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Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS

thume.ca

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Re: Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS

#191

Post by addandsubtract »

eric-hu wrote: post #180
extra88 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean “Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls?” That’s in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts.

That’s what I have enabled. That setting behaves differently between Touch Bar and non Touch Bar macs. On non Touch Bar Macs, you can hit space or enter to interact with a pop up dialog. On Touch Bar Macs, the tab key skips over certain UI elements as if they don’t exist. “Conveniently”, those elements are on the Touch Bar.

I'm not sure if this solves your problem, because I'm still on a non-TB Mac, but you can use CMD + [first letter] to select dialog options. For example, if you're closing an app and are asked if you want to save an open file, the dialog might have "Yes" preselected, but also let you choose "Don't save". If you hit CMD + D it will choose the "Don't save" option. Same thing for something that might say "All files" you can hit CMD + A to select it.

Re: Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS

#192

Post by jastuk »

michelb wrote: post #189

I'm having several finder windows with tabs open as I work on certain projects. From time to time something crashes and closes all windows. Is there a way to 'store' the finder's open windows(including tabs!) and then restoring them again? I have not found anything that works on Catalina. (Stay doesn't do this)

Finder is essential yet it's the biggest pain point I have with macOS.

- You've already mentioned a big one

- Related would be remembering which Finder window goes to which "desktop" or screen

- Another is no (permanent) custom width per folder or auto-sizing column view. Fixed width is either wasting space or not showing nearly enough. I always end up manually resizing the last/active column.

- They recently added shared iCloud folders as well. Guess what, you can't see any filenames in column view because they repeat "Added by {Owner}" for every single file/folder which takes way too much space. I guess an icon/avatar was too much. Heck, even that is questionable since we have a sidebar with all the metadata.

I don't know the technical aspect of it but they seem to have also locked down macOS which resulted in TotalFinder calling it quits. Not sure how viable it is for alternatives nowadays. I have no need for split/ftp Finder alternatives, just need a polished column view.

Re: Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS

#193

Post by addandsubtract »

scarlac wrote: post #9
chime wrote: post #3

Author says Alfred is marginally better than Spotlight but I use it for so many different things. Doing quick math is a very common function for me. My favorite hidden trick is cmd+L which displays the typed text in HUGE fonts, so someone across the room can read it.

A few tips for Spotlight that made me stop using apps like Quicksilver and Alfred: 1. Typing something and pressing CMD+B will open a browser and do a Google search for that 2. Typing math works now 3. You can change your Spotlight preferences to not include files you don't wanna search on, essentially always showing apps (if you just want it do be an app launcher) Alfred does a lot more than this, but for me these w…

4. You can jump to the definition of a word by pressing CMD + L

Re: Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS

#194

Post by arvinsim »

cawlin wrote: post #45
chime wrote: post #3

Author says Alfred is marginally better than Spotlight but I use it for so many different things. Doing quick math is a very common function for me. My favorite hidden trick is cmd+L which displays the typed text in HUGE fonts, so someone across the room can read it.

My most used Alfred things beyond launching apps/files: * Clipboard history (screenshots on clipboard in the history is extra useful) * Snippets using the date placeholders {datetime:short} for various file naming and email workflows * Snippet shortcuts for things I always forget like the shortcut for → and ™ or my zoom meeting link that I paste into meeting invites * Launching simple shell scripts by keyword * Workf…

> * Clipboard history (screenshots on clipboard in the history is extra useful)

Are you fine that Alfred can read the clipboard?

> * Workflow for opening Jira tickets in my browser quickly

Yes! Navigating JIRA is much easier with Alfred.

Re: Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS

#195

Post by shinycode »

saagarjha wrote: post #122
shinycode wrote: post #113

I’ve been searching for a long time a tool that would resize all the windows open on a given space to fill up the entire screen. I open lots of things when working and that would be more useful than doing the exposé and switching back and forth do declutter. It seems to me that this feature is available on Windows and has been for a long time. I tried almost everything that I could google and I even bought apps that…

Hammerspoon can do this quite easily, just grab all the windows using hs.window.filter.defaultCurrentSpace:getWindows() and set each's frame to it's screen:frame().

