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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?

#441

Post by juancn »

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…

The touch bar is a no-go for me. I really use the F-keys a lot, so I have it on F-key all the time.

My ideal setup would be to make the trackpad a tad smaller, add the physical function keys again and the touch bar above.

I don't think it was a good tradeoff for many use cases.

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

#442

Post by juancn »

johnwalkr wrote: post #361

I found these after years, although it's been years since I found it. Preview is pretty good for merging PDFs, deleting pages from PDFs, and adding annotations. Whenever I have to do these things on a windows machine, I struggle to find software to do it. Most importantly, preview can add your signature via trackpad, or by holding up your signature to a webcam.

You can also save your signature (draw it with a mouse or take a picture of it) and use it to sign PDFs

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

#443

Post by stjohnswarts »

jlturner wrote: post #187

This has been around for a long time but most people don’t know about it: Dragging and dropping files from the finder into an file selector window (ie. Open File in most programs) will navigate to that file and select it. As others mentioned this works in terminal as well to give you a path, but actually this generally works in any text box (unless it specifically handles paths being drag ‘n dropped). This also works…

I use the path version of this all the time for some really long path names :) . I keep those folders open just for that particular purpose. Very handy. It also works for selected text. Works on linux too. I honestly don't know about windows.

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

#445

Post by juancn »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #423
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…

This incredibly useful to get alerted to some long-running job finishing or the like, e.g. ./some-lengthy-job | say Done Back when I did lots of Apache Spark on a underpowered cluster, I had a script to lower Spotify volume, tell me the outcome (success, failure), then set Spotify back to original volume. I still use this as a kitchen timer all the time when cooking while on my Macbook with utimer, which is basically…

That redirects the output to say's stdin. You probably want '&&' and '||'.

    ./some-lengthy-job && say Done || say Failed

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

#446

Post by kkarakk »

awinder wrote: post #347
com2kid wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

do you have a gpu in your pc? i've never seen windows 10 fonts look like this

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

#450

Post by cawlin »

fedorareis wrote: post #265
cawlin wrote: post #134

I recently discovered the Bluetooth device debugging menu. Hold Shift + Option and click on the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar.

I don’t believe you need the shift. You just need to Option + click

Shit + Option gives you the extra debug option that option + click does not.
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