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?

#51

Post by donatj » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

bryceneal wrote: post #9

I solved the screenshot on the desktop problem by using a program called Hazel. It can automatically move and sort files based on any number of criteria. I set it up to move all screenshots on my desktop to a ~/tmp directory. This has worked pretty well for keeping my desktop completely empty which is my preference.

You can actually just change where they go in the Command-Shift-5 option menu.

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

#52

Post by GolDDranks » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

Roybot wrote: post #10

Dictionary word lookup with a single gesture. https://media.giphy.com/media/Vg5tebSFuj1DFtHwrd/giphy.gif

Sadly, that used to work better than it does now. From some versions ago, it was upgraded to be "smarter" and do google searches and link lookups and whatnot. I'm nowadays struggling to get the dictionary lookup shown. That's a shame; as a non-native speaker it's a super helpful feature. I've been trying to disable the other shenanigans, but without much success.

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

#53

Post by GavinAnderegg » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

Cmd-Ctrl-Space (⌘⌃␣) for the character/emoji picker. Also, under Keyboard in preferences, check the "Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar" option to get it as a menu-bar icon. This also includes the keyboard viewer, which is handy to figure certain Shift-Opt-Whaterver combos for seldom-used characters.

EDIT: Updated with the actual default command.

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

#54

Post by mesofile » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

corytheboyd wrote: post #7

The keyboard shortcut in finder to take you to your home directory, cmd + shift + h if I recall correctly. Makes it trivial to keyboard navigate to anything when you can easily start from the same place every time!

There are dozens of these shortcuts -- I use the ones for the Applications (cmd + shift + a) and Desktop (cmd + shift + d) most often, but you can find many others listed here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

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

#55

Post by danthewireman » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

Solstinox wrote: post #16

Double click text to select a word. Triple click text to select the whole paragraph. For decades I assumed that there’s some weird fluky behavior when trying to select a word and accidentally selecting the paragraph.

You can also double click a word, keep the mouse button down, and drag. This will select whole words. I use this a lot.

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

#56

Post by delgaudm » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

throwaway413 wrote: post #32

nthState wrote: post #25

You can hover/long press on the green traffic light item to tile your screen.

literally just discovered this yesterday myself for the first time - still prefer Spectacle, but nice that it’s there.

Spectacle is no longer being maintained. Rectangle [0] offers the same functionally and is OSS

[0]https://rectangleapp.com/

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

#57

Post by ramses0 » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

house9-2 wrote: post #50

corytheboyd wrote: post #7

The keyboard shortcut in finder to take you to your home directory, cmd + shift + h if I recall correctly. Makes it trivial to keyboard navigate to anything when you can easily start from the same place every time!

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

`xdg-open .` is the Linux equivalent.

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

#58

Post by moralestapia » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

jdub wrote: post #31

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

Shift + Command + 5… click "Options" in the bar down the bottom of the screen. (Also, try hitting space a couple of times in that mode.)

Wait ... you can RECORD !

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

#59

Post by dawnerd » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

If you took a screenshot to your clipboard but want it saved as a file you can open preview and hit cmd N.

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

#60

Post by moralestapia » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

corytheboyd wrote: post #7

The keyboard shortcut in finder to take you to your home directory, cmd + shift + h if I recall correctly. Makes it trivial to keyboard navigate to anything when you can easily start from the same place every time!

Cmd + D : Desktop, that's the one I use.