Thank you for the tip, I'll to code the algorithm to do it myself. That's great !

On an other note: a tip on iOS and MacOS, when you make a voice recording then you can edit it and activate a feature with the top left wand icon which is going to clear up the sound. When it's a voice recording it's pretty amazing how well it works, in particular to remove the echo.

Re: Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS

#197

Post by peterhil »

peterhil wrote: post #133
jungletime wrote: post #127

I have a macbook which I partitioned and installed windows on. the macbook is in a drawer in a stand up desk. The desk has a terrible ergonomic design. So I ended up using the pullout drawer as a shelf form my external keyboard, which is rested on a board. So my macbook is closed, inside a drawer, covered by a board, and connected to external monitor and keyboard. 1. How can I boot into windows from the mac desktop.…

1. I vaguely remember there being some command or sysctl preference which you can use to set options for next boot and also control sleep options.

The command is bless, and it requires some options to be able to boot a Windows partition:

Example to boot from `dev/disk0s3` once:

sudo /usr/sbin/bless --device /dev/disk0s3 --setBoot --legacy --nextonly

More information:

https://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=201106012209257...

Re: Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS

#198

Post by peterhil »

peterhil wrote: post #133
jungletime wrote: post #127

I have a macbook which I partitioned and installed windows on. the macbook is in a drawer in a stand up desk. The desk has a terrible ergonomic design. So I ended up using the pullout drawer as a shelf form my external keyboard, which is rested on a board. So my macbook is closed, inside a drawer, covered by a board, and connected to external monitor and keyboard. 1. How can I boot into windows from the mac desktop.…

1. I vaguely remember there being some command or sysctl preference which you can use to set options for next boot and also control sleep options.

Actually, just pressing alt or option on an external keyboard should go to the boot partition selector. If you are using a wireless keyboard, do not press the key until you hear the startup chime, because bluetooth is not loaded until then:

https://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-manage-os-x-boot-options-wi...

Using Apple's BootCamp or rEfIt might also help if this does not work for some reason.

Re: Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS

#199

Post by peterhil »

peterhil wrote: post #197
peterhil wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I vaguely remember there being some command or sysctl preference which you can use to set options for next boot and also control sleep options.

The command is bless, and it requires some options to be able to boot a Windows partition: Example to boot from `dev/disk0s3` once: sudo /usr/sbin/bless --device /dev/disk0s3 --setBoot --legacy --nextonly More information: https://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=201106012209257...

Actually there has been a `systemsetup` command for a long time now, that is preferred to using `bless`:

List the available startup volumes:

sudo systemsetup -liststartupdisks

Set startup partition:

sudo systemsetup -setstartupdisk /Volumes/MyPartition

https://krypted.com/mac-security/dont-use-bless-to-change-st...

Re: Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS

#200

Post by peterhil »

peterhil wrote: post #134
jungletime wrote: post #127

I have a macbook which I partitioned and installed windows on. the macbook is in a drawer in a stand up desk. The desk has a terrible ergonomic design. So I ended up using the pullout drawer as a shelf form my external keyboard, which is rested on a board. So my macbook is closed, inside a drawer, covered by a board, and connected to external monitor and keyboard. 1. How can I boot into windows from the mac desktop.…

2. How old and which model is your MacBook? I remember a completely idiotic hack around 2013 that fixed some hardware problem by software and causing the fans to spin at full speed constantly. There was some way to fix it by setting some preference from the command line IIRC.

There are several things that might cause fans spinning at high speed:

- Some application is using a lot of CPUs and other resources

- Spotlight is indexing the hard drive, and is misbehaving (see for mdworker processes)

- The ventilation holes are physically blocked or there is a lots of dust

- The System Management Controller is misbehaving (especially on some 2013 and 2018 and later MacBooks which have T2 security chip). Resetting the SMC often helps with strange hardware problems.

Apple support links:

* [If the fans in your Mac run at full speed when you turn it on - Apple Support](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204463)

* [See how apps affect Mac performance, battery runtime, temperature, and fan activity - Apple Support](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203184)

* [Keep your Mac notebook within acceptable operating temperatures - Apple Support](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201640)

* [How to reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295)

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