Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#1

Post by franze » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 6:49 AM UTC

Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks
apple.stackexchange.com

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#2

Post by rtaycher » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 8:09 AM UTC

Is there a similar one for linux?

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#3

Post by gurraman » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 8:20 AM UTC

I did not read the entire list, but my favorite "trick":

    CMD + SHIFT + g

... in Finder (or an open-file-dialog) opens up a "Go to folder"-dialog in which you can tab-complete your way to the desired destination. It's not perfect, but makes fs-navigation bearable in Finder.

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#4

Post by stricken » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 8:21 AM UTC

gurraman wrote: post #3

I did not read the entire list, but my favorite "trick": CMD + SHIFT + g ... in Finder (or an open-file-dialog) opens up a "Go to folder"-dialog in which you can tab-complete your way to the desired destination. It's not perfect, but makes fs-navigation bearable in Finder.

Oh, wow, I didn't realise you could tab-complete as well. Thanks!

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#5

Post by gurraman » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 8:23 AM UTC

gurraman wrote: post #3

I did not read the entire list, but my favorite "trick": CMD + SHIFT + g ... in Finder (or an open-file-dialog) opens up a "Go to folder"-dialog in which you can tab-complete your way to the desired destination. It's not perfect, but makes fs-navigation bearable in Finder.

Ah, #4 in the original post. It's a good feature that deserves extra mention though :)

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#6

Post by nikcub » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 8:34 AM UTC

The big one that I went through recently was killing startup items. You tend to hoard them over time, especially with a dev machine.

Look in, and clear out in /Library/StartupItems and /System/Library/StartupItems

Like any good UNIX, there are a dozen other ways that applications can launch themselves in OS X, so run a ps and find processes that you don't need and figure out where they are being started.

I alias everything in bash to run the scripts manually when I need them (eg. 'apu' starts apache, 'ngu' starts nginx, 'vbx' sets up virtualbox). Saves a ton of memory and gets boot time down to seconds rather than minutes.

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#7

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 8:40 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#8

Post by mrspeaker » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 8:40 AM UTC

I couldn't see it in that list, but my favourite can't-live-without shortcut is CMD + ~ to switch between windows of the same app (for example, if you have 10 textmate windows open it will flip between them). CMD + SHFT + ~ to go the other way.

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#9

Post by xtacy » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 8:55 AM UTC

What's even better is that many of the keyboard shortcuts are consistent across many applications. For e.g., Cmd-, opens Application Preferences.

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#10

Post by whimsy » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 9:28 AM UTC

nikcub wrote: post #6

The big one that I went through recently was killing startup items. You tend to hoard them over time, especially with a dev machine. Look in, and clear out in /Library/StartupItems and /System/Library/StartupItems Like any good UNIX, there are a dozen other ways that applications can launch themselves in OS X, so run a ps and find processes that you don't need and figure out where they are being started. I alias ever…

Are you doing anything fancy inside vbx, or is it just a copy of the startup item?