Cmd-R (R for "reveal") in the open/save file dialog opens the present directory in Finder. This is useful as I commonly want to do some additional janitory tasks in the directory.
This works in Spotlight too!
Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
491–500 of 540 posts
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#492Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a setting you enable in the app menu, not the default
Is it? Oh man, must've been a long time since I enabled it. They should make it the default.
Not built into macOS, but you can use this app to get the Chrome-style quit delay for every app:
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#493macOS has a very good built-in text-to-speech engine with real voices that sound good (i.e. not annoying to read). It's part of the Accessibility > Speech menu in Settings. I wrote up a little info doc for how to enable keyboard shortcut for it so you can use with any text you can select: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem... Use cases: - read blog posts and news articles while doing dishes…
I'm even creating my own audiobooks from ebook text, as a way to consume books not officially available in audiobook! I haven't tested it much yet but the 'Samantha' voice actually seems listenable and intelligible for long periods.
Do you think there will come a time when audiobooks are generated via sequence model using celebrity voices?
I gave it a go with LSTM's.
Each sentence is intelligible, but it feels so dry without the emotion of a human voice actor.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#494I learned recently that in any terminal you can option click to move the cursor to a specific location in a command. It’s really great when you want to reuse a command but with a small change.
In zsh you can C-x, C-e and it will open whatever is on the command line in $EDITOR.
When you save it the changes will be on the command line.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#495⌘ + Down for dbl click to open ⌘ + [, ⌘ + ] to go back/forwards in finder history
The forwards and backwards in finder history shortcut also works in a large number of other apps :)
Indeed. The only reason I discovered it was because of the muscle memory from using it with a browser!
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#496I 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.
I have seen pdf files swell to ~ ten times the original size when I edit them with Preview. Apparently, Preview will reencode images upon saving, often choosing a less efficient encoding than original. The most extreme cases I encountered would be files scanned in black and white, with Fax or JBIG2 encoding. Since I use such files a lot, I use pdfpen instead for all my pdf editing tasks.
I've only ever seen that happen when re-exporting using Quartz filters, where the whole point is to re-encode, and saving an e.g. 300-page PDF will take several minutes, with a progress bar.
If you're just using Preview to rearrange/combine/etc. pages, no re-encoding happens and file size stays the same.
Believe me, I do a lot of PDF management in Preview. Even to the point of creating my own Quartz filters in the ColorSync Utility precisely so that I can intentionally re-encode images when I want to. (Because the Apple-provided Quartz filters are hard-coded to abusrdly high or absurdly low resoltions.)
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#497Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you close it? Cmd-W doesn't work for this type of window.
Hit the same key combo that invoked the character picker (⌘⌃Space in my case).
Doesn't work for me. It opens the emoji picker, but doesn't close it. :(
Tried in both Chrome and TextEdit.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#498Preview can modify images. There's a button with a pencil icon that toggles a toolbar for simple image editing, such as adding lines, shapes, or texts.
There’s a little prism icon too which opens a panel for Lightroom-type modifications like exposure, shadows, highlights, levels, sharpness, etc.
I mean I thought I was a Preview power user, but had never clicked that little toolbar button.
Blows me away I can do that stuff in Preview. Wow.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#499Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#500Earlier quoted context omitted.
This may or may not work for you: each space dedicated to a project has a desktop image related to the project - a logo, an important visual asset, etc. It mostly works for me. Wish you could name the damn things out of the box though.
This is a good idea. I started testing this previously by just choosing different wallpapers, but didn't take a step further to photoshop in some text. I may yet in addition to the space naming. It feels like it would be helpful to see on the wallpaper using expose, and also from the three finger swipe up. Really, Apple should allow this meta to be overlayed on a wallpaper instead of having to photoshop it in. I'm pe…
I never bother adding in text. It's just a matter of choosing images that are obviously-related for me.
Working on the graphic novel? Go to the desktop with a model sheet of one of the characters/props. Working on the Mastodon instance? It's the desktop with the image I drew for the front of the site. Drawing furry porn commissions? Hello, desktop with an endless rotation of Doug Winger's work.