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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?

#451

Post by stjohnswarts »

davidivadavid wrote: post #171
nicoburns wrote: post #2

Wait until you find out you can change which directory screenshots save to. I have a dedicated "screenshots" directory in my home directory. And then a stack in the Dock for it similar to the one for the Downloads folder.

Wait until you find out you don't even have to save screenshots (most of the time) and can copy them straight to clipboard, and Cmd-V them where you need them. Cmd-Ctrl-Shift-3/4.

Yeah this is what I do 98% of the time. I'm usually not taking a bunch of screen shots. Just 1 or 2, usually because copy/paste from slack is such a PITA

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

#452

Post by stjohnswarts »

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-...

so awesome for renaming photos.

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

#453

Post by statictype »

freetonik wrote: post #407
mattkevan wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The preview thing is really handy as you can directly drag and drop it into a document or chat window or whatever. After you’ve done that it won’t be saved, which is great as you can quickly snap and use a screenshot without having to switch to the Finder - and the desktop doesn’t get cluttered with hundreds of images.

A huge problem with this is that some apps don't "accept" this drag and drop, and the preview just disappears without saving the screenshot file. I can't remember the exact apps which behave that way, but I've been burned and irritated multiple times because of this. As a result, I disabled the preview feature and added the screenshot folder to the dock just like OP did.

I’ve seen this with most cross platform apps - like Slack and Skype.

What I found you can do instead is use Cmd-C to copy it and then paste it into the app. That generally works.

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

#454

Post by Jakobeha »

sircastor wrote: post #317
Jakobeha wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Yes that was the speech

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

#455

Post by DrJokepu »

IgorPartola wrote: post #434
DrJokepu wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, duplicate filenames due to two files in two different locations both getting picked up by the smart folder.

You can easily tack on a random ID to the file name in that case and since it would just be a symlink it wouldn’t matter.

That's not the point. I have no doubt that the people at Apple are able to solve these issues. I think a lot of people on HN are able to propose solutions to many of these issues.

The point OP was making is that they have probably did their due diligence and subsequently decided that it ain't worth doing.

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

#456

Post by monocularvision »

freetonik wrote: post #407
mattkevan wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The preview thing is really handy as you can directly drag and drop it into a document or chat window or whatever. After you’ve done that it won’t be saved, which is great as you can quickly snap and use a screenshot without having to switch to the Finder - and the desktop doesn’t get cluttered with hundreds of images.

A huge problem with this is that some apps don't "accept" this drag and drop, and the preview just disappears without saving the screenshot file. I can't remember the exact apps which behave that way, but I've been burned and irritated multiple times because of this. As a result, I disabled the preview feature and added the screenshot folder to the dock just like OP did.

And folks wonder why people get annoyed with non-native apps on Mac.

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

#457

Post by IgorPartola »

DrJokepu wrote: post #455
IgorPartola wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily tack on a random ID to the file name in that case and since it would just be a symlink it wouldn’t matter.

That's not the point. I have no doubt that the people at Apple are able to solve these issues. I think a lot of people on HN are able to propose solutions to many of these issues. The point OP was making is that they have probably did their due diligence and subsequently decided that it ain't worth doing.

Oh for sure. I also imagine it depends on which team proposed it. If it’s the Finder team it might not occur to them to offload it to the file system team because it’s a fancy add on, not a system level thing. I have never used this feature but might give it a go. Having all the PDF files in one place could actually be fairly useful. Could also be nice to combine this with my Dropbox photography workflow.

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

#458

Post by kreeble »

soylentgraham wrote: post #196
mproud wrote: post #167

When typing or editing text, Option-arrow to move the cursor one word to the left or right Command-arrow to move to the beginning or end of the line Combine either of these with the shift key to quickly select text.

Ive always found it frustrating there aren't quite the same number of tricks here as windows/visual studio. Home/ctrl+home (Or end, to jump lines/doc) Ctrl+up (or down, to scroll without moving cursor) I forget these others, but I keep trying to use these in osx.

This is exactly how I feel in windows coming from a mac, super-constrained due to lack of hotkeys to navigate.

Ctrl+A = start of line, ctrl+e = end, ctrl+n = next line, ctrl+v = next page

By default, in macOS, this isn't enabled everywhere, but you can do it easily https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/os-x-text-system-keybind...

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

#459

Post by cel1ne »

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…

> In some of the fancier fonts on macOS, the characters actually change slightly if there are other characters nearby.

Do you mean kerning and ligature or something else?

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