Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS? • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by etimberg » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

nxpnsv wrote: post #130

etimberg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Found out the other day that you can drag and drop this into a document...

Hmm, it must be something special in certain apps. I've tried that into the Slack desktop app and it didn't accept it

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

#412

Post by ftk » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

kreeble wrote: post #169

ftk wrote: post #152

When Cmd+Tab'ing press and hold the Option key before letting go of Cmd to unminimize/create a window for the selected application (assuming it doesn't already have unminimized windows open).

Not doin anythin for me

Make sure you release Cmd after pressing the Option key.

https://superuser.com/a/325530

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

#413

Post by kratom_sandwich » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

This is a neat hack for reducing PDF file sizes. As you may know, macOS already has a built-in filter to reduce file size, but for me, it often results in almost unreadable documents. This stackexchange question shows how to create a custom filter which delivers way better results, i.e. small files and very good quality:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/297417/how-to-decr...

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

#414

Post by cmehdy » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

hibbelig wrote: post #396

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…

Three finger drag :-( Thank you so much for telling us about it, but I expected that I can drag the window anywhere. Turns out I can only drag it where it could also be dragged by clicking normally. But I turned it on anyway, we'll see if I'll use it.

It also works to do text selection without clicking+dragging, same with moving files or folders. I've mostly stopped clicking outside of browsers thanks to the 3-finger drag option.

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

#415

Post by darcys22 » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

Cmd + ~ (tilde)

Cycles between the windows of the same app. Similar to cmd + tab.

Saved me so much when reading multiple pdfs in preview

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

#416

Post by h9n » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

zenexer wrote: post #194

- Ctrl + Cmd + Shift + 4 will let you take a screenshot of a region of your screen and copy it to the clipboard. It can then be pasted directly into most applications, from email clients to chat clients. No random screenshots sitting around. If you want to capture a whole window, press Space after the initial shortcut, then click the window. - While a menu is open, hold Option; if you're lucky, you'll get some additi…

After pressing Cmd + Shift + 4, press Space and then click on a window or alert to screenshot it entirely, instead of having to drag out a rectangular region. It works at the level of the compositor so the screenshot includes its chrome and translucent drop shadow, and nothing behind or overlapping the window,

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

#417

Post by cugs » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 10:33 PM UTC

pcr910303 wrote: post #66

While this isn't a generic feature, I want to say that everyone should try embracing the non-keyboard nature of macOS (as it always has been done), not just complaining that some of the elements are not reachable in the keyboard.[0] Try using the mouse, trackpad (which is top-quality), and the Touch Bar (which I guess will be the most controversial?). Especially drag-n-drop. I'm not sure if it's already mentioned, bu…

And yet you can't select and drag text like you can on Windows...

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

#418

Post by scarlac » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

In any native text field, try a few CTRL-hotkeys you'd type in Terminal:

CTRL + K (delete to end of line)

CTRL + D (delete in place aka delete key (not backspace))

CTRL + A (go to start of line)

CTRL + E (go to end of line)

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

#419

Post by dividedbyzero » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 10:45 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #128

You can assign a folder full of images to the background of Terminal.app, and it will choose background images at random, so a folder full of dark solid colors gives you random dark backgrounds, enabling you to tell your terminal windows apart easily.

This does not seem to be supported in iTerm, if anyone else is wondering.

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

#420

Post by jackson1442 » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 10:48 PM UTC

ratww wrote: post #380

faitswulff wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can even have it automatically open on an iPad to annotate on– I cannot overstate how useful this is when you're trying to write instructions for something.