newtoday »

chadlavi wrote: post #332
logotype wrote: post #310

If you’re in Terminal and want to open a Finder window with the current path, just type “open .”

`open` is really useful in general. You can also use it to open apps! `open ./someFile.foo -a App\ Name` or even just `open -a App\ Name`

Wow, thank you! I start my day off by launching 10 or more applications and have always procrastinated on my plans to automate this.

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

#345

Post by arthuryip »

cmehdy wrote: post #126

Three-finger drag is the one thing I just can't live without.[0] Finder: Cmd+Shift+G to navigate wherever I want (with autocomplete) Text input: Control+Command+Space for the emoji list and search Text input (switching keyboards for Japanese input): Control+Space for quick toggles Text input (accents in my native language): all the accents and letters of various European languages are usually made by using Option+[ke…

The great thing about three-finger drag is when you reach the end of the trackpad, you can lift one finger and put another finger to continue the drag. Tap and drag on Windows couldn't do that.

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

#347

Post by awinder »

com2kid wrote: post #320
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 wit…

That's a hard pill to swallow when my ability to read anything is so strained by trying to focus letters. I mean if I was just able to read the words better I'd not be complaining, that's what I want to do lol. I'm on 1440p here and microsoft sells devices with higher resolutions so I don't know how much legs this argument has to keep going on. I mean this is what I see in windows system preferences promising to make things less blurry:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkO2l6AGLMlwhKhSgq-aamXREBO0Vw?e=01Qr5w

How is this more legible in any objective universe lol.

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

#348

Post by faitswulff »

erichurkman wrote: post #271
TaqPolymerase wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cmd-Shift-5 for some more nice screenshot options, including disabling that floating window that appears before your screenshot gets saved to the Desktop Cmd-Down also opens in Finder, just like Cmd-O

⌘-Shift-5 to disable that floating screen shot thing... I love you. That thing is _so slow_ and distracting I always worry my screen shot didn't actually save until that slow window popped up on some random screen.

I used to hate the screenshot preview, but then discovered I could drag it into applications and websites, or into the trash if it was a mistake.

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

#349

Post by Hamuko »

rrwright wrote: post #276

The `say` command line tool. It will cause a synthesized voice to speak out loud whatever follows that command via text-to-speech. This is especially useful for pranking your loved ones for whom you have remote shell access. ssh in and cause the other person’s computer to start talking to them... by name... asking for help... to be let out of the small metal box they’ve been trapped in for SO long... This has been av…

Serial Experiments Lain (1998) used PlainTalk for its title cards.

You can still recreate the title card voices in macOS.

    say -v Whisper "Weird: Layer zero one"

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

#350

Post by maxioatic »

27182818284 wrote: post #335
maxioatic wrote: post #114

Cmd + tab to quit applications Instead of releasing cmd to switch to the application, you can press q to quit it.

Command+q is the standard to quit in all well-behaving macOS apps. No need for tab.

Obviously. This lets you quit an app without switching to it or right clicking it on the dock -> quit.
Post reply on HN