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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?

#371

Post by hobs »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #178
hobs wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep this is what I came to say - OSX's help menu automatically searches all menu commands and if you hover over them it will open up the menu, show you the location, and if you hit enter just use it for you. This is also something you can generally call from Applescript as well, if you want to automate application behaviors.

Mind sharing an example AppleScript of that? Every time I’ve dug in there, it’s never had quite what I wanted. But this seems like an especially leverage-able idea.

It's been about 10 years since I touched that code, so apologies if these are all things you know.

I am pretty sure most of the work was just extending the documentation in https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/La... with looking up application "dictionaries" (iirc, a box of supported commands) and all menu items being accessible by default.

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap...

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

#372

Post by ingorichter »

cefstat wrote: post #107
Vincenttermini wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, right? Been using Macs for 25 years and discovered it a few months ago on accident. Not sure how long it's been there, but definitely a dumb name!

I remember this from the classic Mac OS days (i.e. System 7) circa 1994. It’s probably even older than that.

It's been there for a very long time. I used to teach DTP with QuarkExpress back in 92 and this feature was gold. It helped to preserve and not destroy the page templates of the magazine. The fine folks at this publisher had a hard time adjusting to the new world and it saved me so much time when they messed around with the layout and page settings

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

#373

Post by mi_lk »

aunty_helen wrote: post #217

Cmd-space to bring up spotlight Type whatever you want. Cmd-b Your default web browser with your default search engine will now open and perform your query. I can't stress this enough how much I use this workflow when writing code. Another thing for the OPs issue with the screenshots, (there's a few steps via terminal so maybe try the above shortcut to search for an article on how to do it) you can have all your scre…

I tried Cmd-b search in spotlight but it went with Firefox+Google when my default is Firefox+Duckduckgo, any chance someone knows how to fix it?

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

#374

Post by Jetrel »

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…

If I recall, what he was really saying was - when he was in college, he chose to go to some classes that weren't required, but were interesting to him, personally - one of them was on typography. He learned a bunch of non-obvious things about how fonts are designed, and how they use things like serifs for legibility, etc, etc - just this huge swath of things that he didn't necessarily "learn in depth", but he became aware of the existence of, and aware of why anyone ought to care that they exist.

So then a few years later, he's running a computer company, and it's the heyday of greenscreen, monospaced fonts. And a lot of people - without this connection to the font-making culture of western history, genuinely thought that's perfectly fine, no room-for-improvement, etc. Monospaced stuff was honest, straightforward, industrial - it didn't waste any effort on silliness like "looking pretty" (very much like soviet brutalist architecture).

As a manager, he was able to at least greenlight the idea of "wasting money" (lots of it, in fact), on decent typography, because, thanks to that education, he understood it wasn't just being done to make stuff prettier, but was actually being done to make it easier to read. That there was a powerful, utilitarian reason to do fancy fonts, not just an aesthetic one.

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

#375

Post by SebastianKra »

Menu-bar search.

Press CMD + Shift + / to open a search over all Menubar-actions for the current app.

If you're used to action-search in IntelliJ or VSCode, this will feel familiar to you. It's for those countless features that you use often, but not often enough to remember their proper shortcuts.

There are Launchbar- and Alfred plugins that provide a nicer interface.

(Germans need to reconfigure the shortcut in the settings, because our keyboards are weird)

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

#376

Post by Gaelan »

mi_lk wrote: post #373
aunty_helen wrote: post #217

Cmd-space to bring up spotlight Type whatever you want. Cmd-b Your default web browser with your default search engine will now open and perform your query. I can't stress this enough how much I use this workflow when writing code. Another thing for the OPs issue with the screenshots, (there's a few steps via terminal so maybe try the above shortcut to search for an article on how to do it) you can have all your scre…

I tried Cmd-b search in spotlight but it went with Firefox+Google when my default is Firefox+Duckduckgo, any chance someone knows how to fix it?

Try changing the default in Safari, on the theory that it might use that as some sort of “system search engine”? Failing that, it’s probably just hardcoded.

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

#377

Post by mi_lk »

Gaelan wrote: post #376
mi_lk wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Cmd-b search in spotlight but it went with Firefox+Google when my default is Firefox+Duckduckgo, any chance someone knows how to fix it?

Try changing the default in Safari, on the theory that it might use that as some sort of “system search engine”? Failing that, it’s probably just hardcoded.

Changed and it's still Google. Yeah the search string is probably hardcoded :(

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

#378

Post by antipaul »

m463 wrote: post #305
house9-2 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cmd + shift + h = home directory cmd + shift + a = applications directory cmd + shift + d = desktop directory Semi-related, type `open .` in terminal to open that directory in Finder

I use cmd+shift+u all the time. It's great when you don't have a mouse, or don't want to use it: cmd+tab: pulls up app switcher, keep clicking until you select Finder cmd+shift+u: opens utility menu t: highlights Terminal.app cmd+o: opens a terminal type

Could also spotlight search for Terminal

cmd-space, terminal, return

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

#380

Post by ratww »

faitswulff wrote: post #348
erichurkman wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

⌘-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.

Or double click for some quick editing and annotation.
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