Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 540 posts

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

#91

Post by donatj »

frankjr wrote: post #68

Smart Folders (Finder -> File -> New Smart Folder). It's not exactly hidden but I never paid too much attention to it. It's essentially a way to create a folder whose content is dynamically updated based on your search conditions. For example, you can create a smart folder that contains all PDF files matching a certain name pattern within a given directory (or the whole disk) [0]. You can get really advanced, there's…

I’ve been sad since they were introduced that they don’t work at the file system level, hence not in CLI applications. Support for them in desktop apps that open directories is also spotty.

I would LOVE them if they were reimplemented as a fuse style file system instead of a userland macOS trick.

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

#93

Post by browningstreet »

Vincenttermini wrote: post #47

Marking a file as "Stationary Pad" will create and open a copy every time you open the original. Good for templates or any other file you don't want to accidentally save changes to. - Get Info on file. - Check Stationary Pad box.

That's a strange name/label for an awesome feature.

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

#94

Post by mojuba »

iaml wrote: post #79

You can use image capture app to copy pictures when you connect camera via usb. If you create a "Developer" folder in your ~ it's gonna have a different icon and is canonical place to put all your code in mac world. Clicking wifi tray icon while holding option is going to give you a lot more info and some hidden tools.

> Clicking wifi tray icon while holding option is going to give you a lot more info and some hidden tools.

Same for the Bluetooth icon: you can see for example your BT audio codec used, signal levels, MAC addresses and other info.

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

#95

Post by hamiltont »

manmal wrote: post #85
hamiltont wrote: post #11

Show hidden files (dotfiles) inside any finder window or file open dialog: Cmd + Shift + . Discovered after ~10 years

Not even temporarily, it’s a permanent, system-wide setting.

snap, I never realized it was permanent. Guess I just kept turning it off. Thanks! Updated parent comment

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

#96

Post by GavinAnderegg »

JadeNB wrote: post #81
GavinAnderegg wrote: post #53

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.

> Ctrl-Opt-Space for the character/emoji picker. I think this may not be the default; it doesn't work for me. While speaking of the character picker, does anyone know a way to get less broken search in the picker? For example, I frequently find myself looking for math italic characters in Unicode. Despite the description being, say, "MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL A", it doesn't come up when I search for 'small'. In this…

Oops! Sorry! I meant Cmd-Opt-Space here. Also, yeah, the search is pretty janky in my usage as well.

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

#98

Post by elg75 »

frankjr wrote: post #68

Smart Folders (Finder -> File -> New Smart Folder). It's not exactly hidden but I never paid too much attention to it. It's essentially a way to create a folder whose content is dynamically updated based on your search conditions. For example, you can create a smart folder that contains all PDF files matching a certain name pattern within a given directory (or the whole disk) [0]. You can get really advanced, there's…

+ tags, it is a really flexible and powerful way to organise your files (by project + status + …)

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

#99

Post by Vincenttermini »

browningstreet wrote: post #93
Vincenttermini wrote: post #47

Marking a file as "Stationary Pad" will create and open a copy every time you open the original. Good for templates or any other file you don't want to accidentally save changes to. - Get Info on file. - Check Stationary Pad box.

That's a strange name/label for an awesome feature.

I know, right? Been using Macs for 25 years and discovered it a few months ago on accident. Not sure how long it's been there, but definitely a dumb name!
Post reply on HN